Time doesn't heal us, it just builds up a distance so memories are less clear.
With that distance the pain isn't so raw and memories of before the loss can come forward so we do remember more than those last hours sitting in vigil next to someone who we'll never get to speak to again.
For me that day was 5 years ago today when in the early hours of the 8th of December the doctors said there was nothing else they could do and only the machines were keeping my mum alive. In just over 24 hours she had gone from a giant who was full of life and telling us she was fine and not to worry to someone whose hand I held as she took her last breath surrounded by her husband and children.
Mum could tell a story and often spoke of her childhood, of the days after the Second World War when rationing was still a thing and she'd be sat in her pram on top of cuts of meat that were being delivered around the small village where she grew up. Of a small pot doll she had, about 4 inch tall that she lost in her childhood and found 50 years later on a market stall, it had been found during landscape gardening in her old village.
Mum was the type of person who got things done, when Star wars came out in 1977 she bought two broom handles and painted one red and one blue so me and my brother had lightsabers, we also got quite a few bruises from fighting each other but it was the 70's so that was fine. When one of her fillings fell out she filled it with polyfiller until she could get to the dentist.
Time hasn't healed the loss, it never will and sometimes I still think of phoning her up to tell her about what the kids have done. I can't remember her voice apart from in very rare dreams when she will say something that is relevant to my life at the time. The loss doesn't go away but the good memories do come back so you remember all the good things, the family holidays or her taking on the local council to get warning lights on the main road outside our school.
I think my main regret is not sitting down with her and getting her to tell me the story of her life so I could record it and write her story. I wish I had recorded the story of her life and all the changes she had lived through. The stories of her Grandma Taylor will be lost, of how Queen Victoria gifted Hyde Park to our family (One of our family legends) and just what life was like for a young girl growing up in her time.
I too have regrets about things I never did with my parents when they were alive. I think the biggest one for me was not sitting down with my dad and letting him know how much I admired him and also thanking him for all his efforts in raising me. He was - like most of his generation - not good at sharing or receiving emotions and could be hard to approach but I wish I had made more of an effort before his death. It is good that we can carry fond memories of them with us though.
Thank you for sharing your post with us, best wishes to your mother and wish you a happy life after your mother.
Sending gentle hugs and keeping you in my thoughts.
I like this history's
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Well, it does for some and not for others.