TWO LONG YEARS

DEAR MUM

THIS IS THE HARDEST LETTER I HAVE EVER WROTE.

Growing up you and I didn’t have the close relationship I had with dad, I don’t have any special memories of you and me from when I was young I am not sure why that is all I know that it is like it is, anyway that doesn’t mean we don’t have a special relationship now. I guess growing up I was a daddy’s girl and now I am a middle age woman I have become more then your daughter, I am your friend.

You are my best friend as they say, the closeness I have with you now is special, I loved our nightly phone calls and my days now seem empty. Tim always said we could talk for hours about nothing at all and he is right and I love that.

You know mum when I thought about what type of mother I hoped to be one day I would always think I want to be just like my mum, because as a mum you were wonderful, loving, caring, and firm and fair and I wanted to be all those things to my children. To me you are everything a mother should be, of course as a child I may not have thought that but from around the age of 14 the thought of you as the perfect mother started to take shape.

On the 4^th July 1958 Dad asked you to the movies and he rang his Aunty Joyce and asked her if she could bring him a clean pair of trousers and she did. Because, Aunty Joyce never drove and had to catch a bus into Newcastle and another one back to Walllsend a distance of 12k’s as the crow flies, made you think she must be nice but you also felt that Aunty Joyce didn’t think you good enough for Dad.

You have always been the one person I could turn to when I felt like everything was falling apart and being mum to my three girls was just so hard, I have memories of me ringing you in tears because being a mum was so hard and I felt like I was failing and not living up to the high standard I thought mums should live up to that standard being you…………….

I use to wonder how you could have 5 children who didn’t feel jealous of each other and always knew that they were loved equally as I had Kathy-Lee who was jealous of Jessica and thought I didn’t love her as much as her sisters. I now know that it wasn’t anything I did wrong but for a long time I did think you had some secret of how it was done, you made being a mum seem so easy and that is why I felt I had failed.

You seem ageless mum, no matter how old you get you still have all the time in the world for you children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, I hope I look as good as you do when I reach your age and I hope I don’t have to find out what life is going to be like without having you around. I love you mum, you are who I always wanted to be like you are the reason I only ever wanted to be a mother and grandmother I am so proud to be called your daughter thank you mum for being so bloody amazing and such and inspiration to me and my siblings.

You are the reason Dawson grew into such an amazing young man.

You have shown us all how to love and you have given us all the feeling of being loved and accepted for who we each are.

You taught me and my siblings to pick our battles with our other half as in don’t sweat the little things and don’t argue with a drunk.