Minus the lipstick !

I look like the wreck of the Hesperus!’ was another Mum classic: she didn’t of course, she never did. She was one of those people that were lovingly refereed to as the type that would look good in a bin bag. Very much a strange description I always thought. I’m very much of the heterosexual variety but surely, there would be something slightly naughty about seeing Angelina Jolie wrapped up in a bin bag….maybe that’s just me! She did always look elegant though (Mum I mean now) although, she never wore lipstick. I always found her minus the lipstick antics slightly strange. I don’t think she ever even tried it.

She was 6 feet tall and had size 8 feet (but in a feminine elegant way naturally) Size 8 feet were enormous for a woman in those days. She was scouted by Lucy Clayton once whilst walking up a lane next to her Grandparent’s stables. Lucy Clayton lived just up the road from them in those days. She never followed that route though, she was never that way inclined. Hence the lipstick thing I suppose. But, she was beautiful.

My Mum spent a lot of time at her Grandparents stables. She lived there for a while when she was young. There was a major reason for that sadly.

 

When I mentioned my Dad to you, I did so lovingly. Even though, technically he left me too but, I was never angry with him. We’ll get back to that later. My Mum never had the same fortune. You see, her Dad, for want of a better phrase was a complete numpty of the highest order. There would be some members of my family that may deem this description a little disrespectful but, Mum being my Mum and me remembering at age 11, the stories she would tell me of her childhood, there really was no other adjective for him. Well, actually there is but, I’m pretty sure that if I published that particular word on here that I would be breaking the law in several different states.

My Granddad, although I don’t really like to give him that title, except for the fact that he was, was a boxer. As disease took over his brain in his later life, he would hit an all time record of the times he could tell us in one day that he fought Henry Copper. I never cared of course. If you knew what I knew, neither would you. I’ve never known anyone be so proud of a cauliflower ear! Saying that though, he was also proud of being a lab technician. I don’t really need to spell out what that lovely little job consisted of in those days. Don’t get me wrong, having both parents die from Cancer, I’m all in favour of finding the right treatment, the right cure and sometimes, lets be realistic, we all know what that entails.

Anyway, he was a boxer and the ring for him didn’t just mean some grotty basement or gym or, for that matter, Henry Cooper, it also included his family home. Namely his wife (My Nanny) and if my Mum or her eldest brother got in his way, them too.

 

My Mum had four brothers. She was the only girl and the second child. She was told her eldest brother was actually only really a half brother when she was less than a teenager. About the same time that she would hide her younger brothers under the bed when she heard her Dad’s key in the door or find her Mum cowering in the kitchen. If she was lucky, there wasn’t any blood.

 

His father had been a pilot and was killed in the war. He was lucky enough to leave the ‘family’ home at a young age, for more than one obvious reason. When he became a grown man, his daughter, my cousin, was killed one day by a falling brick as she sat at her school desk. She was 11.

My Nanny had lost the man she loved and ever since he died, her life took on a very different path.

That’s how I feel about the time when my Mum died. It was from then that I feel I had nothing but bad luck. Cursed really. Of course, this isn’t true as I was lucky enough to have a wonderful father, unlike her, and I have two wonderful children. They have their moments though, don’t all children? I realize though how quickly they grow and how soon they will be teenagers themselves. Just last week my seven year old vowed that she would never again get changed for P.E at school as I had been unkind enough to send her to school in Peppa Pig pants and she had: quote ‘never been so embarrassed in her whole entire life’.

Old ladies in the street always tell you to ‘make the most of them as they grow so quickly’. Invariably we think (and don’t fib, we do..) ‘Yeahhhhhh right, I can’t wait for them to not wake up at stupid AM and let me watch a whole episode of Corrie without having to A) Look at the latest crayon masterpiece, B) Paint their nails or C) Open the squash- why can they never open the squash? Damn you Robinsons! Other squashes are obviously available I would like to point out.

 

When I look at my children I feel bad, bad for feeling the way I do about my Mum now. But, that’s because I feel guilty for being mad at her for dying. Isn’t guilt strange? We spend so much time worrying and stressing over things we cannot change, things we feel ‘should’ have or have not happened. No one should do something we expect them to. At least, that’s what my counselor told me. That’s my opinion; I can’t push it onto others (apparently). Of course, I’m only human and I still do that. I still feel guilty too.

She fought it really, fought hard. She first found a lump eight years previously but it just kept coming back. I liken it to malignant tennis!

 

Treatment wasn’t the same in the 90’s to how it is now. That’s a ridiculous statement I know but, what I mean is that is was completely different, in what was really, a small amount of time. She didn’t have Radiotherapy in her lunch hour or have a nice green tea after; she was shut in a room. A room with a small opening to put food in: like she was something from Area 52. Like she was in solitary confinement. In theory, if she had her breast removed initially, she may still be here but, with reconstruction being as it was then; mastectomy really was the final straw. It was certainly her final straw.

Ironically, I mentioned Angelina Jolie in her bin bag earlier. Funny that! In comparison to my Mums battle, her double mastectomy and reconstruction seemed akin to changing the faulty bike pump she just bought in Lidl for a new one. Why do they always have bike pumps on special in Lidl? Guess there must be a lot of bikes in Germany! I don’t doubt for a minute that she didn’t take that option lightly but, she had an acceptable alternative. I’m sure it wasn’t easy, but it was available and it was (and is) miraculous. I’m pretty sure, of course, that she never bought a bike pump in Lidl. With that, I was a little facetious.

When she did finally succumb, and then it really was succumbing, to a mastectomy, she had to wait a considerable amount of time before there was any kind of ‘next step’. They wouldn’t pop in a shapely false one at the same time as removing the old manky one. In actual fact, the surgery that my Mum had was really revolutionary for the 90’s. She had a new boob made from her shoulder muscle. Bloody excellent it looked too. Even had her nipple. I’m not sure how they did it but, I regularly liked to picture her solitary nipple sat in a freezer somewhere. Her poor little nipple sat in reckless abandon from its mammary castle for just long enough to get lonely (I bet you never thought you’d read that sentence today)

 

The temporary ‘chicken fillet’ she had however was shameful. It was about three times heavier than a real boob and once, it fell out in the supermarket. There it lay, if I remember right, resting just under the tins of baked beans. If my Mum hadn’t laughed so much at the irony, I’m sure she would have been embarrassed. She wasn’t though.

The only time I’ve known her to be so mortified in public was the time I sat in the bottom of an upturned bath in Texas Homecare at approximately age seven and it fell over on me. Trapped inside like a turtle I was. I’m sure that’s where my claustrophobia comes from. Really I like to think it was because I was Cleopatra in a former life, lounging in a pyramid which, lets face it, is far more glamorous than the Texas Homecare story.

 

I wish we had named the Chicken Fillet. We always fondly referred to him. He even had his own box, can you believe that? A fake boob with his own box and my Mums lonely little nipple in a freezer: In Devon! You couldn’t make this stuff up. Well, JK Rowling probably could.