19/02/2026
TWO YEARS WITHOUT YOU, MUM
Today is the two year anniversary of my Mum’s passing.
Two years in grief time feels like six months of “normal” time. Grief bends the clock. It plays tricks with distance. Some moments feel close enough to touch, others feel like they happened in another lifetime.
When I was in my early twenties, I lived with a quiet, constant fear of losing my Mum. It was my worst fear, the kind that sits in the background and hums, even on good days. My second worst fear was her dying before I became a Mum myself. I couldn’t bear the thought of raising a child who would never know her as their Nanny, because she excelled at it. She was the perfect mix of warmth and generosity, with a little flicker of wicked fun thrown in.
Thankfully, I did get over the line in time. My daughter and stepdaughter had her in their lives for several years. For that, I feel a gratitude so deep it has weight.
And then something I didn’t expect happened.
I spent decades worrying about my mother’s death, and when it came, it wasn’t anything like I imagined. In many ways, I don’t feel that my Mum has left me. I’m deeply attached to the knowing that I grew in her body, that my body is of her body, and this truth steadies me when the ground shakes.
I knew her so well. Her quirks, her quibbles, her ways. I rarely have to sit and wonder, “What would my Mum say?” because the honest truth is, I know. Her voice lives in me. Her humour. Her fickleness. Her tenderness. The village-ness of her.
And there’s another truth, too.
There were parts of my Mum that stayed endlessly surprising. Fascinatingly unknowable. When I remember that, I smile from ear to ear. What a gift she left me, the gift of mystery.
My most familiar person in the universe, the one I knew at a bone deep level, also kept a little of herself for herself.
As she should have. As I aspire to do too.
And now my Mum is with the ancestors, I can feel it in my bones. The doors will have been swung wide for her. A space made at the fire. She will be there, warming her hands, telling stories, making them laugh, holding court in that way she did, enthralling them with tales of a life lived well.
Love you Mum💕