Rick's b.log - entry 2020/07/24

Holiday

Well, I lie. I have the front door to paint, maybe the windows. And there's an epic tangle of brambles that needs to be sorted. And I'm not using "epic" as hyperbole, entire civilisations are lost within those green prickled leaves.

But it is, unfortunately, a bittersweet day.

For today, last year, mom came and picked me up from work. We talked about the "you've been here ten years" gift that gave me, one of those SmartBox things which contained a voucher for a romantic meal for two (surely the most inappropriate thing imaginable for, well, me?). We went shopping. We came home.

And that was the last day that mom was mom.

Very soon she was admitted to hospital, so I spent most of last summer by myself. As you know she was treated poorly so she basically faked being better in order to get out of there. She came home for a few weeks, had one final good day outside (with a surprise visit by some friends from England (hi John!)), then it was all rapidly downhill. She went back, to a palliative care unit this time, and eventually died. Pretty much two months from now, this time last year.

But today, the end of work and the start of my holiday? The last time mom was really mom.

So, try as I might to be happy, no more alam clocks, no more worrying about this and that. I... just can't. Maybe tomorrow.

To everybody who thinks their mother is annoying

It's unavoidable. It's how it is supposed to happen. People are born, they grow up, they make a family (creating you along the way), they get old, they die. Your story begins at the "make a family" part. You're born. You grow up. You make a family (and a new story begins). You'll get old. And you too will die. It's how it goes.
Okay, some of us fail at the "make a family" stage, but that's how it is supposed to go.

The hardest part, however, about all of this is not the actual death. It's not even the lonliness (well, for me it isn't - but then I'm an introvert so "lonely" is synonymous with "normal").

The hardest part is the realisation that all the things you wanted to say... All the things you wanted to do... The films you wanted to watch... The books you wanted to share and talk about... Hell, even the stupid stories in the news you wanted to discuss...

It's too late.

So if you have a mother that annoys you, or if you don't get on, or even if you've just drifted apart. Get over it. Because she is the one most special person in your life - being the one that created you and brought you into life.

And when she's gone, she's gone. All the could have, should have, would have counts for nothing. It's too late.

Don't let it be too late.

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Jess, 24th July 2020, 17:13

Holy hell Rick! I come here expecting a story about tractor mower wheelies or valiant battles with weeds only to be sucker punched into tears.

Gavin Wraith, 25th July 2020, 16:31

We all leave things till too late. My father died in 1970 and my mother in 1995. I never thought to ask them how they met, and though I have some theories about it, it is too late to check them. So if you are young enough to have two (or more?) living parents and you are curious about how you came to be, find out while you can.

Rick, 25th July 2020, 18:10

Mom was doing nursing training (geriatric) in Glasgow. She was running late after a difficult day so she decided to pop into a bakery to pick up some bread to have with yesterday's soup reheated.  Enter my father, also doing nursing training, at an entirely different unit (psychiatric) who was studying his textbook so intently that he walked right into the back of her, and she was the only thing that stopped him walking into a big glass display case.  That's how they met.  Not entirely sure how it ended up with me, but that's the Meet Cute part done.

Rick, 30th July 2020, 23:36

Strange to think that literally a minute either side, by either of them, and they probably never would have met. And I would never have been born.    This wasn't a "high school sweethearts who knew each other from grade school" story, this is a chance meeting of a window of opportunity of maybe a minute. One. Single. Minute.

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