"The Third Nearly Killed Me"

One of the things I miss most about having my mum around is being able to ask her about when she was at the stage of her life that I'm at now - being a mother to small children. Gosh, how I'd love to sit her down now and have her answer a few questions. Like, were we (my siblings and I) ever this much of a handful? Were we this funny and delightful?  Did we test every single boundary and push every single button?

Last night, I stumbled across a little card in a box of keepsakes. It was sent to my parents when I was born. It was probably one of only a handful - poor, deprived third children don't get as much attention as the first ones, don't I know!!!

Oh, how it made me laugh, that one small line: "Trust you are not too frazzled and have help - the third nearly killed me." Reassuring words from one mum to another. Proof that life and mothering was just as...challenging back in the mid-'70s as it is today.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

A Very Bloggy Morning Tea - Day Five

After a long week of tea, coffee, hot chocolate and sweet treats, I thought we might bring a bit of razzle-dazzle to round off the week. This has all been for my mum - who I miss terribly - and if there's one thing my mum didn't mind, it was a glass or two of the bubbly stuff. If the occasion called for it, even if it was before midday, then she would go stoically forth and pop that cork. Christmas morning, for example, always involved champers. Brunch often could. So A Very Bloggy Morning Tea really ought to as well, don't you agree? Pop!

I've a savoury treat for you today. Did I just hear someone cry "More tarts"? Why, yes, more tarts. Bacon and silver beet, don't you know?

We are so near the target, good people. Please pop over and donate if you were thinking you might and hadn't got around to it. Even a handful of dollars will be appreciated. And do pop back later for our final guest post from a stylish lady with an incredible eye for beauty. Gosh, there's a lot of popping going on.

And before I go, I thought I'd share the little story I put together for the Cancer Council website last week about last year's Very Bloggy Morning Tea. It's what this has all been about. I hope you don't mind.

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My mum rather liked a nice cuppa. 

She was a tea-in-the-morning type, like me. And she used to retire at night with a cup of black tea, always in a fine bone china cup and saucer, always with a slice of lemon. She’d sip on it as she sat up in bed reading her latest favourite book.

During the day, however, it was coffee - good coffee from good cafes. Like me, she ordered a soy latte every time.

Mum died five years ago when the renal cell carcinoma that had claimed a kidney years earlier and returned in her liver, won its brutal fight. She left behind seven grandbabies, three of them - one from each daughter - born in the year since her diagnosis

I never thought I’d be the fundraiser type. I read stories of people who, through illness, accident and loss, are inspired and energised to start foundations, run marathons, climb mountains for a cause. It takes a special kind of person.

But having some friends over for morning tea? That’s easy. That I can do.

Just over a year ago, my little family and I moved out of the city for a new life in a rural village. As keen as I was to put on my floral apron and start rolling out scones in my lovely country kitchen, the reality of my situation then was that I knew about three people who I could invite over. We wouldn’t have raised much money.

But I had a blog and I ‘knew’ lots of people in that virtual space who’d willingly “pop in” for some tea and a slice of cake (or at least a recipe). So I held my Biggest Morning Tea online. Unlike in the real world, this morning tea went on for an entire week. And I had guests showing up not only from all over the country, but as far afield as Singapore, England and Canada. My old Sydney friends came to the party with generous donations, and people I’d never met in real life, and still haven’t, also parted with their hard-earned cash.

Every day there was something sweet to eat, with an accompanying recipe. I showed off my collection of vintage tea sets, some that used to belong to my granny. I gathered together some lovely bits and pieces to give away as lucky door prizes to show my appreciation. And when it was all said and done, and the last teacup had been polished and put back in the cabinet, we’d raised over $1,000 for a mighty good cause.

So what did I learn from hosting my virtual Biggest Morning Tea? That no matter the context, people enjoy a celebration. That if you’re enthusiastic enough, they’ll come along for the ride. That parting with $10 or $20 or $100 in honour of my mum, or anyone’s mum, is heart-filling, not wallet-draining. 

And that just like my mum, people rather like a nice cuppa.

Photo by Briony of Catch Photography.

Caffeine

You coffee drinkers have been waiting very patiently, what with all the tea we've been sharing this week. Today we're all about the real stuff. It's feeling a bit 1981 here this morning, isn't it? These were my mum's best coffee cups. I remember them coming out at the end of many a dinner party (when no doubt I was supposed to be sleeping) after the salmon mousse and chicken cordon bleu had been cleared away. If I'd been true to that theme, we'd be indulging in a chocolate log with our coffee - chocolate supermarket biscuits soaked in orange juice then sandwiched together with jam and whipped cream, the entire concoction smothered with a final coating of cream and doused with chocolate shavings.

Instead, we'll enjoy a small square of rich mocha brownie, circa 2012, on the side of our coffee. I hope you've brought your stitching. It looks like it's going to be cold outside today, so let's stay inside near the fire where we can knit and natter the day away.


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There's still plenty of time to donate to the Cancer Council and win some lovely prizes.

Four Years

Mashed potato accompanied so many of the meals of my childhood - no doubt a symptom of the era as well as the fussiness of the kids being fed. Mashed potato with sausages, with chops, with corned beef and white sauce, on top of mince in a shepherd's pie. One of the first meals I learnt to cook was lamb cutlets, crumbed and fried, with mashed potatoes, peas and gravy. Peel the taties, cut them into chunks, then boil them, drain them and mash with butter and milk.

For all the times my mum peeled and boiled and drained and mashed, it wasn't until a few months before her death that I discovered she didn't actually like mashed potatoes. She was recuperating at my house after an awful and serious operation that bought her a few more months but that no-one had the heart to tell us had zero chance of curing her. I had been trying to prepare easy food she could swallow and stomach, comfort food. One evening I splurged on some lamb cutlets and served them with the obligatory mashed potatoes. Then I watched her push them around her plate. How could I have lived 32 years and never noticed that, for all the times she dolloped the mash onto our plates, she kept it off her own?

Mum had renal cell carcinoma. Cancer of the kidney. They'd removed the offending organ six years earlier and given her the all-clear. But it came back, this time in her liver. I was pregnant with Lola at the time, and my big sister was pregnant with Jack, her fourth. If anything, Mum knew she had to stick around to meet those babies.

I remember it as a year of doctor's appointments and hospital stays, both Mum's and my own. She was well for Jack's birth. Four months later, we played chicken with my due date as she underwent a procedure that left her unable to come in contact with me for four days. Luckily I went over by two weeks, so she was suitably non-radioactive and in attendance at Lola's birth. Soon after we discovered my other sister was pregnant. Mum would become a grandmother three times in a single year, and she had another goal in the living stakes.

As the new year rolled in, Mum's health deteriorated and her care inevitably shifted from gung-ho treatment options to palliative. At no point did anyone say how much longer she might have. My sister made the difficult decision to be induced a couple of weeks early when it looked like time was running out. I'll always consider it a miracle the way Mum seemed to come back from the brink that week. She was like her old self, excited and energetic and well. We were all there at the labour and welcomed that grandbaby, Mum's seventh, into the world.

And then, as though her work was done, she faded away. It was a short illness - a little over a year from diagnosis - and a very quick death. Baby Henry was three weeks old at her funeral. 

Lola was 8 months old. 

Mum was 61.

Yesterday it was four years. Four years since receiving a phone call in the early hours of the morning telling me she was gone. We'd left the hospital the night before, encouraged to get some rest. I had wanted to be there when she died, but I suspect she waited till we left. I arranged to meet my sister back at the hospital and I told her to hurry, as though if we rushed back we might be able to catch the last whisper of Mum before she was gone for good. I'm not sure if we did.

There have been three more grandbabies since then, people who she'll never meet and who will only know her in stories and photos. And, oh, how much she is missing out on and how annoyed she must be. I imagine her rolling her eyes at Pearl's drama, and the way she hovers about me "like a bad smell", remembering a little red-headed girl who used to drive her batty in much the same way. She'd be charmed by Stella, that dark hair and dimpled smile, and perhaps, like me, wonder sometimes if she belonged to someone other than us. As for the twin thing, she'd still be scratching her head about it. I clearly remember the day she said, "Why on earth would you ever have twins, Greer?" after I gave voice to a fear that Lola might be one of a pair. 

As for that Lola, the chubby babe she knew for eight months, how she would be loving watching her grow into a big girl. I imagine their conversations, and can see the look of delight and mock earnestness on her face as Lola recounts a long-winded story in which every sentence has at least four 'actually's, an 'absolutely' or two, and a 'definitely', all rounded off with an 'Isn't it wonderful, Gubby?'.

And Gubby's answer would be a firm and rounded, yes. It is wonderful. 

We just wish you were here to be a part of it all.

Photo by my friend Bri. That's Lola in the pale pink looking...strange.