Love, loss and remembrance

 

Mum, radiant at 21 years old

Fifteen years ago today my mother was released from the pain and suffering of her mortal life, following a six-year battle with ovarian cancer.

In some ways I can't fathom that she's been absent from my life for that length of time, and in others I very keenly feel the vast passage of time between our final embrace and now. 

Mum and I had a challenging relationship that oscillated between an intense, loving closeness with a marriage of minds, to a violent resentment that sometimes neither of us could overcome. There were several periods during my twenties and thirties when the hurt and anger meant we didn't communicate for many months at a time.

However, as the multitudes before me have noted, there is nobody like your Mum. And when you lose that person who carried you in her body for nine months and then expelled you, squalling and wriggling into the world, you are plunged into an all-encompassing, insurmountable, black grief which in my case lost none of its intensity for a full year and still plagues me periodically, a decade-and-a-half later.

The final photo of me with Mum in 2005 - about 9 months prior to her death

 

Mum is responsible for many of my characteristics - either as shared qualities (attention to detail, kindness to animals, love of music / literature / Hollywood golden era films / travel / a penchant for 'nice things') or as a negative response to her own flaws (her chronic lateness - I am ALWAYS early; her inability to throw anything away - I am very streamlined, possessions-wise). 

Despite the groans and protestations of her children, Mum never gave up teaching us as we grew - correcting our grammar, reminding us to tilt the soup bowl and spoon away from us when delicately scooping up the final dregs, encouraging us not to point at people (gesture using an upturned open palm instead), refusing to give us the answer when we didn't know how to spell something ('Look it up in the dictionary'). 

Some of this probably seems fussy and silly in this modern age, but when I became a young adult and was thrust into a world of international executives in my early working life, I had never been so glad that I knew how to behave when taken out to exclusive restaurants and when attending corporate events. I was an ordinary young woman from Sydney's south-western suburbs but I knew which fork to use, the correct way to sit and how to engage perfect strangers in small-talk across the imported champagne. 

Mum's little gold watch - I believe it was a 21st birthday gift, and she wore it
every day until she was into her forties when the chain broke and the mechanism
ceased to function

After she retired in her early fifties Mum was always taking classes, making the most of the leisure time she finally had after decades of combining salaried work and pretty much singlehandedly raising a family. She learned to paint in the folk art style, she joined the local chapter of Probus and even completed a catering course. As a family we'd been taught to value home-made gifts and encouraged to give them, though of course as children and teenagers we often preferred store-bought presents. Over the years Mum would give family and friends things like kitchen towels to which she had added a crocheted loop, meaning you could attach the towel to the oven handle. She rescued discarded household items and adorned them with folk-art.

After my siblings and I cleared our parents' home of more than 40 years in preparation for sale of the property, we each kept certain items that had special significance, and divided up the contents of cupboards. These were full of beautiful things such brand new, incredibly expensive bed linen which Mum had bought in a sale as an amazing bargain. It had lain there for decades, unused in its box and with the tags still on, while she had less expensive sheets on her own bed, repairing the tears and frays and continuing to use them until they fell apart in the washing machine, at which time they would be cut up and used as household cleaning rags. Mum was the original environmentalist - everything was re-used and recycled.

Although these items are just 'things' they carry with them a wealth of memories. Every single time I use the last two of my now well-worn kitchen towels, there is a brief moment where I remember Mum sitting in her armchair crocheting. The crochet part of one of the towels started to disintegrate a few years ago, so I stitched it together with needle and thread but I'm afraid its life is coming to an end. It's so threadbare that one day soon it will disintegrate into pieces, and I will reluctantly have to let it go.

Once a richly coloured, thick piece of towel, after 17 years of constant use
you can see daylight through this example of Mum's handiwork

How adorable are these illustrations? Cheeseboard hand-painted by Mum, a birthday gift to me in my thirties

Fruit & veg trug, decorated by Mum

I'm not one for keeping nice things 'for good.' If clearing the family home at Panania taught me anything, it's that life is short and you should take joy in beautiful objects. Use the good crystal glasses. Luxuriate in the high thread count imported bed linen. Wear the clothes that you stressed over for months, having paid more for them than you would have imagined yourself being willing to do. 

Nonetheless, I do confess to taking particular care with some of the more fragile items I inherited, and have been known to bark a warning reminder at Kevin - 'Be careful with those glasses - they were Mum's!'

Using things given to me by my mother, or inherited from her, provides perhaps a disproportionate amount of pleasure. But I like to think that Mum would have been happy to see those items being employed and enjoyed, rather than locked away in a cupboard, despite that having been her own practice.

A set of silver plated fruit spoons - one of my favourite inherited items

Just a few months before Mum slipped away, Kevin and I had to make the decision to have our beloved cat, Sasja, humanely put to sleep at the age of 16. So in the course of four months I lost both my 'baby' and my mother. I think back to those harrowing, dark days of 2006 and marvel that I ever emerged from that black hole of grief.

Mum wouldn't be upset at me including Sasja in the same category of bereavement as herself. From a very early age I demonstrated my love for non-human creatures, to the extent that whenever I found the dead body of one of the little black beetles that populated our garden in Sydney, I would give it a funeral - complete with matchbox coffin and grave-marker cross made out of two Paddle-Pop sticks. The loss I feel for Sasja remains second only to that of Mum; I still cry for both of them.

Sasja, immortalised on canvas by my talented niece, Eliza Persen

To this day, when I visit somewhere beautiful I am thinking how Mum would have appreciated it. I lament the fact that she is not here to share in the life I now have in glorious Surrey - how she would have loved this place.

And so, on the fifteenth anniversary of my mother's death, here's the advice to fortunate friends and family who still have their parents: Make the most of every day. You're a long time missing them, when they're gone.

In memory of Margaret Anne Persen (neé Stanton)

04.09.1933 - 25.05.2006

My parents on their wedding day in 1955 - what a fabulously glam couple!

Until next time,

- Maree  xo

Is that a chink of daylight I see?

The Lime Walk, Mottisfont Abbey - with a carpet of chionodoxa (Glory of the Snow)

Well... probably not.

When I started drafting this post, the answer to the above question was a fairly confident 'Yes.'

Unfortunately in the past week it has become obvious that here in the UK we are already under threat from COVID again, this time from the Indian variant which is now doubling in case numbers every day. 

I can't emphasise enough how despondent I am. For the first time in 15 months it looked like we might actually be returning to some kind of normal life - from tomorrow we are expecting to being able to have visitors to our home, dine indoors at pubs and restaurants, and actually hug people. But I fear these freedoms will be short-lived.

Some weeks ago when the danger of this variant was becoming more obvious, for political reasons the UK government chose not to include India on the 'red' list which prohibits people from certain countries from entering the UK. The government did however place neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh on the red list. The reason for India's exclusion? It's widely thought this was because the government is in the middle of negotiations for a big trade deal with India, made all the more crucial because of course we no longer have favourable trade relations with Europe. 

This course of action is unfathomable - you'd think after what the UK has been through in the past 15 months, economic rationalism would take a backseat.

OK. Enough of COVID.

National Trust property Mottisfont Abbey

In recent weeks we've been making the most of very dry and mainly sunny spring weather, taking a couple of short jaunts allowable under restrictions. 

A few years ago we visited the very lovely National Trust property Mottisfont Abbey, just under an hour's drive from us in the neighbouring county of Hampshire. Though originally a priory under the Roman Catholic Church, like many of its counterparts the land and buildings were given to a nobleman by King Henry VIII as part of the reformation's mass dissolution in the 16th century. Unusually the building was not torn down but added to, in order to turn it into a country house. 

Skip forward a few centuries and in the early 1930s Maud and Gilbert Russell took possession of Mottisfont, where they entertained a multitude of guests from the artistic world, including James Bond novelist Ian Fleming.

Mottisfont has lovely grounds, one of the most appealing features of which is the 'font' that runs through the property - it's a natural spring with beautifully clear water. We enjoyed our return visit.

A line of clipped Irish yews stand like sentinels on one side of the lawn at the rear of the house

Now that's an urn! Such pleasing curves

I can't tell you excited I become whenever I spot snakeshead fritillaries.
These amazing little beauties are meadow wildflowers that only appear for a brief time in April.
Once abundant across England, they are now sadly quite rare

The rear of the house and the knot garden at Mottisfont

This wonderful mosaic was created by Russian artist Boris Anrep in 1947, as a tribute to Maud
(they were lovers for many years)

Angel mosaic - detail

The font (spring) that runs through Mottisfont's grounds

On the first weekend in May I braved mixing with actual humans at the open-air brocante in Farnham's town centre. It was truly, truly the most wonderful feeling to be browsing antiques and bric-a-brac like we were all normal people, just with masks and mandatory squirts of anti-bac at each stand.

Sunshine and relative freedom for the first time in ages:
brocante on Farnham's West Street

All sorts of quirky, vintage items on sale at this stall

I never cease to be impressed by the creativity of some people.
This lass sells earrings, which she mounts and displays on vintage playing cards - what a great idea!

A few more random photos from little jaunts in the car we've done in the past month.

Fulling Mill, dating from the 13th century and spanning the River Alre at Alresford,
just east of Winchester in neighbouring Hampshire. It's now a private home

Forge Cottage on the Kennet and Avon Canal at Hungerford, Berkshire

A very poor quality photo - apologies! 
But do enjoy the image of this mother swan with three goslings nestling on her back

Of course spring is one of the loveliest seasons in England, as the photos below will evidence. 

'When all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils' 
(thank you, William Wordsworth)
- thousands of yellow heads nodding in the breeze at National Trust property Clandon Park

Tulips in bloom in our garden

This magnificent cherry stands in front of one of our neighbour's houses 

My Norwegian spruce, with vibrant green new growth and lovely pink cones

The crabapple tree we planted two years ago, alongside my little Japanese garden

Bluebells and stitchwort are in abundance throughout Surrey at the moment

Brilliant fields of gold - rapeseed provides a dazzling spectacle across the country in spring

We've had the usual feathered / furred visitors and are eagerly awaiting a new clutch of baby pheasants any day. But the highlight of recent weeks has been a tawny owl which, most unusually, visited us in broad daylight one morning and sat on the fence just outside our living room. We often hear owls at night, but have never clapped eyes on one until now.

Mr P and No. 1 Girlie - taking turns to have a drink

Mr P, with five members of his harem. Just lovely, but... the POOP they leave behind! 

Super special visitor one morning in late April - a tawny owl on our garden fence

In closing it's with great pleasure I announce that on 8 April 2021 I officially became a Pom. Yes, I now join the ranks of Australians with dual British citizenship.... Sadly, due to COVID, I was denied the celebration of a ceremony at the Kingston Civic Hall, presentation to the Mayor of Surrey and drinks and canapés laid on. Instead it was just me at the end of a Zoom call, making the affirmation of allegiance and pledge of loyalty by myself at the dining room table.

Why have I spent many (MANY) thousands of pounds and hundreds of hours of frustration pursuing firstly visas, then permanent residence, and finally citizenship? The reasons are many, but the primary factor is because I simply love this country. Bill Bryson - a fellow immigrant to this sceptred isle - in his book The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes From A Small Island, expresses it well:

Nothing, and I mean really, absolutely nothing, is more extraordinary in Britain than the beauty of the countryside. Nowhere in the world is there a landscape that has been more intensively utilised - more mined, farmed, quarried, covered with cities and clanging factories, threaded with motorways and railway lines... and yet remains so comprehensively and reliably lovely over most of its extent. It is the happiest accident in history.

In terms of natural wonders, you know, Britain is a pretty unspectacular place. It has no alpine peaks or broad rift valleys, no mighty gorges or thundering cataracts. It is built to really quite a modest scale. And yet, with a few unassuming natural endowments, a great deal of time and an unfailing instinct for improvement, the makers of Britain created the most superlatively park-like landscapes, the most orderly cities, the handsomest provincial towns, the jauntiest seaside resorts, the stateliest homes, the most dreamily-spired, cathedral-rich, castle-strewn, abbey-bedecked, folly-scattered, green-wooded, winding-laned, sheep-dotted, plumply-hedgerow'd, well tended, sublimely decorated 50,318 square miles the world has ever known, almost none of it undertaken with aesthetics in mind, but all of it adding up to something that is, quite often, perfect. What an achievement that is.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself. Every day I remind myself how fortunate I am to live in the British countryside, and I need no longer worry about being booted out of the country.  All the benefits, and the responsibilities, of citizenship are now mine.

Instagram post on the day of my virtual citizenship ceremony

Until next time,
- Maree  xo