“It’s been a bit difficult but I am fine,” my mum would reply, smiling brightly. “Don’t worry about me. Who’s for tea? Shall I put the kettle on?”
And everyone was asking the shell-shocked me the same thing. Would I be all right adjusting to life on my own, doing all the things that my wife used to do, keeping it together and learning to start again?
“It will be a bit difficult but I will be fine,” I would reply, smiling brightly. “Don’t worry about me. Oh, are you making tea? Lovely.”
It was pathetic really. I wasn’t fine. I was far from fine. To be honest, I was suffering from a slightly runny botty. The Zulus were beating their drums outside the corral and I had seen what had happened to Michael Caine. He had maintained a beautifully appropriate stiff upper lip but he had also been inconvenienced by a nasty spear wound to the stomach resulting in a brave but incredibly slow and painful death. It was one of the greatest scenes in English film history and Sir Michael wrung every last possible drop of emotion from it.
It turned out that my mum was far from fine as well. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that she was suffering from a slightly runny botty, but she had her own fears and she was missing my dad desperately. She was taking things one step at a time but had a long way to go. Apart from the emotional recovery, she had a full list of practical issues to deal with— she hadn’t yet worked out how to use the new satellite box for the TV or relight the pilot light for the gas. She was overwhelmed.
We were both putting on a brave face when all we wanted to do was have a good cry and ask for some help. But we are English—so we couldn’t. It would be a faux pas equivalent to accidentally brushing your opponent’s balls while leaning over the table during a game of snooker. People would mutter and not look you in the eye. It just wasn’t done.
It took a flash of South American fire to change the situation and turn it on its head. My brother is married to an Argentine. She doesn’t believe in the concept of the stiff upper lip but she does believe in family, and she cut a passionate swathe through our English reserve. She had observed our polite conversation and our unrivalled ability to talk around the issues long enough. And she exploded with passion.
“You two are crazy. Mark, you need help. Your mother doesn’t want to be alone. She has no ties to keep her in her house. She can go to Australia at any time and for as long as she wants. Don’t you see? She can help you and support you. And it will be good for your mum to have a break and a change of scene and to spend some more time with the girls.”
Her words were accompanied by a dramatic toss of her long, dark curls.
God it was awkward. My brother choked slightly on his tea and a little bit escaped from his mouth and ran down his chin. He had to dab it off with his hankie while looking out of the window, pretending to study the local birdlife. I skilfully managed to swallow my tea, even though it was piping hot and scalded my throat, but my eyes remained fixed on my saucer. I couldn’t look up. It was too embarrassing. It was right up there with the time a few years earlier when my dad, fresh back from a trip to Argentina and excited to embrace his newly found inner Latin, had held my head in his hands and clumsily tried to kiss me on the lips. I remember our eyes being open and far too close together and the burn of stubble rash. Not nice.
My mum simply had a tear in her eye. When I looked up I said, in that classic English understated way, “Well, I suppose we could think about it.”
It was exactly what I wanted and yet I still couldn’t bring myself to ask for help. It was what my mum wanted as well, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to suggest it. It was a brilliant idea and I will be forever grateful to my brother’s wife for slicing through our ridiculous English reserve and stating what was, after all, the bleeding obvious.
I gave my mum a hug and we agreed that she would come to Australia for a period of some six weeks. She couldn’t leave straight away—so I had a head start of ten days. It was a happy and positive goodbye at Heathrow airport, normally when I say goodbye to my mum I don’t know when I will see her next.
And so, a couple of weeks later, I was picking my mum up from Melbourne airport. I was pleased to see her, but also sad. I had become accustomed to the sight of Mum and Dad, side-by-side, pushing their trolley together through the arrivals hall. This time it was only Mum. It didn’t look right. It re-enforced for me that my dad was gone for good.
It was great having my mum with us. She immediately took over a lot of the domestic duties, which meant I was able to concentrate on the girls’ wellbeing and my work. For six weeks we became a new family unit. Three generations living and learning together as we each confronted, and started to deal with, our own demons. My mum was re-living her parenting role from some thirty years ago. I could never have imagined that I would be relying on my mum for day-to-day support at the age of forty-four, and I doubt she ever imagined that she would go back to being a hands-on parent in her late sixties.
But it was as good for her as it was for me. It gave my mum a sense of purpose—she managed the house, did the shopping, did the cooking, did bits of cleaning and drove the girls to dance—and in the evenings we talked about Dad, our lives and what we were going to do next. When I was growing up most of my serious adult conversations had been with my dad and so this was my chance to get closer to my mum and understand something about what made her tick and her hopes and fears for the future.
It was just another example of how, in the middle of the most difficult times of your life, you can still have positive and enriching experiences. I learnt a lot from, and about, my mum—and I became a lot closer to her.
My mum stayed until my birthday in early November. She left a few days later. It was a really difficult day. I returned home from work in the afternoon and found her sitting in the garden reading her book. Our last few hours together were sad. It had been a hugely enjoyable and valuable time but we both knew she couldn’t stay forever and that she had to go home. We each had our own lives to lead.
Saying goodbye to my family after a visit to the UK, or after they have been out to Australia, has been by far the most difficult aspect of my living away from them. The build up to the trip is very exciting, the time spent with them is great and then, for the last couple of days, I always get a slightly empty feeling in my stomach in anticipation of the pain of saying goodbye, knowing that I will not see them again for a few years. The goodbye always seems so final.
And saying goodbye to my mum on this occasion was particularly tough. We had been together for six weeks. We hadn’t spent this amount of time together since I had left home at the age of twenty-one. During her stay my mum had supported me as a single father and we had supported each other emotionally and grown closer as a result. Now we were going back to lives on our own. It was hard.
We had a quiet reflective drive out to the airport, both of us wondering what the next few weeks would bring and how we would cope. We didn’t get too emotional when we said our goodbyes at the airport and I didn’t, to my eternal regret, tell my mum how much I loved her. Instead, I went back to stiff upper lip mode and thanked her for helping me out—I made Prince Charles look like a sensitive, new-age guy.
As my mum disappeared through security I shed a little tear. I drove home with an empty passenger seat. The girls were home from school when I got back and we quietly ate the dinner my mum had prepared that morning, a last reminder of the time she had spent with us.
It was a year of massive goodbyes. My dad was gone, my wife was gone, and now my mum was gone and I felt very alone. I knew I would see my mum again. But I also knew that we would probably never again share the closeness of the past six weeks. Thanks again Mum, I love you.
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