Mothering Sunday

Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.

Robert Browning

And so mothers day has come around and it is my first one without my mum and if the predictions are to be be believed, my last one as a mum. How does this feel?

Looking firstly at the loss of my own mum, I have to say that my approach is very much that the glass is half full today. The thought of having to watch my own mother witness the changes in me would just be too much. The day that I was given the devastating news of my brain tumours, was the day that I essentially stopped grieving deeply for the wonderful Janet. For 3 years she had watched helplessly as i went through my cancer battle and I know for sure that all of it had a deeper impact upon her than it did me. Thats the thing about being a mum. It really is a double edged sword. Our children bring us joy (sometimes) and yet only they have the capacity to break our hearts like no other. It does not matter the age of the child the mother will still suffer when the child does. This was my mothers experience and it took its toll. I often tried to protect her from bad news at appointments, but she was no fool and I know that she armed herself with all of the facts. It was unspoken but i am confident that my mum believed that my death would not be too far away. When i asked her in the hospice why she had not attended to her own cancer sooner her answer was that she did not want to be saved as in her words "I refuse to inhabit a world without you in it". A Mothers love indeed. Therefore today I can toast my mum without too much pain because she is at peace and and i have all of my wonderful memories of her, whilst knowing that she didn't have to live with memories of a daughter who suffered.

Another poignant point of course is this, according to statistics, this will be my last mothers day. Now I am by no means sitting here entrenched in this belief as none of us know and until my scan results I have no idea what my future holds. However, being realistic there is a fair chance that I won't be here and so today I will make the most of it. Thats what we should all do after all. When i woke up this morning I choose to see today as a positive. So far it's working. Happy Mothers Day.