In the calm moments, I step back and worry,

Am I doing enough to keep you safe, do you feel loved, supported, cared for confident?

I, so concious of how my words and actions, can shape and break you, stutter here. Stumble over these words but like in every moment, the always of now, feels urgent, there are shoulds peering over my shoulder, watching me now, as I steal a moment. How nice would it be to take a morning, to make a workshop for words, sit with my clever, beautiful friend, sip hot coffee and spill our feelings into thoughts into words on a page.

It is she who invited me to come here now. To take ten mins to myself. To push the words through my fingers, ignore the end of the washing cycle, the beep of emails and be.

The purpose is so clear we don’t need say it.

And so I think about how a moment can cloud the whole days weather. How the pressure of the should and the masters ticking clock, is a bomb of shame, ready to blow up as we turn up late, push unwilling legs into tights, unlace little fingers from anothers curls and then shout.

Repeating myself. Repeating myself. REPEATING MYSELF. Until I shout like my house is on fire, like there is a child playing in the road, shout like my Mama shouted at us. Scary. And they stopped. Scared stiff.

The rage can be close to the surface these days. Can be summoned within seconds, can burst without permission, always without permission. But once you go there, it is easy to return.

Is it nature or is it nurture? What values do I have? What am I teaching them? My Mama was so angry it was hard to hear her lessons. I spent many years undoing. Doing different. Growing values she didnt have. But how you are raised doesnt leave you and my Mum told the teachers to bollocks and scolded other people’s children. She gave no fucks.

I wish I could be more like that, to anyone but the children.

I felt sad after shouting. I apologised and I will keep trying to explain how the pressure builds and the traffic was bad and how masters clock ticks louder and Mummy doesn’t want to be late and I have work to do.

And I will tell them how I went to walk in the woods afterwards and the sunlight threw a ladder on the ground through the shadows and how Reggie and I stepped on them. Grateful for the return of the golden light, dancing on the edge of the budding leaves. How pretty it made the spindly twigs look and how I considered all the life ready to burst out of them over the next few weeks and how my beautiful, clever friend, the one that reads all the books and doenst let her kids wear or think pink, invited me to write a few words and I did.

And how these moments are what make a day and a life. How as a woman and especially a mother, we have to grab onto these moments to find ourselves and remind ourselves of who we truly are and what is important.

It wasnt as urgent as I thought it was. We were nearly late but we turned a corner and got stuck behind a bin lorry.

When we finally got home from dropping O we were nearly late again and A stepped in a puddle I told her to avoid and got wet up to her ankle.

Thank god for other mothers carrying spare tights. A skipped in after that.

And I turned into the woods and turned into the page and turned the day around.

Holding it all together with a shoestring,

How can my boat take even more of a bettering,

I’m drowing, keeping everyone else a float.

The waves of grief are just the start of the storm,

There is no calm in this all.

I keep kicking, tired legs, bleary eyed,

I keep kicking and when I see the children I smile,

Their chaos is the calm,

But I am the once was boat, now raft,

No mast, crows nest or hull,

Just this, flat on my back, taking breaths when I can,

Trying to remember the struggle is part of the plan,

Looking for God,

Please help me,

You have saved me so many times,

Mother Earth,

Still these seas so I can breathe

for

a

longer

moment.

Stillness comes and my mothers ghost

flashes

Never, ever

builds more pressure,

I feel so on my own,

But I can’t find solitude or space

and it doesn;t help,

the feelings weigh me down

and I am scared of never

like never get back up,

like ever be on top

or even in the middle

Does life have to be such a struggle?

I find myself wanting to disappear

but it is not an option

No one is coming to save me

I did not realise how much I needed you for the hard things,

Those uphill struggles are coming thick and fast,

I thought there would be some grace, moments to catch my breath as

I learn to surf the waves of maternal grief,

But it is raining rocks and there is no shelter in the ocean,

I dive beneath the surface,

Hold my breath,

To feel any kind of relief but it is here,

Where we get to work,

When no one else can see what is coming,

We don’t dont hide do we mum,

We face it,

Knowing that a mess left to fester,

Is a worse mess,

Rinse the cereal from the bowl,

Before you need to chip it like cement.

Sometimes we can be wrong, but at least we did something,

Let the mud dry,

Before you brush it off

Urgent, fast action is not always what is needed

but at least we did

Something!

What is everyone else doing?

They are standing out of our way,

Watching in awe,

But now it is just me and I wish it wasn’t Mum,

I don’t want to be the only one

You must have been so exhausted Mum.

Doing everything for everyone before they thought to do it for themselves.

How did you keep moving when the weight of our expectations,

Lay curled at your feet, like a dog, blissfully unaware,

Until you barked,

Our incompetence,

Draped around your neck.

You wore it with pride somehow,

Like you were carrying a tired toddler and not a grown man,

Who managed to accomplish things when you weren’t there to do it all.

You have left them a bit broken,

All of us have healing to do.

Unlike them, I have to move through this bad mood,

Carrying them like suitcases with your name on,

Without a handle,

I do not begrudge you, how could I?

But no one is coming to rescue me.

This mess is spreading, spilled beads,

Tiny memories are jewels,

But some are sharp under foot,

Tasks and more tasks

I have enough to do.

I have two children under five, a house to move,

A life to make, without you and I wish you were here,

Making it easier in ways I didn’t even know or notice.

I will sob like a banshee at the moon every time I buy school uniform,

A ritual you didn’t fulfill

Despite you doing so much Mum

I want to complain but I don’t want to fall out,

You would understand,

Let me get it off my chest,

Offer some cheese bites, porkpie or biscuits,

Top my wine without asking,

Join in,

Recognising this particular brand of uselessness

Which you minded or didn’t depending on how the weather was

You never really rested.

Like me, the tasks help bat away the ill feeling,

Help take the record off scratch

Be still my ruminations

Let me spill them here and treasure them,

This is where we exist now,

Our relationship is one of grief,

I am still useless,

but you can finally rest

When confronted with death and an end of life journey,

You may need to refocus beliefs that you might had formed and forgotten, or not had reason to define before or perhaps haven’t visited for a while. I had to dip into the mythology of nature worship, check in with different expressions and understandings.

Death is just the next part of the adventure, a journey taking us ever closer to home. That was always clear to me. Some Pagans say that there is a period of reflection, time to revise your life events, reviewing your own understandings as well as others perceptions of your acts. I hope you aren’t surprised. This space is to allow you to question the virtue and malice of your actions and I think it goes that this all helps form the choice your soul makes after the long rest, the long summer or what some people call heaven, this long period which feels like forever and a second at the same time as time is folded in on itself like an neatened blanket. Your own patchwork of experience taking up more and less room at the same time, until you eventually chose another adventure on Earth.

I am at an air port and the waves of grief come thick and fast I’m on my own. Grief is lonely and isolating. I find myself seeking company but the person I want to talk to isn’t contactable.

I keep getting flashbacks to a meditation I used to have on CD. You are in a busy terminal, eventually all clears and you know the way to go and the door to chose.

I can’t help but wonder if Mum is at a busy terminal. I get worried that she is frightened and reminds myself that she is under the gaze of the angels and is being guided by the ancestors we called to meet her. I still get palpitations, a fear rises and I don’t know what it is coming from or for but I am scared. Scared of this word never that has entered my voculary and which I find unbearable. I make myself say the hard words. They land like bricks on other peoples toes. I can see them pinching back the tears and wondering why I’m not crying.

I don’t know why I’m like that. Probably something to do with my mother. Have I always been like this? Too proud to show people my tears unless overwhelmed by full, throw yourself to the floor theatrics? I don’t know. Mum would know. I wish she was here to ask.

{Quick write to tap into feelings:}

I want you to know you are so loved, Mum.

Want you to know that you deserved better,

that I didn’t do enough,

that every forgotten card, every lazy text, rushed,

Was me

Wrapped up in my own doings, usually for others, rarely for self,

should have been for you.

No regrets they say,

But I have a few.

Wished we had enjoyed each others company more sooner,

Wished we had been more accepting,

Like we were

At the end.

‘It doesn’t matter’ you say, as I weep my apologies, tell you how my heart is broken and I will miss you,

As I oil your skin, rub your joints,

Press my love into you, careful not to make it hurt

My god you were so tired and you didn’t want me to leave,

You would never say, but I asked and you would let me know.

Why did you not say what you needed Mum?

Tell me that it crushed you to not get a birthday card,

visits on Mothers day,

How desperate you were for a christmas together.

We should have done it last year

When our plans fell through but we always travel and we didnt want to,

You understand, I hope.

Although you never stated your needs, rather grumbled along obligated,

Or impatient or distracted by duty.

I didnt get it. Felt resentful

and yet,

Here I am,

Same duty bound, obligated self that can

Move a belligerant crowd,

Sought finances in grief, talk the computer-struck jobsworth to lighten the fuck up,

if it were for you.

“She just needs to go home!” I say to the uniforms who are trying to insist you stay in another night,

After being separated from your love

hours after hearing you had

weeks to live

My heart broke for you. For me. For all of us really.

“Stop being so bossy” you said.

Wonder where she gets it from – said no-one.

I cant imagine how poorly you must have been to spend so many hours on the sofa, in bed, not moving and doing and fixing and changing everything for everyone else.

You loved it though.

You really did and I will try and love this about me and us more and

not let a life of servitude feel like a waste,

when it is such a noble purpose.

Just because no one gets a plaque for thinking up and cooking every dinner for a week,

for considering who needs a lift to the doctors,

something fetching from the shop

a phone call making

But thats my role now.

Your husband is beside himself really but being brave and carrying on,

As I do all the things you used to,

and he is so relieved

‘You can’t be doing all this for me’ he says

and I joke that your not the first dependent man my mother has left that I have had to sort out.

Poor taste joke.

Funny in a small crowd.

Dad cant make the funeral afterall.

You were the love of his life you, know?

and yes, I know you thought he was an arsehole.

I am far too busy,

This, is more than an inconvenience,

This monumental final voyage is more than an interuption,

It is a cyclone, tearing through our homes,

I am trying to grab and hold on, weight things down,

Not knowing what will be lifted and lost,

What will be left.

The aftermath, a gaping whole, memories retwisted,

The story will stay the same but the narrator is different,

Facts become fictions.

I don’t care if it is a lie, Mum.

You can tell it anyway you want and I would listen,

I wouldn’t get annoyed.

I’m going to miss you so much I say,

My eyes blurry with inescapable love and pain,

So much pain.

No tears you say, as I plumped your pillows.

I reach in, try to gently pull out the deep and meaningful,

something jolts and you are upright,

Opening your phone.

Why can you only transfer £2k at a time?

I don’t know. I say.

Unsure how we are talking about the most material thing,

When I know you are surfing the slippage everytime you close your eyes.

Side by side

We live and breathe the drudgery
Help each to keep the boundaries,
Safety fences,
Moral codes

There with wet wipes when it all explodes

Routine queens and freestylers, 
mostly somewhere in between, 
Scatterers, stackers, filers,
Bursting at the seams
we live and learn side by side, 
Hearts bursting with humble pride,
judging ourselves through each others eyes

But we rise, when we are too tired to function,
We rise, When baby wakes every hour,
We rise, When the poorly child needs us for comfort,
When feel like we have no power

The next morning we are back sore, 
but shoulder to shoulder,
in play groups on our knees,
remind each other to stay soft and be gentle,
She said love your kids but don't forget me

We think of our mothers and grandmothers,
Remember how hard it must have been,
Although often they didn't actually have to work,
Though admitted, they didn't have as many screens,

We whip them out in shame sometimes,
To be good patrons
Not bad parents
Sometimes it is the last tool we have,
every last snack,
Scavenged,
Reserves low,
Until