It's become a standing joke in the Moller family that just about all my Mothering Sundays - since becoming a mother - have been blighted in one way or another. The worst of them, of course, was when my beloved mother-in-law Mollie died before dawn broke on my second crack at the whip. 2017 was supposed to be the first perfect one - until a virus knocked out the smallest of us, so we had to cancel our plans to see my own mother. Undaunted, she's invited a bunch of folk over to hers for dinner - and we're squinting at the final episode of Gilmore Girls through the sunshine. (Coffee and doughnuts on the side, of course.)
I wrote this on Mother's Day in 2014, and took this picture of our trip to the beach. The photo paints a better picture than the film, which shows much more typical Dunbar weather. The star of March's film is my washing, appropriate for today, since motherhood means doing 50 billion loads a week. You can see why I never have to iron my sheets. Not that I really would iron them, but I'd feel bad looking at how wrinkled they were, if their every crease weren't blasted out of them by our North Sea wind.
Most of us have mothered or been mothered in some way at some point in our lives, and so in that spirit, I wish you well today, and hope the sun is shining on you as brightly as it is on us. Even if we have had to close the curtains to see the telly better.
Last month passed me by in a blur of fever and coughing, so although I wrote February's instalment a couple of years ago, I've only just managed to get enough puff to record it. It was a strange experience to revisit my stricken self. When you're in that dark tunnel of grief, it's hard to imagine the light at the end, but the sun comes out eventually, and now it's hard to imagine that it was ever a struggle to see it.
There is only one star in this month's film, and if you're not a cat person, you might prefer to listen without looking. Stampy John Moller is almost two years old and already the finest napper in his field. Watching him doze and take his morning bath is good for my soul; I hope he soothes you, too, if you're ever feeling fretful.
The text is below the video. Let me know what you think.
In the leaden and bruising days following the death of my father, I wondered where I would find the necessary carapace to survive his funeral unwounded. Each thing I suggested was quickly dismissed until I proposed that I do one of the readings in church. “As long as you don’t cry!” I was told. My brother-in-law-to-be laughed, “Imagine crying at a funeral…”
And so I printed off my part of St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and practised till I was hoarse, and more importantly, could get to the end without my voice faltering.
On the way to the Requiem Mass, I focused on the reading, holding my head up, which had the added advantage of not letting any wayward tears spill over. I’ve been to a lot of these affairs, starting in the back row and gradually moving forwards, as my relationship to the deceased grew closer, always holding that brutal first row in my sights, knowing that its cold front would reach me in the end. And so, finally, with the best view in the house, I looked towards the lectern, not the dark, polished wood which held what remained of my father.
Up the deaf, carpeted steps to the microphone, and I started reading the letter quickly, so that the words wouldn’t hurt me. But once I realised I wasn’t going to waver, I let my gaze slide over the assembled ranks.
“Love is patient and kind.”
Is it really, I thought? Not always. Not judging by the last few days, which had left me almost skinned alive.
“It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
You could have fooled me, I countered, silently. And yet my husband, both patient and kind, was undoubtedly thinking, “I hope she’s listening to this.”
I thought I might giggle when I got to the bit about being a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal, but I didn’t. And nor did I cry.
I don’t think I let one tear go during the whole day. I went as far as to say that I had really enjoyed the huge send-off. The end of a long, fruitful, good life is not a time for weeping and wailing, we all said.
A few weeks later, we packed up and moved to a town by the sea, where I decided it was time to start taking my son to church, to try and give him some of the comforting faith I’d enjoyed as a child. Both of us like the hymns best of all, and we check the numbers as soon as we sit down, look them up in our hymnals and mark their places so we can join in from the first line. I couldn’t have told you which hymns were sung at my father’s funeral until they started singing them at Our Lady of the Waves. I would think, “Oh, great, I love this one,” and join in lustily, a rare chance to use my mediocre voice. And then a few lines in, my voice would collapse and then I would find myself sobbing, utterly undone, scrabbling for tissues and hoping the wobbling cello and reedy recorder would drown me out. Things only got worse, when a few short months later, my sister joined our father, and since our hearts were too sore to choose anew, we decided to use all the same readings and hymns again. My brother-in-law-to-be, who never did get to make it legal, asked if I would do the reading again, and I said yes, thinking it would be the only thing that would stop me from lying on the floor of the church, beating the marble with my fists. That by speaking out, I could avoid speaking in.
“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.”
But love didn’t protect my sister, and I’m not sure I can trust in anything now.
I still couldn’t tell you what the other readings were, or most of the hymns we sang.
I only know them by the way they reduce me to dust when I try to sing them.
We sit upstairs now, in the very back pew, so that no-one can see.
There is one that I’m sure of, because I’ve looked it up in the funeral Order Of Service, hurrying past the photos that stop my breath.
