The Daughterhood

by Natasha Fennell

  I listened to my mother. I heard this strong, witty, sharp-as-a-tack woman objecting to the physical realities of ageing. She also struggled with what she saw as the mundanity of life as she headed into her eighties. ‘It’s just completely dull, Cathy,’ she barked down the phone, and I bit my tongue because I couldn’t get my head around the concept of a 79-year-old woman experiencing the kind of boredom my teenage son often complained about. But I let her explain. She told me about how she used to love the spontaneity of life. She had never been a planner. She lived in the moment. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I have to plan everything. Will I go to the shops in a minute or later? Will I have enough time to get all the things I need to get?’ Everything, daily rituals she took for granted, were more of an ordeal now. Old age had taken the freshness out of things.

  My mother talked a lot about her friends during these Friday phone chats. Her friends had always been a very important part of her life. A wide and varied network of people my mother had cultivated over the years. Now they were few and far between but her regular whist outings had introduced her to a new group of friends. Every Friday she had another story to tell. They went on outings to stately homes, trips to food markets and car boot sales. It seemed these women genuinely enjoyed my mother’s company and wanted to be around her. The knowledge of this new group of people outside of our family who were all mad about my mother gave me something to think about. Something new.

  My older sister Lorraine is dying. We found out a few months ago. She has stage 3 breast cancer. She is not going to get better. We’re totally devastated. Having children myself, I can’t even begin to imagine what my mother is going through right now. I want to be there for her through what I know will be one of the most difficult times in her life.

  If Mam was the mothership in our family, Lorraine was the anchor – keeping the family local, never wandering too far from all she knew or, more crucially, from my mother. She went to the nearest college and married her first boyfriend. She will leave behind two teenage children, which doesn’t bear thinking about. Growing up and even into adulthood I’d always been jealous of the relationship Lorraine has with my mother. And now all I feel is sorrow that my mother has to come to terms with the fact that this relationship with her first born is coming to an end. ‘I love when Lorraine comes over,’ she’d say to me. Before she got ill, Lorraine would visit practically every day. She knew how to flatter and cajole my mother in a way I never could. One day I came downstairs as Lorraine was telling my mother some story about a neighbour, a woman who was younger than my mother. ‘I saw her in the shoe shop buying insoles. She looks twenty years older than you, Mam,’ Lorraine said and my mother loved it.

  I’m useless at that kind of thing. It doesn’t occur to me to flatter my mother but it comes naturally to my big sister. And I was never interested in spending as much time with my mother as Lorraine did either. My mother would say, ‘Oh, I haven’t seen Lorraine for two days.’ And I’d give out to her, ‘Do you need to see her every single day?’

  Now I’m so glad Lorraine was that kind of daughter. That my mother knew that kind of closeness with her eldest child. I feel my mother’s fragility more than ever as my sister begins to slip away.

  ‘It’s not natural; it’s not the natural way of things,’ my mother keeps saying. It breaks my heart.

  At the last Daughterhood meeting Maeve talked about her holiday to Portugal with her mother and how she had really enjoyed spending some ‘alone time’ with her. My mother rarely left County Clare and I thought a small break from everything that was going on would do her the world of good. So I invited her for a weekend to Cork, which she reluctantly accepted. I decided for once this visit was going to be all about her. I talked it over with The Daughterhood and I had a clear plan in place. The monthly meetings had made me grow increasingly grateful for the fact that I had a mother to love. A mother who loves me. Flawed and irritating though she can sometimes be. Flawed and irritating as I am.

  I prepped my children before she came. ‘Granny’s coming to visit and she’s going to be the centre of attention while she’s here.’ They laughed. Making a fuss about my mother was not something they’d seen me do before. But I will from now on. And I’m not going to waste time feeling bad about the fact that I hadn’t prioritised it before.

  Graham and I picked her up from the train station. We drove through town, which I knew she would love. Even though her mobility is limited, she still likes to feel she’s seen the sights. At home, when the observations about my house came, I bit my tongue. She talked about the new colour on the walls and a lamp I’d bought, whether it was suitable, and, as she spoke, I realised there was no malice intended. She was just doing her thing. To an extent she has stopped evolving. She comes out with the same lines. About the state of the country and the economy and she enjoys setting out her stall and so what if it’s the same stall she’s been standing at for decades? I had heard it all before. But so what? She still reads two newspapers a day and has opinions on how things are. Those opinions are predictable now but if I get to seventy-nine myself and I’m reading two newspapers a day and still have strident opinions, I’ll be doing very well.

  It’s night time. Mam is sleeping in the spare bedroom opposite our room. It has been carefully de-cluttered for the occasion and there are fresh flowers on her bedside table. I leave the reading light on for her, so she can see her way to the bed. Books are left on the locker because she likes to read. In the morning I go in and I watch her sleeping – this small figure snoring softly, childlike in her slumber, her face so innocent. I love my mother, I think to myself, as I watch her.

  I sneak back to bed. I know that’s what she wants – that morning time alone with my children. If I had my way I would be out there with them, joining in. But this is my mother’s time with her grandchildren and I let them be. Her best time is morning.

  ‘Would you ever tell your mother to bring you to the barber’s? I can’t see your lovely face under all that hair’ I hear her telling my son. And she uses the same tone she always used with me. It’s the tone I use with my children, too. But they just think Granny is being funny and they don’t take her seriously. There’s a lightness in the air.

  She stays in her dressing gown for hours. She is a dressing-gown person. When she comes I have a new dressing gown for her and she takes it back home with her. She’s a woman who likes to go home with something new in her bag. When we left her back at the train station it felt different from other weekends. She had a good time. A good weekend. It felt unforced and I hadn’t sniped at her about comments I didn’t like. I loved her. I just loved her and minded her.

  Two weeks later, Lorraine died. My big sister. Gone. And at the funeral my mother walked behind the coffin linking arms with Lorraine’s husband. The strength etched in that woman’s face, I can’t describe it, except to say it was otherworldly. I can see her now, a few days after the funeral, sitting at the dining-room table, holding a cup of tea, looking out the window. She can tell you where the birds’ nests are and which birds built them and what they are all up to. She sits there for hours. Very still. And when she’s not doing that she bustles around, preparing meals or reading mass cards or talking to visitors who call to talk about Lorraine. There’s a clear delineation. Sitting at the table, drinking tea and looking out of the window is her grieving time, her time for reflection and remembering.

  And then life has to go on and she does all the things that need to be done.

  She keeps telling me she doesn’t need to be minded. She doesn’t want to be told how she should feel.

  ‘I don’t need anybody to tell me what I should think or what I should do. I knew Lorraine longer than any of you. I know how I feel,’ she says.

  I’m full of admiration for her. She is showing the rest of us the way with this quiet, dignified grieving she is doing. I tell her that. I say ‘Well done’ and ‘You are brilliant’ and I remind her, gently, that she has grandchildren and that we are all there for h
er and that we need her.

  And so, if I really am becoming my mother, as my eldest says I am, I will take the annoying parts, the sayings my children will tease me about, the autocratic hectoring of other people about what they should do with their lives. I will take those parts because of what else becoming her will mean. Becoming strong. Becoming dignified. Becoming my mother.

  The Becoming-My-Mother Daughter writes to her mother:

  Dear Mam,

  Do you know what a brilliant mother you are? Let me tell you.

  You reared three children and, you know what, we’re not too bad. We’re nice people. We care for others, have good friends, strong values and take our responsibilities seriously.

  You always reminded us growing up to love each other, to look out for each other, mind each other and never fall out. And we didn’t and haven’t.

  You made our home a haven for all of us and for our friends. It became a Mecca of good company, where everyone could have their say and be listened to. With you in the centre enjoying the banter. Our friends saw you as their friend, ally, and second mother, and, to this day, ask how you are and call to see you, long after we’ve all left home.

  I can’t conceive of how you feel right now. Lorraine is gone. Your little star. I can’t imagine, as a mother myself, what it must feel like to lose a child. It’s not the natural way that it’s supposed to happen. In the last few months of Lorraine’s life you were stoic and incredibly brave and set an example for all of us. I was so proud of you. Only occasionally did the curtain fall.

  Lorraine absolutely adored you and you her. You realised and understood that she needed to know that you would be OK and you maintained this stoic appearance throughout her illness, all the time fading inside.

  And now you sit, looking out the window, expecting her to arrive at any minute for a chat or for her favourite lunch, tea or dinner.

  But it will never be the same again. The spell is broken. The circle of three kids is broken. And you don’t care any more. You minded us for all those years only to lose the star on the last bend.

  I’m so sorry, Mam, and I know that you would happily have gone in her place. I remind you that you need to stick around for the grandchildren. They adore you and have their stories of you that they love to tell others. They need you to stick around and I need you to stick around. We’re still here. A smaller, tighter circle. And at the centre is you. Stay strong.

  Your daughter,

  Cathy

  THE GRIEVING-HER-AS-SHE-LIVES DAUGHTER’S MOTHERWORK

  Alzheimer’s had robbed newly engaged Grace of the mother she used to know. She came to the group struggling with the guilt of not doing enough for her mother and coping with the loss. Here’s how Grace got on . . .

  Mum came to my wedding but she wasn’t there, not really. I remember standing at the altar and looking over my shoulder to where she sat. She had insisted on wearing a flimsy pink slip she found at the back of her wardrobe and it gave her the appearance of a lost little child who had turned up at the wrong birthday party. It was very cold for April and the church was freezing. My dad put his tuxedo jacket around her and tried to keep her from wriggling in her seat and wandering around.

  She was singing to herself as I said, ‘I do’, belting out some rambling tuneless dirge. Outside the church she kept gathering up the cherry blossoms from the ground, throwing them up in the air and laughing. She couldn’t sit still for the meal. My father took her for a drive instead and missed the speeches. Later that afternoon, when one of her sisters took her home, I felt relieved. And then guilty for my relief. What kind of daughter was I?

  When I had told Dad I was getting married, I could see how relieved he was. It was at least one thing in life he didn’t have to worry about any more. I was settling down. I had someone to look after me, is what he was thinking, in his old-fashioned way.

  In a way, my biggest guilt and grief is around my father. What I had with my mother has been gone for five years now. I’ve had all this time to get used to the loss. I worry that I don’t do enough to help Dad. That my one afternoon a week is only a fraction of what I could be doing. He is Mum’s full-time carer. He gets no help and I know he needs respite. My husband is helping me organise this but my father feels it is his duty and it is difficult getting him to see that he needs help with Mum.

  One of the clearest memories of my childhood is being in the bath and my mother soaping my back while singing our favourite Abba songs. When the bath was finished, I’d stand up and wiggle my bottom like Agnetha. My mother would laugh and pretend to be cross. ‘Don’t you wiggle that bum at me, my girl,’ and then she’d bundle me into a huge towel (‘Oh I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I doooo’) and carry me down to the sofa in the front room (‘Waterloo! Couldn’t escape if I wanted to . . .’). It was Sunday night and she’d stick on some children’s choir programme or the Antiques Roadshow. We’d snuggle up together, my mother and I, in front of the telly. My dad would sit in his armchair, reading the paper. My two older brothers would be outside still playing on the green. In my memory there’s a crackling fire in the grate and I can hear the clock on the mantelpiece ticking loudly. There’s the smell of tea-time fried eggs. And the blue shampoo that stings my eyes.

  I thought of that bath when I went to my mum’s house on Monday as usual. I know what to expect now. Her make-up was applied the way I used to put it on my dolls. Electric blue eyeshadow smudged as high as her eyebrows, an ill-advised red slash of lipstick somewhere near her mouth. She had been at the powder puff again, clearly. There were talcy, white smudges on her cheeks and neck. Her hair was matted, stuck to the side of her head and sticking out in comical scarecrow angles on top. ‘Come on, Mum, let’s make you gorgeous,’ I said, and she giggled like a six-year-old at a birthday party. She was going out with her sisters that night.

  I washed her hair as I always do now when I go to visit her. Then I blow-dried it into the bouffant style she likes. As I wiped her doll’s make-up off and applied a more subtle look, I noticed a bit of a smell. It was a hot day. I wondered whether I had applied my deodorant that morning. But the smell was coming from my mother. A sour odour that suggested she might not have showered in a while. The thought of her going out to see her sisters while smelling that way made me sad. ‘Mum,’ I said in the gentle, coaxing tone I use with her all the time now. I have to choose my words very carefully. She can get very defensive. ‘Why don’t you just hop in the shower there? It’s a boiling day outside. You want to be all fresh and lovely for your sisters. All you gorgeous girls together. Your hair is lovely, your make-up is great and if you had a little wash you’d be all set. Wouldn’t a shower be nice?’

  I expected a protest. Sometimes she throws little strops, stamping her feet, like my friend’s toddler daughter. But I must have phrased the question the right way this time because she threw off her clothes and hopped into the shower. I took the shower handset and helped her wash. She poured too much of the orange soap wash into her hand and started singing ‘Dancing Queen’. I got a sponge and began soaping her back, there were bubbles everywhere. (‘Young and sweet only seventeen.’)

  I didn’t bother to try and stop the tears. I was laughing through them anyway. ‘Stop wiggling your bottom at me, Mum,’ I said, but I knew she wasn’t having a flashback to the mid-1970s and tasting the cup of cocoa she always used to give me when she sat on the sofa later, brushing the tangles out of my hair. We will never share a memory again. We will never be on the same page. I’ve lost her. And I am living with that. Every day.

  My Motherwork is different to any of the other women in The Daughterhood. I don’t plan holidays. Or dinners. I can’t even have a cup of tea with my mother, believe me I’ve tried. A cup of tea with my mother is not easy. She sits there wiping the table, standing up, sitting down again, banging the table with a teaspoon, standing up again, dancing around with the full cup in her hand. It’s easier for me if we go out. I try to do it as often as I can. I take her for drives around picturesq
ue places. Walks around the shops looking at clothes she’ll never wear except in her imagination.

  Natasha asked me once about my motivation when I’m with my mother. It was an interesting question. I am motivated by love, I think, most of the time. But the guilt never leaves me. The odd thing is I feel more guilty about my father. When my mother dies I don’t think I will have too many regrets about not doing more with her. Our time together as mother and daughter is over. We clung fast to our relationship when she started to get sick. We made memories that will stay with me for ever. Like in New York, when we stood in Grand Central Station and marvelled at how our voices magically travelled through the whispering gallery we’d spotted in the guide book. ‘Love you, Mum,’ I whispered into the arch diagonally across from where she stood. ‘Love you, too, Grace,’ her voice came back to me as clear as if she were standing beside me, speaking her love into my ear. She loved me. Nobody in my life will ever love me better than she did. Part of my Motherwork is the acceptance of this fact.

  So I don’t think I will regret not spending time with her. We’ve had our time. I don’t think we are missing special moments now. I won’t regret not taking her out. But I worry that I will regret not helping my father more. He is very good about it. ‘You have your own life,’ he tells me. ‘We’ve had our life, now you have to live yours.’ His attitude is that he and my mother had a good life and I should not worry about them. But of course I do.

  I think every day about how lucky I am to have had such a lovely relationship with my mother. I am so grateful for that, especially now. I never had all the passive-aggressive interactions that seem to be the norm for a lot of daughters with their mothers. She was unusual in that way. She never said to me, ‘You’re getting a bit fat there, stop eating bread,’ which is something a friend’s mother said to her last year. Most of my friends have fractious relationships with their mothers. ‘You should try being a size eight for once,’ is another thing a friend of mine gets told by her mother. There is a lot of this really crazy talk, a lot of jealousy and tension. In my whole life I never experienced one single moment of that with my mother. She was exceptional in the way she was always there for me. We used to laugh about it. She was always trying to look after me. It was her mission in life.