10 years ago today, my Mam died

It’s hard to believe that 10 years ago today, my mother died. Unexpectedly after having several bouts of cancer over the years but seemingly on the mend after a very recent operation.

March is just a completely dead month to me. Her birthday on the 14th is quickly followed by Mothers Day and then a few days later is the date she died. Then because she died on Maundy Thursday, just hours before Easter, it all happens again as Easter forever moves.

Even leaving flowers by her grave are a no-no in March. Leave them on her birthday and people steal them for Mothers Day. Leave them on her anniversary and they steal them for Easter. It’s pretty low to steal peoples flowers from a grave but it’s happened lots of times and sometimes within hours.

She still comes to see me I know. Doors and drawers open and slam shut wherever I go. White feathers abound and weird things just happen all the time. One I most remember relatively recently is when I was binge watching Squid Games and awake and bored in bed about 5am, I sat there tapping out the music they would go each challenge to every day when suddenly I head a heavy object slide along the top of the cupboard at the end of my bed.

I sat up in bed and stared into the darkness, then a number of antique brass egg cups started to move together and make a ‘clink’ noise to the rhythm and tone of the tune I had been tapping with my teeth. Each time they touched then a yellow/green flash of light lit up the room.

After it stopped, I didn’t hurry to put the light on because these things do happen to me on an almost daily basis. Ten minutes later however I put the light on and the objects that I heard moving, had indeed moved and two egg cups remained touching which is not how they had been for the previous two years.

It’s weird to in all intents and purpose become an orphan in your 30’s. Maybe it’s because in the last 10 years one way or the other I have lost the two most important people in my life, my job, my home, suffered various chronic ill health conditions before being left to die Excluded by the government for 2 years means and album destroying my business in the process I basically just have the feeling I am waiting to die myself.

I suppose there have been a few minor successes. Having four #1 books is something I am sure she would have been delighted with. Creating a booming business for sure and all my political campaigning and being featured around the world would no doubt have made her proud but it’s still being proud for making the best of an absolutely awful situation rather than anything good.

I don’t really have any happy memories of her. Every memory is just a sadness. There is nothing that happens today which would not have been so much better 10 or 12 years ago. Then as now, I only wish I could have said goodbye and told her I love her and give a big hug. I’m sure that many have similar feelings when someone important dies suddenly without even knowing it was a possibility, let alone without the chance to say goodbye.

Life is just a big empty hole, just me and the now largely deserted streets of London. Every day is much the same as another, gaps of 3-6 months between even having a conversation outside of giving tours. I never go on holiday myself from one decade to the next, it’s just been such an awful decade and on the few times something good happens it matters little for I have no-one to tell anyway.

As this post goes out, I’m actually on a train to see a special Excluded friend to give them a copy of my new book which I’ve published today as my little tribute to Mam. I’ve seen quite a few people this year just to say Hi or Thanks but with the publication of my new book, I don’t really have anything else planned or anything I’m aiming for in the future. It all seems a little pointless.

I miss Mam and others every single day. I do hope she is a bit proud of me.