My Mum

Last week I blogged about my Dad and this week is naturally about my mum!

Where does someone start to talk about their mum.
As a young girl I looked to this woman, small built but with a strength and character that was simply enormous, and craved to one day be as strong and confident as my mum. I would walk around in her high heels and experiment with her make-up.
As I grew and hit the turbulence of adolesence I could turn to my mum with any one of the million confusing questions that swam around my head, and she would answer them as honestly as possible. To have a mother where no topic was taboo, no subject too difficult to discuss is a god-send to a very mixed up teenager.
My mum is the one responsible for our busy house. Naturally as a mother she worried about my brothers and I, and especially when we each reached the ages of being out all night socialising. My mum combated this worry by allowing my brothers and I an 'open' house. We knew that no matter what time of the day or night we could bring one or ten friends home with us, in all states of intoxication. It was enough to her that she knew where we were and that we were safe, so bringing our friends with us was simply seen as a insignificance. As such we all grew in a busy people filled home, and each have that same desire for our own children.
it is hard to measure what makes a good mother, but surely one whom their children can approach with any difficulties or problems is a mark of success, and this is exactly what we could do with my mum. Not only could we take our own troubles and predicaments, many times we took our friends issues too. We could never understand those children and teenagers who could not take problems to their own mum, or who hid things from them. If they couldnt turn to their own mother, we took them to ours. As a parent myself, I can only hope and pray that I can offer my own children this same sense of acceptance, love and security that my mum gave us.

My mum has the biggest heart of all. She would give her last to anyone, and her life to her family.
My mum is not as confident nor as self-assured as she once was and I wish that just for a moment she could see herself through my eyes, through the eyes of her daughter who has nothing but love and admiration for her and all she has achieved.

Perhaps the true aim of a mother is to provide their children with secure independence whilst always knowing that they can ask for help when needed, and knwoing who can provide that help.
In my darkest hours, both as a teenager and an adult, I am always transgressed back to a little child, and I simply want my mum.
No-ones hugs are as warm and as comforting as my mums.
No-ones words are as reassuring as my mums.
No-one has ever believed in me as much as my mum.

Maybe the measure of a mother is only truly understood when you become a mother yourself. it is as though life suddenly makes sense. I finally understand what she meant when she said she loved me more than life; I finally realise why she made decisions I argued against at the time; I have an awareness of all the sacrifices she made yet hid from us at the time; I can look back with regret and heartbreak at the times I hurt her, knowing now how much it would pierce my heart should my children do it to me. I can look back and say that we were not "The Waltons" but we were lucky and priveleged children to have everything our hearts could ever have desired, and to know that it was all given with nothing but love and adoration is a truly warming thought.

I love my mum and can only hope and pray that I can give my children the same sense of acceptance, love, and security that my mother has given me, and still does.

Thank you doesnt even come close to the gratitude I feel to my mum, for everything and for just being her. My mum berates herself for not being 'perfect' and can focus on negatives at times, she can belittle her parenting. In times like this I wish I could reach in her head and let her see the truth. Let her see that no matter what, she is the perfect mother for my brothers and I because she is our mother and there is no other person the world over I would rather call my mum, and no-one could ever, ever be all that she is to me.

I love you mum, and thank-you.