In 2023, I thought a lot about grief

Published on 22 December 2023

My Mum, Joan, died suddenly alone at home on Sunday 27 November 2022 watching TV, cup of tea in hand.

Today is a year since her funeral.

She was discovered by my sister and her husband the following morning as they went to collect her for a hospital appointment that probably would have extended her time with us.

I received the call completely helpless at home. Covid-positive, my existence for the foreseeable would consist of red wine, crying, insomnia, television, and the storage heaters on full pelt, with a mindset of: I’m an orphan now, nothing actually matters now she’s gone.

The family immediately activated practical mode, emptying Mum’s council flat within two days of her passing. I was adamant she should be cremated in the New Balance trainers I’d bought her a month earlier on our very last shopping trip together – but they were missing. I learnt later that Mum and her bestie of 40 years, Rita*, had covertly taken a bus to Boye’s in Kirkby and exchanged the trainers for new bras.

I managed the post mortem remotely, hassling the coroner’s office to deliver the funeral service before Christmas – a month of back and forth protocol and process. Physical grief manifested itself in a large patch of rosacea on my face, coupled with immediate hair loss.

The funeral service was surreal. I crafted a eulogy over several sleepless nights for the tribute she deserved, and delivered her testament without breaking down. It received a round of applause. Her “leaving” song of choice was Hey Baby, the DJ Otzi version, which continued on a loop as we stood in the grounds afterwards. They forgot to press stop on the CD player.

I became obsessed with Talking Pictures TV and its archive of 1970’s daytime TV drama Crown Court. It reminded me of being small. Its closing theme, Distant Hills, by the Simon Park Orchestra played on an unstoppable loop in my head for weeks. I watched back-to-back episodes to try and find the one we may have witnessed together, convinced I would.

Recall crashed in quickly, both conscious and asleep, often on repeat and overwhelming, randomised and acutely visual. It began with me driving to her flat with a cake for her that I’d always pick up but she wasn’t home.

Childhood memories exhumed and played out in slideshow form. Asking her for a “noggin” of cheese whilst she made sandwiches for the welfare darts club matches. Sitting on a stool, swinging my legs in Harry Tongue’s Butchers whilst she shopped, her hands marked from carrying heavy bags home, my Dad nowhere to be seen.

Holding her hand while visiting VG stores opposite our house, her hair in a purple nylon head scarf complete with American tan tights, turquoise mac, slippers. Spending a summer in the staff room at the Colliery canteen where she worked with my Paddington scribbling block, spoiled with sponge and custard by her tabard-clad female colleagues. Or when she selflessly saved up the little spare money she had and bought me a brand new Raleigh Grifter bike for my 10th birthday, my Dad painted a sign saying it was explicitly and just from her, and bragged he’d paid nothing towards it.

The two of us lived together for 6 years after my parents’ divorce. She silently and unconsciously empowered me to make my own career choices outside the historical norm. She repeated her mantra “do what you want, duck” whilst I rollered and set her hair. We both cried the night before I left for university, she then slipped away early to work.

We decided to postpone scattering her ashes to honour her wishes until what would have been her 85th birthday in April in the village she grew up in. Her request was to be scattered between two locations: her Mum’s grave in Sherwood Forest, and her Dad’s, who died when she was just 12 – also the same Churchyard she married in.

The box felt surprisingly weighty, physically touching her ashes suddenly normal and cathartic, rubber gloves quickly discarded.

In a moment of quiet spontaneity her 3 children decided to take some of her home to keep, dealt out in portions of sorts before reuniting her with her parents. It felt illicit.

I read a poem, He is gone, By David Harkins, swapping he for she.

The rain stopped, the sun came out.

A brilliant friend bought me a book that described bargaining in grief, an apparently normal stage at the beginning of the grieving process. I’ll never stop bargaining with Mum, the questions I never asked, the answers she didn’t offer. My decision to not visit her in the chapel of rest still hangs heavy, but I couldn’t physically move the day before the funeral and spent most of it in bed in a cheap motel in my hometown. 

I took an impromptu picture the last time I saw her as I’d advised her not to come down with me to my car for her safety. She kept waving at me until the lift doors closed. The picture’s painful to look at. 

When I can’t get to sleep at night I shut my eyes tightly and try to cuddle her just one last time to try and ensure she is safe and ok. 

Her voice is now fading in my head. I’m going to have to delete her landline number and address.

Our family history is now firmly locked down, irretrievable.

She's gone.

*This is also a tribute to Mum’s bestie, Rita, who died a year to the day after Mum.