Happy Mother’s Day to everyone who IS a mom, HAS a mom, or was once LOVED by a mom. My mom passed away last June, a few weeks before her 80th birthday. Mother’s Day in England is in March. I wanted to share with you, on YOUR special day, my tribute to my mom.
“My parents were the hardest working people I have ever known. My mum joined the work force when she was 14, working as a machinist at a leather factory. She worked full-time and then came home and sewed gloves on an industrial machine in the kitchen. My dad would help by checking the stitches, trimming the sheepskin and packaging the gloves into pairs. My parents were thankful and accepting of what they had, but always wanted more for me. Because of their love for me they were able and willing to imagine my life filled with more opportunities and fewer hardships than their own. They supported me through school and encouraged me to attend college.
If truth be known, I was never smart at school. I was always good for a C, the occasional B, and a definite A in art – but to my mum I was the “best thing since sliced bread”. I was loved, and when you’re loved a C is good enough. When you’re loved you can rise above an alphabet, go to college, become a teacher and move to a country you once weren’t capable of pin-pointing on a map. My mum helped me with all my school projects and never believed the teacher who said “Your Elaine can’t see the wood for the trees” Because of my mum I grew up believing I was the best and that good really is good enough. Our house had more art hung on its walls than Ferens Art Gallery, and I was always the featured artist….it doesn’t get much better than that.
My mum loved her grand-daughters Gemma and Anna, and it was no surprise that they too were the very best in all that they did. Her determination to be part of their lives despite the distance between them was amazing to me. My mum would send parcels crammed with sweets, clothes, games. The girls would almost attack the postman when he walked up the path carrying another parcel from grandma. It’s been the gifts received from grandma though that didn’t arrive via airmail that have left the greatest impression. When I was little, and not so little, and feeling scared I would get into bed with my mum and make her promise that she wouldn’t fall asleep before I did. She would tap my back and if the tapping slowed down I would nudge her to wake-up. When my girls were growing up and needed comfort I patted their backs and told them the story of their grandma. My girls have always been good enough just as they are mum thanks to you, and I bet when they have children of their own they will be too.
My mum was the best and fastest knitter on this planet! She could whip out a school cardigan in a weekend ( especially if you sat watching her and complained if she stopped for anything other than to go to the toilet or put the kettle on). She’s knitted for every new baby in the family, and for some she never even knew here in America. Last year she watched Anna knit and was as patient as she’d been when teaching me. She thought Anna was a great knitter of course. My mum never noticed the dropped stitches, only the ones lined up perfectly on the needle.
My mum never grew old. It’s difficult to describe what I mean by that, but she was always interested and involved in everything I did. When I was obsessed with Nick Parks animated characters out came the knitting needles and there was Wallace, Gromit and Shawn the sheep. She searched high and low until she found me the chickens from the Chicken Run movie. My mum was always there and she always came through.
My mum loved Bridlington. Every year we would spend a week there and it was as if we were seeing it for the first time. My mum and dad never visited Seattle but I think they would have loved it. In many ways it reminds me of Bridlington. It has the sands, the seagulls but no where near as good fish and chips. Thanks mum for loving me enough to let me go and see places and do things you and my dad never had the opportunity for. I know if we create our own Heaven yours will have sand, a penny arcade and a sea breeze”.
