My mother was the most beautiful woman I have ever known, and not once did I ever see her wear even a smudge of make up. She had a radiance that shone from her which did all the talking. She was the most gentle and warm person I have ever encountered- made better only by the fact that she never entertained this notion, she just went back to worrying about everybody else. She mothered six children in her lifetime and made them her all. She did not seek out a lavish career, instead she spent all of her time dedicated to her family. So much so, actually, that she had so many talents I didn't even know about until I was a teenager- I remember tinkering about on the piano when she casually mentioned that she'd learned how to play when she was growing up. She could draw and paint, and sew and knit, but she would never tell you. She was all about the herbal remedies, she was a dictionary of them.
She always told me never to cut or change my hair, because my hair was her hair. That should explain a thing or two.
She did the most hilarious impressions of the 'noise' I listened to as a teenager. When we watched The Shining, she was horrified, as she was by anything that depicted suffering. This coined her nickname for Jack Nicholson, "That Man Who Kills People And Then Laughs".
She sang everyday, she was always humming to herself. She gesticulated a hilarious amount. She absolutely detested Cliff Richard's Christmas song, 'Mistletoe and Wine', one of the few things she ever complained about. She thought it was hysterical the way that Belfast people (she was from Portsmouth) always recite conversations as "He says and I says to her and she says..." but soon she was doing the same thing.
She loved Toblerone.
She made the greatest birthday cake. Seriously, the BEST.
I think of her everytime I see a crocus, because in our old house, they would grow all over the garden and as soon as Spring hit she would send me out to see how many I could count.
So, I would like to tell my new friends about her, because sadly they'll never get to meet her. Plus, I guess I just want to say it somewhere (because it's Mother's Day after all) that she's my role model- not a world-changing figure that I'd never actually met...but the woman who taught me what a human being should be. There ain't no better gift than that.
