Whenever Mothering Sunday or Chistmas comes around and I see stores selling cups and signs and candles with "World's Best Mom" on them, I have always looked at the poor sad souls buying them and thought "You poor deluded fool! Your Mom isn't the best in the world! I know that because mine really is the best Mom in the world." And she truly was...or is as I prefer to say because I still talk to her daily when I'm sat alone in the living room because as I sit surrounded by the ornaments she loved, it feels like she's still here despite the horrible ache in my chest when I look over to her spot on the sofa and she’s not there.
But she isn't just my Mom, she's always been my best friend and you could probably say the love of my life.
I've never been under an illusion about myself. I know I'm the weird one of the family, the odd ball, the problem child. Compared to Kev, her golden boy who made her so unbelieveably proud as he built a business alongside his Dad, and Lisa, her eldest daughter who gave her the five Grandchildren she loved above everyone else, I am the odd one and I admit that, the one that just wouldn't go away. But the truth is the weirder I became the more she seemed to encourage me. She never bought me the clothes she thought I should wear or the interests she thought I should have, instead she bought me shorts, hoodies, caps, toys, movies and Lego, a LOT of Lego and then put it with it being in nearly every single room of the house, covered in dust. But on top of that she never once got bored or complained about my obsessions and single mindedness when I would talk her ear off about them for weeks on end, no, she only encouraged me further. My Mom truly is the best in the world and we went everywhere and did everything together.
I’m sure Kevin and Lisa would say that I got away with everything as far as Mom was concerned and I do concede that they have a point. The first thing I did in this world was shit all over her and yet I wasn’t immediately put up for adoption. She could have killed me a few times and didn’t. She could have killed me when I spilt Ribena on the living room carpet within 10 minutes of us first moving in but she didn’t. They both could have killed me when I phoned them while they were on the QE2 to tell them I’d won a goldfish but they didn’t. Likewise they could have killed me when I bought $600 worth of Robin Williams tickets on their card but they didn’t (in my defence don’t give me a credit card and tell me to get on with it when buying tickets in Las Vegas to see my idol! What did they think was going to happen?! I did buy the cheapest ones I could get and had the best night of my life as a result).
In fact despite all of my fuck ups and weirdness, I only ever saw her disappointed in me twice and both of those involved the theatre. The first time was when we went to see The Elephant Man and I was too busy looking at a diagram rather than staring at and ogling Bradley Cooper who was standing partially naked and DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME. The second time was when I went to see Faustus and once again instead of ogling Kit Harrington as he stepped out of a shower of blood in just his tiny pants I thought “They’re NEVER going to get them clean before tonight’s performance!” She was horrified when I told her about it and she questioned “Where did I go wrong?”
So in no particular order, here are some of the reasons why my Mom was and is the best:
For many years she was a devoted member of the village Carnival Committee, working as the Secretary of the Committee which made me like royalty at school. No only did I have backstage access on Carnival day, going whereever I wanted with no fear of the WI working in the pavillion, but I also knew Father Christmas and walked around the village with him every year. It wasn't all good in truth, sorting through people's donations at the jumble sale was always a mindfield, on more than one occasion I put my hand in a bag of clothes and pulled out some EXTREMELY dirty underwear. Every year I put a float on for the carnival and despite having my Mom on the Committee and my Dad's boyfriend judging the one year I never won! Going around the village with Father Christmas also ended with being stuffed upside down into a wheely bin on more than one occasion and that's without the time I got my ass grabbed by Father Christmas in Val's kitchen but the 1990s were very different to now. But it wasn't all about the giving for Mom when it came to the Carnival, it was also about socialising and she loved to go to the horseracing with her mates every year and drinking, always drinking when they were together.
The first 11 summers of my life were spent in Portugal with my Mom, Dad, Kev, Lisa and my Godparents Helen and Alan. They were some of the best summers of my life and this was despite turning up to the airport hours before the bloody thing opened! Not to mention the hours it seemed to take travelling by coach from the airport to where we were staying in Burgeau, Mom and Helen cracking opened the rum and scotch at the back of the bus and usually pouring the drinks above my lap so any spillages didn't go on them. The drinking would continue the entire time we were there, with bottle upon bottle lining the walls around the balcony of the house which makes it a miracle that I don't actually drink. One of my best memories of Portugal was when we would go to the phone box and phone my Nan on her birthday each year, just the three of us, me, my Mom and Helen and nearly every time we would go home via Smuggler's Bar where they would have a cocktail and my silence would be bought with a cheese toasty. The final year we went to Portugal I was sporting a plastercast and a broken wrist from falling over during the backwards running race on Sport's Day. I had a jewellry box made for her in Portugal that said "Sorry for being a pain" on top. As a result Dad sent the two of us plus Lisa and my Nan to Costa Del Sol when my cast came off so I could go for a proper swim. That holiday resulted in my Mom getting mugged amomgst other incidents which I still feel guilty about because I was the only reason we were there but since I was left at home with a broken arm rather than going to the hospital while Mom and Dad went to a Bee Gees concert, I guess that makes us even. Regardless I still cry "Ouch" and grab my wrist whenever I hear the Bee Gees come on the radio which was usually met with a "Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever! I bought you a Gameboy didn't I?"
On a couple of occasions we went to the Canary Islands as a family and with my Grandparents when I was a kid. I don’t remember much aside from jumping into a freezing cold swimming pool and shouting “JESUS!” at the top of my voice which got me into trouble. I also remember my Nan getting so drunk that she fell under the table and then wet herself waiting for the lift up to our floor (just like my Godmother Helen, they would piddle everywhere they went or so it seemed). My only other memory is the shock I felt when my Mom was brought up onto the stage at a local bar and a magician seemingly removed her bra and attached it to a row of flags. I was so shocked! I was convinced it was her bra and not a staged trick but I was only around 10 at the time. When I wasn’t shocked about that I was terrified because as we walked back to the hotel every night we would pass a nightclub called The Spider and my Mom would joke about going in there each night. I would always cry “No! No!” and hang onto her arm to stop her. What I thought she was going to do in there I couldn’t tell you but I remember the stress of it vividly to this day.
For many summers after that we would go to Sanibel and Captiva and the only thing that would drag her away from the sun was me when we would go to the island picture house that had screens no bigger than the ones you would get on planes at the time. She adored Sanibel, especially the wildlife that we constantly encountered there. Whether it was watching the weird log in the pond from the balcony of the flats that turned out to be a alligator (who got an eviction noticed when he tried to join in with someone’s barbecue on the edge of the water one day), or the Herons (that were all called Nobby) that waited by Dad and Alan all day in the hope that they would toss him a fish, to the racoons that she loved to see…until we caught one shitting in the swimming pool!
For whatever reason we would find ourselves at the grocery store at least once a day every day where we would spend most of the time hiding from Helen on her electric scooter as she rampaged through the place, mowing down displays and people alike! The moment we would get in there we would run away from her, the two of us hiding in the next isle and knowing we had to move when her cries of “Oh shit! Oh shit!” as she knocked over another display got louder and louder.
The best thing I ever did for her (since Grandchildren was never likely to be an option) was when I convinced Dad to book a weekend away in Boston to see Barbra Streisand live in concert for the first time. She told me when she got home that as the music started to play, opening with the score from Funny Girl, it was all she could do to stop herself from crying because she was so happy. I think about that a lot and it makes me so happy that I was able to do that for her, just a small way to thank her for everything she did for me. We would eventually get to go and see Barbra together in London a couple of times after that but if you asked her about it, she wouldn't say the best part was hearing Barbra sing, it was witnessing a woman literally wetting herself as she spoke to her friends on the underground. I remember her nudging me and pointing at this woman as the pee ran down her legs and started to travel towards us while she continued to have a conversation with her friends.
The best summer of her life was spent sitting in the garden with a very pregnant Lisa, Simba and the duck hanging off his tail. That's when she was happiest, when she was with family. But the most excited I ever saw her came while we were travelling across the US. The first time was spotting a tiny mouse running away from us as we walked towards the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, the terrified ball of fluff rolling over and over as his back legs seemed to go quicker than his front legs. She laughed about that for a good two weeks. But by far and away the most excited I saw her was as we drove through Bear World. She had been desperate to see a bear in Yellowstone and we joked about gluing Twinkies to the bonnet of the car to attract one. When that idea was shot down by Dad we instead went to Bear World where she bounced from window to window in the back seat of the car like a Golden Retriever because she was that excited.
So much of who I am today is because of my Mom because she shaped my likes and dislikes, she shaped so many of the interests that I have, in particular my film obsession. She is why I love films the way I do. As a toddler she was taken to the pictures by my Nan and would play on the floor during the film. I was taken at an equally early age and my first memory is going to see Return of the Jedi at the pictures in 1983. I vividly remember the sight of Wicket and Han Solo on screen, it began my love affair with both Star Wars and Harrison Ford. The fact that I fell asleep during the film and then woke up and wet myself is neither here nor there but she liked to tease me about it even if I had no memory of it.
She once told me that she found nothing more exciting than sitting in the pictures and hearing the Star Wars or James Bond theme for the first time on something new. That was another thing we had in common. And the truth is she really was the coolest Pensioner in the entire world because she not only adored Star Wars and Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings but she was also a big fan of Quentin Tarantino and liked to watch his films regardless of the violence and the language. Her favourite was Inglorious Bastards but she was also partial to Jackie Brown although that may be because she liked to drink a vodka and orange as she watched it (something she did a lot less for my benefit when we realised that orange juice gave me migraines).
During my teenage years we would go to the pictures twice a week, on a Wednesday afternoon and on a Sunday afternoon after dinner and my God they were the best times. The last film we saw at the pictures together was Wicked in Gold Class and I wanted to cry at the time because I couldn’t believe I had the chance to go with her one more time and as it turned out it was the very last time and something I treasure.
The important thing to note is that it wasn't act, it wasn't done for my benefit, she really did love Star Wars and would watch it with me every year before we went on holiday and would then spend the first hour of our days at MGM Studios going on Star Tours repeatedly, over and over again to see which planets we would visit this time. Her favourite was Naboo by the way, she liked that one with the Death Star coming in second place. She had Star Wars handbags and even wore a t-shirt around Disney that read "Scruffy Looking Nerf Herder." One year on my birthday we went to the Star Wars Pudding Party where she was interrogated by a First Order Stormtrooper who wanted to see her identification (because she had two different cocktails on the go). As quick as anything she waved her hand at them and said "You don't need to see my identification" like she was Obi-Wan. In truth the Stormtrooper told her "That doesn't work around here anymore" and walked away but the group of 20 something year old guys on the next table were extremely impressed and high-fived her. I was so proud.
When I think about Mom and the movies one of the first memories that comes to mind was a weekend when I was home from university to go to the football and she burst into my bedroom at around 7am with two letters in hand (can you imagine the post coming that early now?). Each letter had a tiny Oscar in the corner and ours names had been pulled out of the hat to go to the Oscars. She was so unbelievably excited and there was zero question about it, no matter what my Dad wanted or thought we were going and he was going to pay for us to do it! On our first day in LA we went to the Oscar pop up museum that was next door where she was interviewed by ABC on the subject of "What does Oscar mean to me?" She told them about her love of films and how she had passed it on to me and how I was now doing a Masters degree on the subject. I often wonder if it was broadcast because she was filled with such joy as she spoke to them and clutched an Oscar in hand. It was the kind of joy she expressed a couple of days later when she shook my arm and shouted "Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! It's Jack!" as Jack Nicholson walked the red carpet and I "stalked him" with my camera as she put it.
And now is as good a time as any to confess to my Dad that all was not as it seemed with the Oscar ballots that we would fill out every year. In all but two years Mom had me print out an additonal form for her so that she could cheat because you actually beat her every year apart from two. And in 27 years or so you never once noticed that her form had changed over night and that you'd lost once again, so I should probably say sorry for that but she made me!
When I was 13 my Mom opened my eyes to a whole new world. One Sunday afternoon she introduced me to Cary Grant and An Affair to Remember. I went into school the next day and told everyone about it during Home Economics. It was like that scene from Sleepless in Seattle but 12 months before that film was even released. She introduced me to Clark Gable and Gone With the End and then Warren Beatty in Splendour in the Grass. I can still quote them all word for word. At the same time we both discovered Yours Mine and Ours on Mother’s Day which was a film we would watch together every year.
But it didn’t end with film. She introduced me to Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Andy Williams and Elvis. She also managed to hide her dismay and annoyance when I found the Beach Boys on my own. She also made me a die hard fan (not out of choice) of Barry Manilow, his voice being the sound of my childhood. Then I started listening to him out of choice and I don’t mind admitting I have been to more of his concerts than every other artists put together. The same can be said for Barbra Streisand or “Bar Bar” as we called her and it was my delight to share that with her, to enjoy her music and her films together. Enjoying something that Mom loved and seeing the joy on her face was magical, it must have been the same way that I looked when she was enduring whatever it was that I adored in that particular month. And although she was successful with Barry and Barbra, she was less successful while blasting Julio Iglesias on the stereo but that may be because I thought he was singing “Where-dee Where-bear” when in fact he was singing “Too Many Women.”
I tell no lie when I say she really was the coolest pensioner in the world and I wasn’t the only one to think it. Sometimes it felt like the Orlando crowd liked her more than they liked me. A huge part of that was down to the photos of her with a beer in hand that I would post while she waited for me on certain rides, her happily waiting and sitting in the sun as long as she had a Bud in hand. And she loved the sun more than anything. She was asked countless times while I was on a ride if she wanted to be moved into the shade (even though she was fully able to do it herself) but her answer was always the same “Not for a million dollars!” In that regard we were complete opposites, I’m the one to actively avoid the sun at all times. This was never more true than when I graduated from Warwick in late January just after my Mom and Dad got back from St Lucia. The colour of the two of them! In my graduation photo it looked like I’d been adopted such was the contrast in our skin colour at that time.
She would always have “The Goose” written on the back of her wheelchair in Disney (a nickname that Lisa gave her) which was how strangers could tell it was us since I don’t post photos of myself on the internet, her fan club growing by the day. We had a very good deal between the two of us when we went to Disney: I pushed her everywhere so she could go and she told me when to sleep and when to eat so that I didn’t get a migraine. And it worked. It worked for 10 years and would have worked for longer had the end of the world not stopped us in 2020.
She loved Disney, everything about it. The way it made her feel, the way it made me feel, being so relaxed and actually having fun together because how often does that happen? How often do you think to yourself “I am having fun!” It’s rare and not something to be sniffed at as she used to say. Her favourite character was Tinkerbell and Peter Pan was always the first ride we went on. But then she also loved Avatar and was so unbelievably excited for the rides, even more so when she discovered she would be able to go on both. She loved Flight of Passage and the feeling of flying, it was worth nearly dying as I pushed the wheelchair up that massive hill in the Fastpass line. Every wheeze as I recovered while we waited to go on was worth it to see the joy on her face as we took flight.
Mom loved cricket and loved to go to Edgbaston to watch England which we did every summer. But we never sat in the family stand or with the Members, no! We always sat in the drunk tank meaning we would watch the first half of the day’s play and then spend the second half watching the drunken carnage going on around us. We learned pretty quickly not to wear good shoes to the cricket and to put our bags in a carrier bag to protect them from spillages and always agreed that unless we came home smelling of beer, we hadn’t had a good day. And Mom often joined in with the drinking. You could always see where we’d been sitting from the line of tiny wine bottles that would be found under our seats, a mandatory two bottles per innings or session was a must and that’s ignoring the Pimms! And the drunk people around us? She engaged with every single one of them! One Test and she went off to throw her fish and chip scraps in a bin but she came back to me with an amused but puzzled expression, telling me “Three men dressed as babies just asked me for the leftovers.” And there they were, 3 grown men dressed as babies and eating her leftovers. Another time she went to the toilet and came back with another tale “I’ve just helped a bloke dressed as the Queen but his tits back in.”
Mom loved cricket so much that she also a member of England’s Barmy Army, an honest to God full paid up member with a nickname (The Goose) and a membership card!
The same could not be said about football but she always put up with it because we were all Albion season ticket holders. But that’s not to say she never went, she did take me once when Dad was on a golfing holiday and on a cold Tuesday evening she sat through the second leg of a playoff semifinal against the Dingles (which we won by the way but ultimately lost in the final against Derby who went on to be the worst Premier League side of all time).
We went to Wimbledon, to the Olympics and the Paralympics and to theatre in the West End constantly, having a growing list of Hollywood movie stars we had seen on stage. She spent hours with me standing by stage doors to get autographs and to get my shirt signed, the highlight of them all.
The best thing I did for Mom was getting Dad to get her Barbra tickets but the best thing she did for me was getting me to LA twice to see Frasier be filmed…and then laughed at me and my embarrassment when I was made to stand up and show DHP my shirt with his name on.
I did my best to repay her the older I got and so when I turned 30 and wanted to avoid a birthday party, I opted to go to New York and stay in the Plaza instead. One of our favourite things to do was to cry “Oooh look at me!” when someone did something posh or expensive. We did it a lot to ourselves that trip firstly because we got bumped up to Upper Class and then when we were introduced to our personal butler when we arrived at the hotel, offering to unpack for us and to run a bath when we wanted it.
We pulled a lot of harmless pranks on each other. For a time we kept hiding a weird clown doll in each other’s bed. We could never remember how it started or even where that clown came from let alone where it ended up but for a time it stalked us both. Before we reached the stage where I had to help her to the bathroom, we would torment each other in there too. The moment we heard that door shut we would be up and banging on the door to scare each other. My Dad still knocks on the outside of that door now before he goes in with no understanding as to why he does it, merely copying us but without the scares. And speaking of things that we didn’t quite remember and understand, there was a time where we would shout “Back away from the sandwich” at each other but we couldn’t remember why.
When she was still mobile I used to call her my “Tea Lady” because she would make me cups of tea as I sat in the corner of the room and worked. With that in mind, before Covid ruined everything we would have our Work Christmas Party with just the two of us, going to Nando’s or the Harvester, treating it as our Christmas do with just me and my tea lady.
We even broke the law together once when we posted some very special ingredients to my other Godmother in Marlow so she could make some brownies to help with her arthritis. We didn’t tell anyone at the time and Mom wore rubber gloves (to hide her fingerprints of course) to handle the envelope and on top of that hid it in a packet of pot puri in the hope of masking the smell and not getting caught. We know that she got it but not what happened afterwards, I suppose that’s because we got into so much trouble with everyone when it was discovered what we’d done. As for the special ingredient? We got that from my ex brother-in-law if memory serves, he was our drug dealer, we just merely distributed it a little.
Whatever we did we did it together: Going to the movie show together where she was the recognised bag carrier as I bought more crap I didn’t need, doing the garden together where my jobs increased by the year but I came to enjoy it because she loved her flowers so very much, doing the lottery together (and she still owes me two months worth!), putting our purses outside the house on New Year’s Eve in the hope of good fortune in the coming year.
My Mom was the kind of Mother who would ask me if I wanted a cat twice a day just to irritate me, the kind of Mother who bought me a pair of socks with the word “C**t” on them, the kind of Mother who was terrified of spiders but did everything in her power to not pass that fear onto her children, the kind of Mother who when she went swimming and completely submerged herself under the water would come up, eyes closed impossibly tight and looked exactly like a mole and called you a “Little shit” when you said it and she caught you, the kind of Mother I thought was drunk the first time she saw a deer by the back door (and it really did happen), the kind of Mother who would put me on the kitchen counter as a kid and roll my belly like she was rolling out pastry, the kind of Mother who knew me better than I know myself.
She was loved by everyone who ever met her and saw the good in everyone (except for bisexuals and then her opinions on how greedy she thought they were always made me laugh and she would stick to her guns about it even when I pointed out that it didn’t mean they were seeing multiple people at once). She quickly became everyone’s Mom with my friends and Lisa’s always calling her Mom. One day during Middle School all our parents were invited in one day (I don’t remember why) and when my best friend at the time, Kellie, saw her she stood up and waved and shouted “Hello Mom!” which gave her own Dad a heart attack in that moment since her own Mom wasn’t in the picture at the time. And that fact actually made me stand out at school, one of a very small number of kids who had parents that were still together.
Even when I turned 40 in lockdown she still kept threatening me with telling the birthday fairies or Father Christmas about stuff I’d done if I didn’t behave myself. On one of those occasions I decided to make a list in retaliation called “Horrible Things Done To Me By My Mother” and here are a few examples I found on my phone:
10th November 2013 - Tried to kick me while I was watching the football
11th November 2013 - Keeps telling me she'll buy me a cat because I'm miserable
12th November 2013 - Tried to poke my eyes out while I was in bed
12th November 2013 - Told me she was buying me a cat
12th November 2013 - Sang "Kelly is a stinky twit" in the kitchen
13th November 2013 - Told me she was going to do the washing up and then put my face in the water
14th November 2013 - Asked me where my cat was
19th November 2013 - Offered no comfort when the dog bit my tit
20th November 2013 - Said she wanted to push my face in a tray of icecream in the Bullring
20th November 2013 - Shouted “Oooh I'll write it in my book. I'll write it with the blood from my titty wound!”
27th November 2013 - Told me there was no one older than me standing up on the train for me to give my seat to
31st December 2013 - Repeatedly attempted to punch he in the face
31st December 2013 - Accused me of making up the list
She would make the best apple pies but the worst custard in the world! She would also make the best Christmas pudding and mince pies which became my job over the last five years as she became unable to do it. Thankfully I had the foresight to write down the recipes last Christmas as my fears grew that it was probably going to be her last. I’ll never be able to make them as good as she did but I will try my very best all the same.
Every year when the Christmas pudding was made she would always get me to come and give it a stir and to make a wish. I think I was about 35 when my Christmas wish was “Just give me five more years. Just give me until I’m 40 before I loose her.” As it turns out I got a bonus 5 years and although a lot of that was firstly in lockdown and the rest was when she was in very poor health, I wouldn’t trade a single second of it. Even though they were impossibly hard, I will treasure the 69 nights I got to spend asleep on the sofa next to her, taking care of her being the best thing I have done in this life.
In the 12 months plus before she was admitted to hospital and it all escalated quickly from there she was frequently tell me “You shouldn’t have to do this” as I took her to the toilet multiple times a day, or when I was helping her into bed or getting her something to eat or drink. My answer was always the same: It’s the reason I exist. It’s the reason they had me, to take care of the two of them. Lord knows I haven’t done anything else in this life because I know I was put here to take care of her. I just hope I did it well enough and I didn’t let her down.
She liked the line from Harry Potter where Dumbledore stated “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” Well it’s pretty dark around here without her and as much as I want to lie down and die right now I know I can’t because firstly I have to look after Dad and secondly because I know she would be so angry at me if I did.
To finish, I’m going to quote Bad Bunny or as my Mom called him ‘That handsome young man in the shorts’ : “I should've taken more pictures when I had you, I should've given you more kisses and hugs whenever I could.”
No Mom, I still don’t want a cat!
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