Dancing . For . You

I’m not sure when I began preparing for this day. I know that I was spurred to write my blog as the calendar clicked over and I found myself viscerally aware that, all being well, within the year I would pass the age of my deceased mother.

Maybe I have been preparing for this day ever since she died, twenty-seven years ago. Nevertheless, it has actually only been in the past couple of weeks that I properly did the maths and worked out that today I am the exact same age (to the day) that my mother was on the day she died. Me, sitting here thinking and writing about her. Me feeling so young and hopeful for a full life still ahead of me. Me fully understanding that she was too young when she died. 

I am acutely aware of our different lives. I acknowledge all she did to provide my sister and me with so much more than she ever had. Comfort, hope, opportunities, choices. She will forever be ‘my mum’ but as time has passed I wonder more and more about her as a person, about her hopes and dreams, about the everyday and out of the ordinary experiences she had. There are so many unanswered questions, so many gaps. So much I wish I had had the presence to ask, to discover.

We are all impacted by the time and circumstances in which we live. I wonder how different would her final day have been had it happened today? But these are wonderings that cannot go anywhere.

It was before mobile phones so it was hours before I received a message that she had been taken, by ambulance, to hospital. On my way there I desperately prayed and bargained with any deity that would listen. I didn’t want to be ‘too late’. (What did that even mean?! It is interesting that it is an issue that still causes me anxiety today if I am running late for anything.) I also prayed for her recovery. 

I didn’t get everything I wished for. But I do think that somehow she waited for me to arrive. I didn’t get to spend time with her before she died. I arrived just as my sister and father had been ushered out of the room. I looked in to see the doctors and nurses all working on my mother. She was blocked from my sight. 

It seemed only a short while later that a doctor came out to tell us that she had died. From then on my memories were filed as being part of ‘With Mum’ or ‘After Mum’. And life really was never the same.

Today, I have chosen to reflect upon her life in a variety of ways.

I have sent messages of love to family and close friends.

I have filled my home with the aroma of a stovetop espresso coffee - something she did every morning.

I made the effort to prepare a sweet treat for brunch for my husband and I (she was an incredible cook and amazing at desserts).

While cuddling our dog, I have remembered her love and compassion for animals. (I remember when I was quite young, my mum buying meat at the butcher’s to feed the local strays.)

She was a natural swimmer so I have had a swim in the sea for her. (Something she absolutely loved.)

My mum loved to dance and I loved how she moved so effortlessly and beautifully. She really seemed to float on air. So tonight, at what was the time of her passing, I had a little dance for her and prayed that wherever she is, she is dancing too.