What is/was special about your Mum?

[garinda]

As it's Mothering Sunday later this week, I thought we could lead up to it, by sharing a few thoughts about what makes our own mothers special.

I really don't want to upset anyone. As I know we have members who lost their mums much too early, but I hope there's still some precious memories to cherish, which you may wish to share, in tribute to her.

If you didn't have a mum, please feel free to post about whoever took that role in your life, be it a gran, or even your dad, and what made them special.



My Mum and me are cut from the same cloth.

I could talk politics all night with my Dad, or play Scrabble. Things my Mum will do under duress. If there's nothing more interesting we could be doing.

However, drop me and Mum in an art gallery of 10,000 paintings, ask us which were our favourite paintings, and we'll have chosen the exact same three.

Temperament wise we're very similar. We both have extremely long fuses, and rarely lose our tempers, but when something, or someone does ignite that fuse, boy, watch out for the explosion, and just hope we don't both go off at the same time, because we both go a little bit mental, and are quite fearless.

The only major difference between us is that my Mum is totally selfless. Whereas I'm selfish.

I'm not going to give examples, because if someone tells her I've been 'broadcasting her own business all over the internet', I'm likely to get a clout.

What I love about my Mum, and admire the most, is that she cares about people, hates bullies, and injustice, and is genuinely a good woman.

She never tells me what she's done. That's certainly not her style, but over the years people, barely known to me, or indeed my Mum, have told me little things she's done, that they've appreciated.

'Some pans, when I had nowt. A bunch of flowers after our burglary. A visit when I was first on my own. A bag of food, when I didn't know where my next penny was coming from. Paid for my kids to go on a trip, when I was skint. Some new bedding, after he thew me out, and I left with nothing.'

After my Dad died, nearly eighteen years ago, because I'm single, I always planned to look after my Mum if she ever needed me.

It breaks my heart that at (cough) sixty seven, she is still looking after me, and very often spends her time off from work doing jobs for me, that I struggle with.

She has a great sense of humour, and can be very witty, and very often we'll both be in stitches. As we were last week, when an overly friendly woman we shared a table with in a cafe, asked us why we lived apart, seeing as we were man and wife!

She's up at five o'clock, four morning per week, and has rolled hundreds of tea cakes before most peoples' alarms have gone off. Even though cooking for her is a wasteful necessity, when that time coud be spent doing more useful things. But sadly for her, she saw my Dad playing football when she was fifteen, and happened to fall in love with a boy who was a baker, so half a century later, longer than anyone who chose to make bread and pies, she's still in the floury thick of it.

My Mum's a good person, and I'd like her enormously, even if I hadn't been lucky enough to have been her eldest 'little lad'.

She's a great mum, and her two sons, and two grandchildren love her very much.

We only get one Mum, and if she's not here to cherish right now, I truly hope you've got plenty of wonderful memories of her to cherish, to keep your Mum's love alive.

[Margaret Pilkington]

That is a lovely tribute to your Mum G.

My Mum....she is indomitable, has never let obstacles stand in her way. She bore seven children, so her life was always hard....My father was sick for a number of years after he was demobbed from the service after the war.......so she had to be mother and father all rolled into one...she was the one who put bread on the table.

Ma was strict...and if she threatened something she would always follow it through.....boundaries were not elastic in our house.

She could do anything with a needle but sew with it, but was a whiz at do it yourself and wallpapering.
Frequently we would come home from school and find all the wallpaper stripped from the living room walls....she had seen a bundle of wallpaper outside Joseph Bridges for half a crown and decided it would look just dandy on our walls.

Ma has worked hard all of her life. She looked forward to spending her retirement with my dad...it was not to be.......six weeks after she retired(at 65) she was widowed.

Since Dad died some 20 years ago, Ma has travelled all over the world(and recently this country)...this was what she and my dad were meant to do in their twilight years.

She was diagnosed with cancer 11 years ago, but has not let this diminish her thirst for life, and although she is much frailer(is there such a word), and relies on me taking her about in her chair....she still has a wicked sense of humour.

We haven't always got on, and for a few years we didn't speak........I have never been able to establish the reason for this........I know that during that time my life was poorer for her not being in it.
She has given me my perseverance, my sense of humour(like you Gary - we laugh uncontrollably when we are together), my sense of doing the right thing...honesty.....and the ability and desire to care.

We don't tell those we love how much they mean to us, and how much poorer our lives would be without them....so if your Mum is around...don't wait for Mothers Day to tell her. Make her feel special every day....because she is....Special.

[flashy]

my mum was special because she was MY mum

[Less]

Nothing is special about my mum she brought us up, she made sure we had as much as could be afforded,
Alway's turned up at school when asked by the teachers, always backed the teachers up if I or my syblings mis-behaved.
Made sure there was a meal on the table, she wasn't special, taken for granted? perhaps.

But only because she was there when needed,

I was lucky, I had a Dad that did similar when he wasn't working that extra shift to make sure Mum could keep her promises, I think it's called 'teamwork'.

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

That is a lovely tribute to your Mum G.

Thanks.

I wish I'd worded it differently now.

I hope people don't think she goes around playing Lady Bountiful.

That's not her at all.

I think, growing up poor, she appreciated little things people did for her in childhood, and sometimes now is in a position to repay them.

[walkinman221]

I lost my mum when i was twenty so nearly twenty two years ago now my how time flies.After all this time there is still not a day goes by when i don't think of her , i have a picture of myself and her on the back of the cereal cupboard door in the kitchen, so i start every day seeing her and saying good morning . The biggest thing that gets to me about her passing away so early is that she never got to see her grandchildren, she would have spoilt them rotten without a doubt.She always had a smile and a kind word for everyone and i try to be a little like her if i can , i hope no thats wrong , i know she would be proud of myself and my kids just a pity she isn't here to tell me.

[jaysay]

I lost my Mum 19 years ago this month, still miss her everyday, seems like only yesterday that she would ring me or pop into see me with my father, or I'd call in for a brew, you only have one mother, and like all mothers she was very special

[susie123]

Lovely tributes from everyone.

My mum died in 1978 when I was almost exactly half her age. I have only recently reached the age at which she died. Yesterday would have been her 98th birthday.

At her funeral there was standing only at the crematorium chapel as so any people came to pay their respects. Although she was a southerner, from Middlesex, she embraced Accrington life and its people embraced her.

She was a lively, outgoing gregarious person who loved parties and dressing up in silly outfits to entertain people. How she ever ended up with my grumpy, cynical dad I'll never know but they were engaged for umpteen years before they married in 1940.

She loved clothes and was always well dressed. She played bridge and was a mainstay of the Mechanics in Accrington. She knew all about wild flowers and loved flower arranging, but wasn't a gardener. Interestingly, I hate cards, love wild flowers but not cut flowers and love gardening.

She worked part time as an insurance collector going to people's houses to collect their weekly premiums and walked miles around Accy, Church and West End every week. On these rounds she would chat to people and do little things like help old ladies put in their hearing aids or cut their toenails and other little kindnesses.

Sadly she was not robust, never ever weighed much more than six stone, didn't eat well and smoked a lot, and died of a heart condition in her early sixties.

Since then I have latched on to a substitute mother figure in most of the places I have lived and made some wonderful friends of elderly ladies in that way. There is no one here in Morecambe to fill that role but my 81 yr old cousin who lives in Accrington is the nearest thing. My mum looked out for her when she came to Accrington as a 16 yr old orphan in the forties and they became very close.

I think I have inherited my dad's cynical grumpiness and I hope some of my mum's lively and outgoing personality. Don't know whether that is a good mix or not! Whatever, I wish she hadn't gone so early and could have been around to know that I had settled down with my partner who I had only just met when she died. She was missed by so many people as well as her family and that I think says it all about her.

[maxthecollie]

My mum is very special to me . Without her I would not be here

[accyman]

my mum blessed/cursed you lot with me

[mobertol]

Originally Posted by garinda

As it's Mothering Sunday later this week, I thought we could lead up to it, by sharing a few thoughts about what makes our own mothers special.

Was about to make a list...
First of all thanks for letting me know, I miss it every year as in Italy it's held on the first sunday in May.

Second -boys and their mother's, lovely. Hope mine will be moved to write something as nice about me one day.

Third - am re-appraising mine because of something special that has happened recently. We have never had a bad relationship but it has never been "close" before. She is just starting to get to know me in a new way and seems to like it, which is a blessing and will hopefully continue to improve things between us. We are very different but she is always and always has been my mum.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by accyman

my mum blessed/cursed you lot with me

Well at least you did as she told you when you were growing up

[shillelagh]

what have i not told you before ... i just miss her .. you dont know what you've got till theyre gone ... so look after your mum and dad ... cos you'll miss them like crazy .. even though its 6 years since .. it dont seem that long .. my mum what was so special about her .. she looked after me, made me laugh, made me cry, drove me nuts at times, stuck up for me, clobbered me when needed ... she was just my mum ...

[kestrelx]

My Mama was in the Spice Girls...

[annesingleton]

My mum died in 1979 when I was 24 and she was 51. I had two very small children, my oldest son can just remember her. My youngest son never knew her. I've always made sure she was part of my children's lives by recounting stories about her and looking at family photographs, and my daughter who looks very like her has been compiling her family tree.
I miss her very much especially at times like Mothers Day when I see the lovely gifts I could buy her, and I feel a bit jealous of people who may think they have better things to do.
I learnt an awful lot from her and she had some nuggets of wisdom and an outlook on life which I hope I've been able to pass on.
But I'm now the mother and grandma and although her life was cut very short - I'm older now than she was when she died - I try to make her proud of me.
All I can say is treasure your time with your mother, you don't know how lucky you are.