Part Six.

December 1st 2021 my mothers 58th birthday. A day we made an occasion of before we put our mam to bed after her last birthday with us on earth.

I have said it a number of times to people I am close too, but that evening I sat on my bathroom floor after a wonderfully beautiful, magical day & cried.

It was at that point I finally realised how most mothers felt when they say “I’ve put my baby to bed for the last time as a baby .. they’ll wake up a one year old in the morning.”

December 1st 2021, I put my mam to bed as a 58 year old women, knowing she would never have another birthday ever again.

The realisation that I had sang happy birthday to her for the last time ever, & kissed her birthday kisses that I would never be able to kiss her with again, bought her a birthday card that she would never have again.. I wasnt ready for that.

But I don’t want this blog to be about sadness .. In the midst of our darkest times we wanted to make mam the spotlight.

Our queen deserved every inch of effort we could put into her special day & we made sure to make a fuss. Its really hard to put this into perspective but it was really difficult to buy mam anything for her birthday because truthfully there wasn’t much she needed at all. As grim as it is to say, nothing we bought her she could really “take with her” & at this point of her illness she wasn’t really making use of anything at all.. regardless, she was truly spoiled.

Francesca & I dressed her bed with new Christmas bedding, Christmas pillows & ordered matching PJ’s. We had red & white ballons either side of her bed, lights sparkling & pictures of us as a family draped across her headboard & a Christmas tree at her bedside.

Each of which which all complimented the Christmassy red theme we had decided to go for to mark this milestone properly.

Family & friends had time slots to visit, to ensure the district nurses had their adequate time to attend to mam & we really didn’t want to overwhelm her .. but truthfully she was so upbeat this day, she lapped up the limelight.

Myself & my sister prepared a little tea party, I had freshly made Welsh cakes on the bake stone, buckfizz in the fridge waiting to be poured & my Grampa had ordered mams favourite cake. (Coffee & Walnut for anyone wondering)

The hours passed by so quickly, it was so hard to actually take in all of the aspects of the day.. but a real stand out moment for all of us was when we dressed Max up in a Santa hat, red sparkly dickie bow & red Christmas socks.

Mams face was electric, her little hands clapped as she lent forward assisted in her bed as she said “awh he looks so cute”. 🥺

She was surrounded by love & her best friends & family, & it was just a picture perfect moment. It was exactly the reaction we had hoped for.

A pair of £1 dogs socks from Asda has given me simply one of the happiest moments of my life. Whilst mams group of friends “The magnificent 7.” were sat downstairs enjoying their tea, my sister & I took this time to read our birthday cards to mam.

One at a time we read out word for word what we had written in our Moonpig card & we decided to record our reactions. Still to this day I have not watched the videos back.

Dad, had been in his office and joined us after hearing a few little tears. He also filled up with us then too.. It was difficult to know at that time whether mam understood word for word exactly what we were saying because during this stage of her illness she was very confused, she had not really been taking any of her medication other than her daily pain relief but this also added to her being muddled.

However, I do know she must’ve felt love that day because I certainly did.

I felt the outpouring of love that my mother had received, not just from family and friends but strangers. Even the district nurse team brought her flowers, every vase we had at home was filled for weeks.

Vases that have laid empty since mams been gone.

Singing Happy birthday to our queen, with a room full of her children, husband, friends , dad , brother , sisters , son in law & friends was the pinnacle point of our day.

I have a screen shot of dad & mam kissing at the end & I look at it often, I see love in it.

I also see how much mam holds onto him.

Magically, we ended mams birthday as a family of 6, mam had found the strength to make it downstairs for the first time in weeks.

She sat on the sofa & we did as we usually did for her birthday, ordered a Chinese from Sammys and sat around the table & ate as a family of 6. Our last meal together.

If mams illness has taught me anything at all, it’s that birthdays are a blessing, turning a year older is a gift that some people are often robbed of & we must embrace the opportunity to have another year of making memories & mistakes, laughing , being loved and loved in return.

I know for sure I will always have this outlook on life & I hope that others will too.

For years my mother was a midwife and numerous times I’ve had the pleasure of being sent beautiful stories & pictures of how she helped bring numerous little people into the world .. Some who may even be reading this.

My top tip to them or anyone at all, make the days count instead of counting the days.