Remembrance is important when we’ve loved and lost someone. We can use it to help us heal. To remind us of the good times. To enable us to move on with our own lives. Some visit a grave or special place. Others light candles, dedicate benches or plant trees. We all have different ways of doing remembrance. In memory of my mum and dad, I have a pot and a dry stone wall.
Trundling past a cemetery on a (very slow) train out of Victoria recently, I glimpsed a young man earnestly addressing a gravestone. He needed someone to talk to. And only one person would do. That person was under the ground in front of him. I guessed that it was his wife. And that standing at her graveside was the closest he felt he could get to being with her.
One of my friends lost his mum a decade ago. He found it difficult to come to terms with her death. Her ashes are scattered in a crematorium garden amongst the roses. He finds it a peaceful and uplifting place to go when he wants to remember her. He especially likes to go on the anniversary of her death.
The school where my dad taught dedicated a bench to him. It sits in the school grounds. I loved that they thought enough of him to do that. But I’ve never visited it. I often see people on these special benches. And wonder what they are thinking. Perhaps they are faced with a difficult decision. And are trying to fathom out what advice the person whose name is on the brass plaque on the bench would have given them.
Some people commemorate a parent, a spouse or a sibling with a post on Facebook. Sometimes I sense enormous sadness in these posts. Other times they feel like a celebration of the person's life. Writing (as I know from experience) can be a very therapeutic way of grieving.
Andrew Carter was 33 when he collapsed during the Ealing half marathon in 2014. The heart attack that was to kill him a few days later happened during the final mile of the race. His family have set up a charity “Memorial Mile” running event in his memory. It’s their very personal way of remembering him.
What started me writing this post was my cousin sending me an email this morning saying “I can’t believe it’s two years since Margaret passed away.” I had completely forgotten that it was the anniversary of mum’s death. I haven’t forgotten mum, obviously. I think of her every day. But her death date isn’t something I’ve marked.
Instead, I have this pot (the one in the picture)! The pot came from Cornwall. From a pottery mum and her friend Audrey visited during their twenties when on holiday in St Ives. It was made by Bernard Leach who, according to mum, was extremely talented and famous (and indeed - I’ve just googled him – he is the “Father of British studio pottery”).
I always thought it an ugly little pot. Dull in colour. Bland in shape. Altogether, a bit of a nonentity. When I was about 9, I bought mum a cheap, brightly painted pot because I thought she might like something nicer. She was very grateful for my gift and kept my pot but admitted many years later that it really wasn’t a patch on her Bernard Leach.
Mum and I had an ongoing joke about the pot. Since I had no appreciation of its classic beauty, she’d say, she would bequeath it to someone else. “Go ahead,” I’d say. “If you don’t, I’ll sell it. One thing’s for sure, it won’t be sat on my bookshelf after your days.” When mum moved into the care home for palliative care, it was one of the things I took from her house to make her feel at home there. We had another laugh about it then. Even though, by now, we knew her days were numbered.
When she died, I took that pot home and put it on my bookshelf. It is one of my most treasured possessions. Every time I look at it, I remember the jokes we shared and it brings a smile to my face. As I’m sure it would to hers if only she knew where it had ended up!
With dad, it’s the dry stone wall. The components of the dry stone wall come from South Wales. When I was a child, mum, dad and I visited the Rhondda Valley frequently. Dad had grown up there and his aunt (who had brought him up) still lived there. During our visits, dad and I would go up the mountain where he’d played as a child and collect as much Welsh slate as the Triumph Herald’s suspension would stand. Then transport it back to Winchester. After several years we’d accumulated enough for dad to build something that resembled a dry stone wall along the length of our driveway.
When I was clearing out the family home just before mum died, my friend Roy took me to Winchester so that I didn’t have to bring all the things I wanted back by train. “So it’s these boxes on the kitchen table, then?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. “Those and the wall.” I only wanted to build a miniature version luckily for Roy’s suspension, so we stuffed the slate into a load of old pillowcases and he drove it back to Ealing. I rebuilt the dry stone wall on my balcony. For dad, the slate represented where he’d come from. He was proud of his Welsh mining heritage. To me, it calls to mind one of the most bonding experiences of my childhood - sharing his mountain with him.
Maybe I prefer the pot and the wall to a grave or a bench because they are more personal to my parents and the relationships I had with each of them. When I look at them, I remember mum’s sense of humour. Dad’s Welshness. I feel uplifted. Happy to have had these two amazing people as my parents.