This is the Lady – My Mum

Mum

I have written about my Pop but not Mum…so it’s her turn tonight.

This is the English Rose at my daughters Wedding 3 years ago.

This is the lady who says now she’s not beautiful & that growing old means people “look at you as though you are stupid or they don’t understand you, or have patience for you”.

This is the lady who gets frustrated by not being able to do what she did in her younger years.

This is the lady who suffered a fall a couple of years ago and now has difficulty walking (one of my little penguins).

BUT  This is the lady that brought me into this world.

This is the lady who held my hand to cross the roads.

This is the lady that looked after my children, so I could work.

This is the lady that took care of me when I was sick, or had a bad back & couldn’t tend to my daughter.

This is the lady who has supported me and my family with her unconditional love & affection.

This is the lady whom I have laughed with and shared tears with.

This is the lady that I have argued with & fought with.

This is lady who can say a sharp word or two to me if she feels the need.

This is the lady who has shared so much love for other people.

This is the lady that has such a good and giving soul.

This is the lady I look up to & admire for her strength & her courage to leave her home of England and come to Australia for a better life, knowing that breaking away from her parents was the hardest thing she could do.

This is the lady who has shown so much commitment and unquestionable love to my father.

This is the woman that lays Pops clothes on the bed of what he is to wear every day and continues to do so, because she thinks he can’t colour coordinate (though everything is beige) 🙂

This is the lady who bares no grudges towards anybody.

This is a lady who was told she should start her own cake business as she is a brilliant cook.

This is a lady who held ‘simple’ dinner parties for 20 people without blinking an eye.

This is the lady that was a brilliant hostess.

This is a lady that went back to work, standing on a cold concrete factory floor to work on a production line so that she could save some extra money to take my brother to England for a visit to see his Grandparents.

This is the lady that will have glassy eyes when helping Pop up from his chair.

This is the lady who lost her youngest son eight years ago and bares the grief silently within her heart.

This is the lady who has been a loving & giving person not only to myself but to her grandchildren.

This is a lady with so much pride & strength that sometimes I think she forgets that she has any.

This is a lady that looks at us with love as only mothers can.

…Yes we may have ‘words’ now and then…we are Mother & Daughter.

…Yes we may not often see eye to eye on things.

…Yes we are both different ..but in so many ways so alike .

…Yes you have grown older..but I have too.

…Yes I am proud of you, admire you, value you, adore you.

… Yes but most of all I AM THANKFUL that you are my MUM & I treasure now more than ever having you with me still..

So do not think for one moment that you aren’t beautiful because my darling English Rose YOU ARE NOW and always will be to me…

I LOVE YOU

xxxxxxxxx

Age 50? – Part 4

“You have more compassion, more acceptances, for yourself and other people. You are no longer shamed by your own humanity. You learn to see the humor in your own foibles”.

It depends on the nature of the person. I hopefully am more tolerant now of those whom I had found fault with. I do see the humour in my own inadequacies but at the same time (sadly) I can be extremely frustrated by them.

“I’m definitely not the same person my mother was at 50! With the knowledge we have now, the sky’s the limit”.

I know I’m not the same as what my mother was at my age, but then again it is hard to remember back some twenty plus years ago, (for me it’s not possible). Granted there are more opportunities, more doors open in respect to work, more challenges that I can take on than there were back in my mother’s day. I do not know if she felt that the sky was the limit and if it was, did she want to reach it or did it not hold such importance to her?

“There’s something really bracing about being 50. You realise how young you are. And you realise how much more to life there is”.

Have I realised that I am still in fact young? Occasionally, I know I have quite some many years left (with the grace of any higher being) but it boils down to what I choose to do with his time. Does bracing mean daunting or scared of what actual time we have left; therefore we should now be embracing every second?

“You look forward to meeting your grandchildren. When that happens, it will be the best thing of my life”. 

Agreed, I so long for the day (much to the girls annoyance), when they have children of their own. Though I am very contented with what I have, I long to be a grandmother. I miss babies and nurturing, my only fear will be that I have to learn to let my girls raise their children the way they see fit. The last thing I want is that I turn into a possessive and overbearing grandmother.

“A woman over 50 knows the value of celebrating life. She’s sizzling, not fizzling. She’s savvy, not sad”.

Sizzling? I have my moments, but equally there are moments of fizzling to accompany them. Savvy? I consider myself reasonably worldly but again I have moments of utter stupidity! 

In summarising, it’s seems to be the general consensus that once you have reached the age of fifty you will rely more on your own self worth, that you don’t feel that you have to be answerable to anyone any longer. You have reached an age of acceptance within yourself and if others do not agree with how you live your life, you don’t have to justify your actions to anyone, or perhaps not as often as you did when you were younger.