Without Mum

My mother is dying. Of course, all of us are dying, and all of us are on trajectories toward death that we don't know and won't understand till it is too late, if ever.

But my mother is dying in a different way. Not that different, naturally. It's a way that many have died before, and no doubt many more will die from the same invidious cancer after.

But what matters when I say that my mother is dying is that she's my mother. And what matters more than that are all the things that won't make sense, and won't seem right, and will leave me me lost without her.

Wales. Wales won't make any sense to me after she is gone. It will be there. And goodness, my father has even lived there for the last 30 years! But my understanding of Wales is utterly contingent on my mother's existence. Every small detail that catches my eye requires her comments and insights, her guesses at the why of it, sometimes even the what of it.

Scotland will make sense. But not as much sense. I will be confused by the relations between the people and the land, by what a good pub really looks like, by how far it's worth going for good fish and chips. And she will not answer.

Spain ... well, it's a big country, but there's a strip of the Mediterranean coast that I have only ever interpreted via her stories and eyes and they will be gone, and I suspect I can never go back there without her vision, and her delight at the simple pleasures of those places.

Parenting. Marriage. Education. On all these, I differed, even argued, with her as I grew up, only to have her become my guide through these most enduring and affecting aspects of our lives. I have my own theories of course, along with my own experiences, but they mean nothing without her criticism, her guidance, her insights. And as I myself move into the phase of life in which I most easily remember her, she will not be there to explain it, to betray irritation with it, to offer reassurance and some kind of clarity.

The BBC. How will I ever make sense of what it is, or what it does, without her steady hand on the dial? How will I ever grasp what is worth listening to, and what is noise, without her editorial process? Of course, I haven't listened to the actual BBC in decades except on visits home, but a lifetime of a mother with a lifetime of interpreting the world through the beeb leaves a mark. A mark that impacts how I listen to NPR and even podcasts. Because the voices and the stories and the formats are all different from Woman's Hour (and the rest), I won't feel her absence quite so strongly in this context. But will I ever not think "what would Mum think about this?" in response to at least half of the interesting programs that I do hear? There will be another touching, lyrical essay somewhere about growing older, dying, grief, love, family ... and I will not be able to recount a distillation to her, ready for an instant response.

But not food. I love my mother's cooking still, perhaps in that "more than my own" way that can only be said about what happens when someone who loves you cooks for you, and has done so for years. The way that can only be described by references to favorite cakes that she makes before you visit, or particular dishes she will make because she knows you like them as much if not more than her. But we went our own ways with cooking back when I was still a teenager, not in anger or dismay or even disagreement. Just two lovers of both the stove and the plate, exploring the world of flavor and method by following their own pathways through it.

Cakes though. Oh yes, I moved to a country where the baking traditions of multiple European countries converged - Dutch, German, French, Polish - and created a delightful world of ground up grains to enjoy in almost any condition. But with respect to all the "greats" - German Chocolate Cake, Commissary Carrot Cake, Angel Food Cake (with fruit and cream, naturally), brownies, pain au raisin, challah (which some call bread, but we know better) and more - the real masterpieces of UK baking traditions seem almost unknown here. I speak, of course, of the cakes my mother has made for decades now. Apple Walnut. Date & Apricot. Lemon Poppy Seed. These are not some fluffy confections designed to leave you with no uncertainty that what you really love is sugar. No, these are the cakes of days out in the hills, or at least days on which plans to go to the hills might have been discussed. These are cakes that substitute small meals, without guilt. Cakes so dense you almost feel you could knock someone unconscious with one of their rich, moist ingredient laden masses. But you never would, because then you couldn't eat it, which was always the point. So cakes too, will make no sense when she is gone. I could make them, of course. But I never have while she has lived, and so why would I after she has lived? Of course some in my family (most, even) know of these cakes, and when I feel like exploring the semantics of real cake they will be there. But my mother will not, and as with so much else, it is really her that I want to explore that and so much else with.

Supermarkets, of course. Even the daily existence of bell peppers will remind me of her and her full life, but that is nothing compared to the contemplation of how to shop. When to shop. How to plan 5 days of food for 15 people. How to stock a pantry for a visting family. A proper understanding of the cost of wine. Each time I have to consider any of these I will want to turn to her for advice and she will not be there to offer it.

Labour politics. My stepfather has had a more incisive way to talk about the politics of the day, somehow more energized and driven by the events of the moment. But my mother's not-quite-endless optimism about the possibilities, combined with her occasionally derisive irritation over the same events, was equality insightful. Only Brexit (and maybe Trump, too) has managed to grind her down to the point where there's not much point in seeking her counsel on such matters, Yet ... these things too will pass (or at least change), and how will I make sense of the new order without her humanism and compassion (and occasional irritation)?

I have lived more than half my life across a great ocean from my mother. I do not think of her every day, and perhaps in the past, I might not have thought of of her for a week or even longer. I learned a new language (variant), grappled with new ways, sank roots in a culture she felt was far removed from her own. But always, always, always she has been my guide. She has been the one to show me how to ask questions. The one to show me what to notice (and what to ignore). The one to explain to me how the world is both simpler and more complex than we can ever really know. The one who confronted grief so deep that I shall count myself lucky to never even stand on its shores, and yet who managed to gracefully show me the outline of how to live with that. The person who showed me, even when I wasn't paying attention, what friendships were. And betrayals also.

And so without her, I will be lost in many parts of life. Not lost without hope, because there will be ways out of those places. But still without the person I could always turn to ask, the person who would have an answer, even if the answer was a question, the person who always took me seriously even when I didn't. Someone I could ask even though more often than not, I did not.

Without Mum .. New map. Big holes. Growing silence. More doubt. Less love. More me. No her. Terrifying, but also the pathway of my own life since she introduced me to this world. So I will embrace it, and I will do the best that I can at each moment, even without her to help me make sense of it all.