The Lady in the box...

Well, here we are again dealing with death and dying; this time dealing with the death of my mum on the 27 October 2010 - just 5 days after the death of Ellie the Deer Hound and just 3 days before her fifth great grandchild (third great grandson), Ruben, was born. As you can probably guess, my emotions have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride since then. In fact, the last 13 months have been rather traumatic, in that my sister (as in 'older'), found out that I was still alive and kicking after believing for 65 years that I was dead and buried; as a 5 year old, she had been told, on her return from grandparents, that I had suddenly died. This was a blatant lie of course, as I had actually been put up for adoption. My mum, who we are really dealing with here was the mum who adopted me and who, prior to my actual adoption, visited the home that my sister and I both shared for just a few weeks way back in 1945 and who just a few months before her death, some 65 years later, met my sister for the first time. I like to think that this meeting was meant to be and was a 'closing of the circle', so to speak. The blog heading 'The Lady in the box', was going to be the given name of my talk at mums funeral but I was persuaded that this might be seen as a bit irreverent by some, so it was changed to a talk based on Primo Levi's poem 'To My Friends'. You can read this poem in my blog called 'A poem for the third age', which was posted on the 28 May 2009. You can find it under the label, 'Poetry corner'. Why 'The Lady in the box'? Well for me, this reflective title signposted the importance and standing of the woman who, along with her husband (my Dad) gave me a home and, to all accounts, a better life than I might have had elsewhere. I guess that all I wanted to do, was to honour her by standing up and saying out loud to everyone present at her funeral -family, friends, acquaintances - that the lady in the box Is my mother.

'A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they're who they've been throughout your whole relationship'.

Rainer Maria Rilke