I was talking to a friend tonight, whose mother died recently, like in the past couple of weeks. Her mother has been expected to die anytime in the past two years, but when she finally did die it was very sudden.
With Nigel having died this year, we were talking about how death has been affecting us. And something I said jelled with her: Everything seems the same. The rest of your family and Christmas and jobs and sports carry on, but nothing seems the same. And the idea that X is dead runs round in your head, but it just doesn't seem to fit in with anything else in your head. You know it is true, they are dead, but you can't work out how that fits in with your life.
For me, most of my life changes have felt like that. When we got married it was a couple of years or more before we actually felt married. The idea ran around in my head, but didn't seem to fit in and settle down to being part of my fabric of being for a long time.
And being a parent still feels like that sometimes. Sometimes C gets upset about something and wants to be picked up and comforted, and when I go to do it I feel like a fake mother, like someone playing the role. And I have this vision of motherhood that involves being rounder and much more blousy than me, so I don't even look like what I imagine 'mother' to be. It should be noted that although my mother is rounder than me, there is absolutely nothing blousy about her, so this thing with floral aprons and big boobs and scones is probably from some book or other.
I don't have any idea some days what to do with the kids but feed them, entertain them, break up the fights and give out cuddles. I don't have any wisdom to dispense to them or to myself. On those days I'm not only feeling like I'm only pretending to be a mother, but am sometimes an ignorant and desperately unskilled fake mother to boot.
Do you know though, I think I have been running for four months now?
Posted by Toni at January 3, 2007 07:41 PM