As many of you know, our mom battled through a lot of illnesses in her life and bounced back each time... heart attack, breast cancer, diabetes, that weird eye thing and eventually dementia.
Probably the most important notion that our mom instilled in us growing up was the importance of family, we were always surrounded by aunties and uncles, sometimes it seemed they were coming out of our ears. It wasn't until later that we learnt many of these weren't actually related to us, but by that time it wasn't important, those people were family to us and as the years have rolled on they've remained that way.
Though she was family oriented, my mom was far from soft. Growing up she ruled with an iron fist, especially in the 80s when she worked stacking frozen food at Asda and was built like Goeff Capes! As hard as she was on us I'll always remember when a neighbour came knocking on our door to complain about me and my friends misbehaving outside their house, my mom told them where to go and I remember realising maybe for the first time that she had my back!
They say the houses you need to be worried about are the quiet ones, well that was never a concern in our house. In fact it was a wonder Joan and Mick next door in Kinross put up with us. Numerous times I would be woken to the morning chorus of 'Gettttttttt Uppppppp!!!!!'. There was one particular day when they had taken us to see ET at the cinema in West Bromwich and the queue was so long that we didn't get in, I remember back at home, me and Lou crouching on the stairs like in a sitcom as the pots and pans flew. Whilst there were many a raised voice it was a house of love and happiness.
It probably wasn't till me and Lou were teenagers or maybe even later that we realised how much fun and as much like us our mom was. As well as this she was always so welcoming with any of mine and Lou's friends, many of them enjoyed coming to ours just for the welcome they would receive and an invite to the dinner table. Of course we took that welcome to the nth degree and often a bit over the mark. We did have to be careful when bringing friends back, not because they weren't allowed but because you could never be sure if either of our parents would have clothes on! There was one time, luckily on my own when I walked in on them both half naked in the bathroom. They fell about laughing and it turned out they were just dyeing my dads hair for one of the many murder mystery parties they went to!
Me and Louise have inherited a fair few traits from our mom. Like us she was a night owl, often at Christmas you would hear 'it's midnight, we'd better put out the buffet'. She was a pretty good cook and she's certainly passed on her passion for cooking to her children. Sometimes if we didn't like what she'd cooked she would give us the option of 'shit on toast' or 'shit with eggs on'?
She hardly missed an opportunity to tell you that she worked in a record shop when she was younger and though we didn't really share a taste in music she told me that she loved being given random music requests for Christmas presents and enjoyed challenging the staff in HMV on their knowledge, each year I would have to up my game to see if there was something she couldn't find.
As we left home and started our own families, along with my dad there was nothing they loved more than to visit. I remember taking them to numerous restaurants in London and my mom always knew how to be comically inappropriate, such as when she accused a waiter of spitting at her, or barging through a crowd of rowdy Pixes fans in Brixton station.
If we needed them they were never far away, when I was run over by a car they were there like a shot... and just as I was having a catheter fitted, through the excruciating pain I could hear my mom ask in the hospital... 'what do you think about this colour for the bathroom Tony?'.
Then the grandchildren came along, she and my dad were first on the scene. It's good that she got to enjoy time with all five of her grandchildren... Joshua, Natasha, Jackson, Fox & Leila, I know they all loved her and learnt some new songs and sayings from her, such as delicioso and slippery, slippery sloo!
So if I have to talk of the legacy my mom has left behind... it would have to be a precise sense of timekeeping. Many a time me and Lou would be sat in the car for 40 minutes or more and she'd still find something to go back for!
Of course the real legacy that she has left behind is that notion of family that I began with. No matter who, what, why or where if they're important to you and yours then they're family, and that's what I take from her and how she will live on
Richard & Louise x