In Memory of my Mother

Dear Mam,

You’re at rest now and the memory thief can no longer burgle your thoughts. I’d like to think that you are in a better place but to be honest, the hand of fate that God dealt you these past few years has tested my faith. All your obituaries spoke about your daily Mass attendance and unquestioning devotion. I’m not so sure about the unquestioning bit, but you weren’t rewarded for making that daily pilgrimage to St. Malacys.

You would tell me of course that your reward will be in heaven and no doubt you’re up there now telling the big fellow that he’s sitting in your chair. What those obituaries don’t say of course is that you always had questions about the doctrine we were forced to ingest in the old Ireland of Police and Priests.

You never accepted any of it at face value and had a healthy disrespect for the aristocracy of the church. We were the first family to leave the Papal Mass in Drogheda in 1979 because you were annoyed that the Pope was getting carried around in a chair while you had to sit in a field.

And every time that Pope would issue a pompous missive on the subject of divorce or abortion, you would throw your eyes to heaven and say, “What would a man know about those things”? When I’d point out that Jesus was a man, you’d say “Sure he lived at home with his Mother until he was thirty. Where do you think he learned everything he knew”?

At least I got to say goodbye before you went. I don’t think you’d have forgiven me if I didn’t. The first time we said goodbye was when I left home to move to London. You kept your emotions in check until I was about to pass through the departure gate. Finally you cracked and hugged me in your famous nicotine tinged embrace.

“Why in God’s name do you want to go to that God forsaken nation of child molesters”?

I sensed in your voice a hint of envy that you weren’t leaving with me. You lived all your life in a small Irish town while your siblings and then your children spread their wings to the four corners of the globe. I can’t help feeling that you felt suffocated by your place in life, as though you were in a village surrounded by a deep and forbidding wood. You knew however, that a light shone beyond those woods and you wanted to go and see what makes it shine.

You certainly bolted from that small town whenever you could, hitting the beaches of Southern Europe each summer. You even ventured to Eastern Europe before the wall came down which was tremendously cool to the teenage communist within me.

I met you in Sydney and Switzerland and the back streets of London’s Chinatown. You treated each as your personal fiefdom, finding the best place to sneak a smoke and a crafty glass of wine. It’s ironic that your last big trip was to the USA around the time of September 11th, 2001. In hindsight, the memory thief was already nibbling away at you then and if the whole world changed on that fateful day, then the same could be said for you.

You left Boston on the morning of Sept. 11th in a car heading for Niagara Falls with Dad and mad Uncle Brendan. You were probably the last people in the Northern hemisphere to hear that day’s news, because Brendan insisted on playing 1950’s Irish show band music all the way there in the car.

The events of that day have become legendary in our family. Your spur of the moment trip across the Canadian border without passports on a day when America was sealing its borders. Your insistence to the yanks that you should be allowed into their country when nobody else was (apart from some intrepid Mexican illegals) or your lack of understanding as to what all the fuss about. All of it proves that were unique and lived life on your terms.

It’s not just your sense of humour that I’ll miss. You were the typical Irish mammy is so many ways. Proud of all my achievements to the outside world but ready to put me in my place whenever I got ahead of myself. “I could bucken buy and sell you all” you’d say in that desire to show your self-confidence and to demonstrate that you would never commit the venal sin of cursing but could come up with a ready substitute.

I’ll also miss the cup of tea you used to offer me when I’d enter the sitting room, even when I’d only been to the toilet to relieve myself after the five cups of tea you had already offered that day. Tea was your currency and your way of saying hello.
You loved your tea as well of course and it was a challenge to all your children to make it to the correct strength and with just the right amount of Marvel creamer. You spurned milk because you were always watching your weight. How cruel then that God decided that you couldn’t eat and when you passed you were down to a weight you probably desired all your life but were not in a position to appreciate it.

We liked you the way you were though Mam. Always ready with a hug or a piece of advice. When I went through the pain of a break up in 1994, you were the only one who spoke sense to me and stepped beyond the clichés of “There are plenty more fish in the sea” and “it’s probably for the best”. You reminded me of how I’d been raised and that I was entitled to my feelings and you also were to yours.

You were an ordinary Irish woman, but you will always be extraordinary to me. Enjoy the big lie in.

Rest in Peace.