“It’s Mum, she’s really sick” I said. “They don’t think she’s going to make it. What do I do? I can’t get there in time.”
My husband blinked sleep from his eyes. “Do you want to try?”
21 July 2023. 7am. South-east Spain. 1,300 miles from Norwich where my Mum lay in a hospital bed, my sisters already there because they had not slept through the messages to summon them at 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am. 5am, 6am.
A scramble to the airport, two trains and a taxi, checking my phone again and again expecting to see a message telling me I was too late and worrying about having to read the worst while trying to get off the plane in front of a hundred strangers. Fifteen hours after that first message, I arrived and two hours later she left us.
It wasn’t until her funeral that I understood the depth of my mum’s passion for art. It had been a thread through her whole life, even when taking the safer path of teacher than the wilder one of full-time artist. When she retired, she allowed herself to be fully absorbed by it, turning her spare room into an art studio. I disapproved as it meant there was nowhere for her children and grandchildren to stay (now I get it). She exhibited and wanted to sell her art. I helped her set up a facebook page so she could share her work with the world. She ran two art groups for the U3A and her funeral was filled to the brim with her art-companions. My sister set up a table full of her paintings and each person took one to remember her by.
I, on the other hand, did not have an artistic bone in my body.
Until 3 June 2023.
Into my floral-filled instagram feed had crept the art of Saffiyah Choycha and when she offered her course in floral watercolours, something in me bought it. I did not have any art materials and so I dug through the kids’ old crafting cupboard and there amongst the discarded knitting needles and glitter pens and bottles of glue that would never open again, I found set of dried up watercolour paints and a dirty old brush and I began.
Above was the first picture I painted, and my Mum was who I sent it to. I had finally found a heart-felt connection with her after 52 years, something that was just ours.
Five days later she went into hospital for a planned heart operation. I was to go stay with her for three weeks after she came out to look after her.
I never got to paint with her.
She recovered slower than planned from her operation, a rehabilitation ward was expected due to the stroke she had suffered during the operation and we were all waiting waiting waiting for her to improve. Then, with no warning, a routine intervention went wrong; the result being that message I received on the morning of the 21st July.
She passed me her torch before she went.
Said “Take it, go do this thing”.
Said it with her soul, because she did not know she would shortly die when she still had a voice.
Said it into my heart.
I took an office in the local village that summer. Ostensibly to have space to work in the midst of a difficult few years with the kids. In my mind, to have a locked door that I could cry behind. But all I did there was paint and paint and paint and paint until the walls were covered.
When I started working as a life coach in 2008, there was a quote that had impacted me deeply.
The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents - Carl Jung.
At 35 years old I had taken that into my soul and set about filling my life as much as I could, so that I would never burden my own children with the dreams for my own unlived life.
Today, as I write this, I realise that my mum being unable to fully live out her artist heart due to the decades that were stolen from her means that the greatest blessing I could receive from her was the unlived part of her life.
Thank you, Mum.
I will do full-time artist for you.
I’ll be sharing my newest collection, The Art of Poetry, on 1st April in an online evening of art, poetry and self-discovery. Click here to learn more and join me.