On the last day I saw my mother, ever, we spoke. We spoke for ages, we planned my life, we talked about hope and we conversed about the one thing she wanted me to remember. She died two days later.
She said…
“you live your life the way you want to…whether you travel the world or stay home and bake, it doesn’t matter…see the world from your kitchen window or from the top of the Eiffel Tower…I don’t care what you do, so long as you’re happy with it”.
She also said…
“nothing will hurt you more than your children growing up…nothing will also make you more proud than your children growing up…”
Then she said…
“you live your life. you don’t have me and dad to have to explain it to anymore so, go for it. you don’t need to justify anything to anyone except yourself…and when you’re not sure, ask your children their opinion…”
And one of the last things she said to me was…
“i am most proud of you because you listen to your heart first, always…it gets you hurt in life and you’ve stumbled more times than my heart could bear…but your heart’s always been right, in the end…even if it did go arse about face…you were always talking to yourself, for as long as you have been alive…and that’s okay…”
(An aside – my folks were criticised, marginalised and hated for living their lives as they saw fit. heck, they were threatened and hurt more times than I can count. But they kept standing up. My obstinance is a side-effect of being born to people who did not give up).
It is for that reason – because of this conversation – that I can take you telling me how you think I should live my life. I can roll with your distinctly uneloquent verbal punches…even if I have to take a moment to step back.
About a week ago, a dear friend of mine sent me a card that reminded me of all of this. She’ll never know how badly I needed to be reminded of all of this. Thank you.