My Lovely Mum

I prefer to celebrate the memory of  my parents on their birthdays rather than on the anniversaries of their passing. Today would have been my mum's 95th birthday. This is the last photo I took of her shortly after her 87th. By then she lived in a Torquay retirement home which was 100 miles from where I lived then. I used to visit her about once every three weeks, and it was always a wrench to leave her, although I never considered whether I would see her alive again.

I well remember the day I took this picture, which was in fact the last time I saw her alive. She had been rather unwell and was too frail to be taken out. Instead we cosied up and I gave her a manicure, painting her fingernails with a pretty pink varnish. Then one of her grandsons - my sister's boy - arrived to visit as well, and she was delighted. He was in the photo I took as well, but for this post I edited him out, as this day is just for her.

Now  when I visit Torquay I always try to sit on the seat my sister and I have dedicated to the memory of our parents, who lived there in the same house for the whole of their married lives. My dad was seven years older than mum, and she used to say that she knew he would go first and she'd have to live with that. Strangely she survived him by just that seven years, plus one month. I imagine him waiting for her at the pearly gates and saying, "Come on Win, you're late again." (Her name was Winifred, and Win was his pet name for her.)