Annie

“On the day that you were born the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true, so they sprinkled moon dust in your hair and golden starlight in your eyes of blue.” ~ Song, “Close to You”, lyrics by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

When I was a child I positively adored my mother.

It wasn’t that I stopped adoring her as I grew older, although I did begin to see her in a totally different light. The angel who had been placed upon this earth to guide me through my life could do no wrong in my eyes, then at some stage she transformed herself into a real human being, one who wasn’t perfect, made mistakes and was very, very vulnerable.

Perhaps I should re-word that last sentence. My mother didn’t transform herself, it was my perception of her that changed.

As a child, I wanted to be just like her. I would barely utter a word without first checking that she approved of the words I wished to say. She was everything to me and in my childish ignorance I believed that the only way in which I could ever be a worthy human being on this earth (yes, I was the human; mum was the angel) was to be the absolute image of my mother.

I can’t actually pin-point the time in my life when I finally matured, opened my eyes, realised that my mother was really just as human as the rest of us and hence, began to see her failings.  I noticed a few earthly qualities in her at around the age of thirteen, although I think it may have been when I was sixteen and she disapproved of my choice of colour combination in one of my favourite outfits. Isn’t it incredible, the meagre moments that can open your eyes?

The pale blue skirt and pastel patterned green top that I bought, all alone, without mum’s approval, “felt” right to me. It gave me confidence. I thought I looked good in the outfit and cared little to not at all of what anyone else thought. But my mum didn’t like that outfit, and boy-oh-boy, did she ever let me know about it! She even banned me from leaving home whilst wearing it!

It wasn’t the actual outfit she disapproved of, it was simply the colour combination. I was outraged! My mother had chosen the colours of green and red for our bathroom, her bedroom was purple and gold, she liked my bright orange bedroom (don’t be shocked, it was the ’70′s!) so I failed to see the problem with my outfit. The skirt was mid-calf length and looked (and felt) fantastic when worn with my white platform shoes.

The reality of the matter took a long time to finally dawn on me. I wasn’t anything like my mother at all and I had to stop allowing her to have complete control over me! For all of the years that I had wanted to portray myself as a junior version of her image and being, in every single way, during my teenage years reality finally hit me. We didn’t look alike, think alike, act alike, we chose different colours, different furnishing, different everything.

And when I finally lifted that self-imposed burden from my own shoulders I began to get to know my mother, my real mother, not the angel that I had always believed her to be, but the human being that she actually was.

Progressively, our relationship changed. And over a period of time, my mum actually began to realise that she wasn’t loosing her daughter by her daughter developing a mind of her own, with differing opinions than those she wanted me to have, she was actually forming a friendship with me.

And that is what we became, close, non-judgemental, real friends.

We argued a lot back then, and the arguments always ending with mum saying, “Oh you’ll never see any sense. I’ll make us a cup of tea”. A cup of tea fixes everything, don’t you know? 

My three older sisters were stunned when they heard about some of mum’s and my arguments. They would never have said some of the things to mum that I did to her and they never quite understood how we could be so close, yet argue so much.

When I became a mother myself, I finally understood the depth of feeling that my mother had always felt for me, and I told her so. Time brought us even closer together. We appreciated the differences in each other. Our relationship was based on trust and honesty. And most of all, love.

The day I lost my mother was the day I felt grief and pain like no other day I had been on this earth. I was the last one to see my mother alive, she became a real angel just after I left her alone in her hospital room. After I had told her I loved her. After I had said goodbye.

Yesterday was the day my mother was born, the day the angels got together and created an angel on earth, complete with human failings.

My mother was Annie, the angel, the human being, the strong one, the insecure one, the one with the wisdom of the gods and the vulnerability of a person.

May you always dwell in your rainbow of colours, my dearest Mum. xxxxxx

Another birthday has come and gone….

“I thought of you today, but that is nothing new.

I thought about you yesterday, and days before that too.

I think of you in silence, I often speak your name,

All I have are memories and a picture in a frame.

Your memory is a keepsake, from which I’ll never part.

God has you in His arms, I have you in my heart.” ~ Author Unknown.

His birthday was yesterday, yet somehow I simply couldn’t bring myself to talk about him then. He was right there, centre front, in my thoughts for the entire day though.

But that is nothing unusual. He’s been gone now for over fifteen years, yet it seems like only yesterday we shared cups of tea over a long chat, and when, as he was about to leave to return to his home, he would wrap his arms around me and give me the tightest bear-hug, as only my daddy could give.

When I sat at my table at lunchtime yesterday to share Good Friday lunch with two of my children, it was so easy to picture an image of my dad, sharing the meal with us, just as he had done so, so many times before at this very same table.

Would he have like the Simnel Cake that I had baked for dessert? Had he ever even tried simnel cake? I’ll never know. Yet I know he would have tried a piece anyway. He was always up for trying something new. That was how dad was, always prepared, and willing, to try anything.

I would have wished him the happiest of birthdays and tried my hardest to give him a massive bear-hug too. He would have joked around with my family and laughed with us all as we chatted away over lunch.

He would have no doubt sat in his favourite chair, right beside the window in the front loungeroom after lunch, with book in hand. Later, we may have noticed that he had nodded off, and on waking he would have been ready for his next cup of tea.

I love you daddy, and miss you. You remain in my heart through all of eternity. xxxxxx

Some things never change ~ enjoying a taste of freedom.

My mother had positively hated that house. I’m sure there wasn’t one single happy memory for her there and when we moved, knowing the whole building was soon to be demolished, she couldn’t have cared less.

She had let me have posters on my bedroom wall in this home; she hadn’t allowed this before and I couldn’t have posters on the wall in my new bedroom. Here, she simply hadn’t cared.

The building was old and we had a shop downstairs, where she was forced to work seven days a week. She detested anything old, and hadn’t wanted to buy this business at all.

My mother’s disinterest in the condition of my bedroom walls, however, allowed me the freedom to be me, to add my own personal touches to my bedroom.

As I came into my teenage years, living in a new town, starting a new school and making new friends, a whole new world was offered to me on a silver platter. With my mother otherwise occupied by the loathed business, her attention had been diverted to something else, other than me. For the first time in my very young life, I began to enjoy my first taste of freedom.

My one and only rather small bedroom window looked out across the river. I would sit beside my bedroom window, watching the world go by, sketching what I saw, breathing in the warm country air.

The school bus stop was right at the front door of our shop and during the three years we lived there, I remember catching the bus only once, under protest, when a friend tried to convince me that the bus ride would be a preferred alternative to walking home from school. If I didn’t ever take the bus, how did I know I didn’t like it, was her argument. So I took the bus, just once. Once was enough.

Every morning I looked forward to my walk across the bridge, taking me to the other side of the river, where, after a few shortcuts here and there, I would be at school in fifteen minutes. At the end of the school day, I would do it all again, and I enjoyed every step of the way.

During the three years that we lived there, I discovered nail polish and grew my nails. And I grew my hair long for the first time in my life. When I could look after my own hair, mum would let me grow it long, and multiple arguments later and a lifetime of years, I finally convinced her that I did know how to wash my own hair, and yes, I did know how to drag a brush through my unruly mass of thick waves and curls!

Summer days after school, and all of the weekends were spent at the swimming pool in town. My friends taught me how to swim, assuring me I wouldn’t drown if I let go of the side of the pool! Mum would have died a million deaths, had she seen me jumping off the diving board, known as “The Tower”, into water that was perhaps fifteen feet deep, once I had gained my confidence in the water!

For a person who loved to take photos throughout every moment in time, mum took very few photos of this old building that we lived in. Obviously she didn’t wish to etch these walls into her memory. So tonight, as I looked through my old childhood photo album, I came across just one photo of my bedroom.

My hair had started to get some length in it and mum had said she wanted me to stand in front of my dressing table so that the back of my hair would be reflected in the mirror. She wanted to send photos of me to my sisters, still living on The Blue Mountains, to show them how much my hair had grown since we had moved away.

All the photo shows is just one corner of my room. What I was hoping to see was the huge poster on my wall, just above my bed, of Marc Bolan from the band T Rex. If mum had stood slightly to her right when she took this photo, the reflection of Marc Bolan would have been showing in the mirror.

What the photo does show is my very 70′s yellow transistor radio, sitting on top of my dressing table, the stool with the fluffy seat that was really soft to sit on and the picture that a friend had painted for me as a going away present when I had left my last school the year before.

These days, I’m the person taking the photos of every moment in time, knowing how fleeting those moments are, and realising that there are some days when you just feel like reminiscing and remembering what once was. You don’t necessarily wish to return to that place and time, but the jig-saw puzzle of your life can be helped along the way by the reminders of where we have come from, where we are now and where we are heading to.

As I reflect back on those days, when I enjoyed my first taste of freedom, there are some things that are very clear to me ~ I still love my freedom, I can still gaze for hours at a river, I would walk in the fresh country air rather than catch a bus any day, I still have long hair and I still love the feel of soft, fluffy fabric.

And I still get shivers down my spine when I hear the songs of Marc Bolan and T Rex.

She Makes My Day

It was twenty-four years ago today, in the early hours of a cold and raining winter’s morning in Sydney, that I sat beside my sleeping three year old son, and wept. Our lives together would never be the same again, no longer would it be just the two of us. By the end of this day, my son would have become a “big brother”.

How could that be? How could my tiny angelic boy change his status, within  just a few small hours? He was still a baby himself! My baby ~  but not for much longer. Soon, he would be my eldest.

By ten o’clock that same morning, even though the rain continued falling outside of the hospital window, the sun shone brilliantly into my day, as I nursed my baby daughter for the first time.

Where did those twenty-four years go? How did they pass by so quickly? How can this beautiful, mature woman be that same tiny little baby, who I cradled in my arms that morning in Sydney, so many years ago, the one who filled my heart with so much joy that I felt sure it would burst from happiness?

As my baby grew, she melted the hearts of everyone she met, bringing sunshine into the days of those she loves, her smile melting away the trivial worries of day to day living, just as her smile continues to melt my heart, even to this day.

She has always brought meaning into my world. She makes my day.

It was during 1988, the year my baby girl arrived in my world, that Robert Palmer released the love song “She Makes My Day”. I could have written the words myself, as I gazed into the beautiful blue eyes of my daughter ~

“I’ll never be lonely now I know her,

She fills my heart with joy, She makes my day.

She just has to smile to blow my cares away,

She just has to touch my hand to make me stay”.

Just yesterday, as I chose a birthday card to mark this special day for her as I have done twenty-three times before at this same time of year, listening to the music pouring through the loud speakers in the shop I was in, Robert Palmer again crooned his song….

That day, twenty-four years ago, the day I first held my newborn daughter in my arms; it now seems as if it happened a lifetime ago. But wait a minute, wasn’t it only yesterday? Surely the years haven’t passed by that quickly?

Happy birthday, my precious baby, my girl with the blond curls, my teenager finding her way into adulthood, the beautiful woman I see today, the one who has always had the magical smile and the sunshine in her eyes.

You will always hold my heart in the palm of your hands ~ you will always make my day. xxxxxx

Robert Palmer ~ “She Makes My Day”.

One Day in Twelve Years

We hugged like we might never let go, and stared into each others faces with tears in our eyes.

The last twelve years melted away instantly. It could have been only yesterday since we had last seen each other, spoken to each other in person, shared a meal, and chatted and laughed whilst sharing a cup of tea.

She hadn’t changed one little bit over the years. Sure, she had aged slightly in appearance; so had I. But it wasn’t the physical appearance that mattered, but the essence of the people we are, our personalities, our souls.

Where we came from. The 50% DNA we share and the fact that we are 99.95% biochemically identical, although it isn’t the scientific statistics that I feel. It’s more, much more.

We are sisters. We share a history.

And a wonderful history it is too!

We laughed and reminisced, as we leafed through old photos, remembering holidays we had taken, and visits to our grandma’s home. We talked about the love we felt for some favourite uncles, and the lack of understanding toward our elder relatives that we had as young people, yet the understanding and acceptance becoming crystal clear when we reached adulthood.

Being thirteen years older than I am, she recalls another life, many years before my birth, of living in another country. She spoke of the home she had lived in back then, playing with our sisters in the garden, the park across the road, her first school, the furniture in the home and how beautifully our mother kept that home.

She spoke of the wild flowers growing in the fields, in the country of her birth; she remembered visiting the grave of our grandfather and the beautiful park-like setting which surrounded his last resting place.

We spoke of our eldest sister, now lost to us, and the demons that she couldn’t shake out of her life, and the bitterness she carried with her to her last days, developed over incidences out of her control, out of anyone’s control. She could never let go of her pain, her resentment. And yet we both loved her so dearly.

My youngest son, who had no recollection of his auntie, asked me to show him a photo of her before she arrived. He didn’t know her, he didn’t want to be shocked by not recognising her. I told him not to feel concerned, he’d know her when he saw her.

Within minutes of them meeting, as she laughed and talked and waved her arms around her in an animated manner, my son’s head turned suddenly towards me. He looked straight at me and then at my sister, with recognition in his eyes.

He knew her. We were the same. He felt the familiarity of her soul.

One day in twelve years is not enough, yet it is plenty. It was all we needed.

And then she was gone again, yet she remains with me, always in my heart.

My heart is enriched. She’s always there.

Overcoming My Identity Crisis

One of my cherished babies…

This morning, a recently retired friend made mention of how he now needed to find a new identity. For so many years he had defined himself by his career. Now, with his career behind him, and multiple choices open to him, he is left with the dilemma of “Where do I go from here?” and “How do I define myself now?”

His quandary reminded me of time, perhaps four to five years ago now, when I faced my own identity crisis.

My situation wasn’t brought about by retirement though, or even a change of career. It was all due to a light-hearted comment made in jest by my son.

He casually remarked to me that when all four of my children had left home, I would be phoning them up every day, asking did they have any washing and ironing for me to do, and would I bring it home because I had nothing to do with my day.

My immediate reaction was “What the….?”  closely followed by self-defence….”You have no idea how many things I want to do when I don’t have you kids here to run around after. Do you realise how many hobbies I have? What makes you think I enjoy running around after you all? Don’t you realise….”

Well, no, they didn’t realise, because I did give the impression that my entire life revolved around my children. Because the truth of the matter was, it did.

The time had come for some very serious soul searching!

By way of beginning somewhere, I cast my mind back to who I really was, alone; back to the days when I wasn’t anyone’s girlfriend, wife or mother ~ just me.

It’s a shocking wake-up call when you realise that the once independent person that you were, has gradually become the doormat for every person in her world, without even realising what was happening. The changes had just snuck up on me, over a period of years, and I had been blind to the fact.

There’s an expression, “many a true word is said in jest”. I thank God that my son had spoken those words of truth to me.

When my husband and I had first got together, I found myself repeatedly using one particular catch cry; “I’m not a female version of you”. I constantly fought for my rights to be an individual, to remain independent. Being married to a strong willed man, I found myself in a constant battle of wills.

I was determined not to lose my identity; I wanted to remain being “me”, and not “someone’s wife”.

Becoming a mother was a whole different matter to me though. Oh how I have always loved, cherished and adored my children! Those tiny little people needed me, to survive, to grow, to guide them along a path where they could grow up to become strong, individual, worthy adults, with the freedom to develop their own identity, individuality and free-will, all of their own choosing.

And during guiding my children into their own individuality, I had lost my own, somewhere along the way.

By stripping back every single aspect of “who I had become”, I was able to begin with “who I used to be”…before.

That was my starting point. I had enjoyed reading back them, and writing. I had been a compassionate person, and non judgemental. I had loved history, antiques and research, soft fabrics and comfortable clothing. I was simply dotty about my animals!

There I was; that was me! It felt like I had bumped into an old friend, who I hadn’t had contact with for years. We were becoming reacquainted again!

My family, yes, even my children, balked at some of the changes in me. I had learned how to say the word “no”. When they persisted and pushed me, I would respond with “what part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

I had to be slightly harsh on my children to set an example. Did I want my children, especially my two daughters, to ever become devoured by what other people expected them to be?

Did I want my own children to make the same mistakes I had made? Hell, NO!

My sons coped with the changes more readily than the girls did. And as for my husband, what did he think?

He hated it! But you may also remember that I mentioned before that he is a very strong willed man. Some people find him intimidating. I always saw him as strong. Yes, he was strong, he is strong.

I made the mistake of allowing his strength to overpower me. And now he doesn’t appreciate the loss of control, but he has no other choice than to accept it. He’ll survive.

Finding your own identity is probably the most individual, and definitely the most personal decision we are faced with in life. You have to make the choices for yourself, and alone, because you know yourself, better than anyone else in this whole world does.

I’ll always be a mother, first and foremost. If one of my children needs me, I’ll be there. I’ll always adore, love and cherish these four beautiful human beings. They mean the world to me, but they are not my whole world.

And they don’t define me any longer.

Now, when I think of who I am, I see me, an individual, standing alone. Yes, there are other people on the outskirts of “me”, who mean the world to me, but I am no longer living my life at their beck and call.

I’m a ‘grown-up’ now, I stand on my own two feet, I’m an individual, and I can say the word ‘no’, without choking!

And I have more love in me to give to others now, than I’ve ever had before.

The Catcher of Her Dreams

“A mother’s love is instinctual, unconditional, and forever.”

Today I am writing about an event that, if I am to be completely honest, I wish had not happened. But it wasn’t my choice to make.

For the last six years, my daughter has contemplated thoughts of one day getting a tattoo. Way back when she was thirteen, my reaction had been, “in your dreams!”, as she would have needed my permission at that age, and that wasn’t going to happen.

As the years progressed and talk of getting a tattoo intensified, I would feel ill, as she spoke of the designs she had been considering.

“I gave birth to a perfect body, and I do not wish to see your perfect skin totally ruined, by having ink injected into it”, I would argue.

My daughter persisted. She investigated the credentials of tattoo artists near and far, finally deciding on one not too far from home, who has a very good reputation in the circles of “those who know”. Needless to say, I am not a member of any such circle.

Being artistically inclined, my girl began to draw tattoo designs, which she would show me, explaining where she would have the tattoo positioned on her body, her plan being that said eventual tattoo would be easily hidden beneath her clothing, unless she chose to expose it.

Whilst she became more confident by the day that she wanted to go ahead with this tattoo, my own motherly mind kicked in with the “what-if’s”.

What if she changes her mind about the tattoo as she grows older? She will have to have it removed, which is a costly and painful process.

What if she gains weight, for example, during pregnancy, and the tattoo becomes distorted?

What if the man she eventually wishes to spend her life with hates her tattoo? What if it’s a deal-breaker for him? Okay, there’s a simple answer to that question ~ if the tattoo is a deal-breaker, he doesn’t love my daughter for the person she really is, on the inside!

And there, with that last realisation, I discovered a mode of acceptance for myself, for my daughter’s decision on getting a tattoo ~ I do love her, no matter what. My love for her is unconditional, no matter how her body looks!

I may have given my daughter life, but that did not include a passport to dictate to her what choices she should make for her life.

Her tiny baby body may have at one time grown inside of me, but I cannot claim ownership on her body or any part of her life.

At nineteen years of age, my daughter has matured into a beautiful young woman, full of determination and spirit, with the knowledge of who she really is. She knows where she is going with her life. She plans ahead when the decision is one of significance.

Just as she did with her tattoo.

A close friend from school went with my daughter, the day the deed was done, and I thanked her for being there for my girl when I couldn’t be. I would have cried if I was there.

The design my daughter chose is beautiful, and significant. It is a dream catcher, so appropriate for my dreamer-daughter, who, for most of her life, has had a dream catcher above her bed. It holds onto the good dreams for her, and takes away the bad dreams.

The tattoo has been positioned on the side of her torso, easily hidden by clothing; easily exposed at the beach.

The pink shading adds an even more “girly” effect to the design, just as it should be, for my ultra-feminine daughter.

Even though I may have wished otherwise, when my daughter had made her decision, I supported her, she’s my baby, and I love her, no matter what.

And there’s no exceptions.