This weekend, two years after her death, we scattered mum’s ashes into the sea at a few places that have played a part in our lives as a family; Chesil Beach, Swanage and Shell Bay.

Swanage was a favourite destination for several years. We often went there with my nan and grandad (pictured below), and as we stood on the beach on Sunday morning, my thoughts were with them as well as with mum and of all the times we spent together, there on the front.

I’ve always liked the headland behind us in this photograph. It’s one of those features which reminds me so much of the past. The photo below of teh headland was taken by me on a school trip in 1983.

The image below shows the same headland, along with my brother in his dinghy, around 1980.

We then moved on to Shell Bay, another beach which occupies a special place in our childhood memories. The image below is of my mum and my nan on Shell Bay, again around 1980.

The image below, also on Shell Bay, shows my mum in the sea having tumbled out of my brother’s dinghy, and my dad on the beach looking on.

It was almost on that very spot that we scattered more of mum’s ashes, and it was so poignant and quite poetic, to watch the waves coming in to almost gather her up and take her away.

After we lost mum in September last year, I found some old audio cassettes in her attic, one of which was a selection of tracks she recorded with my aunts in around 1975/76. The recordings had suffered a little through many years in a cupboard, but having restored them as best I could, I lifted the vocals from one track and wrote a new backing track. The song is ‘Take Me Home (Country Roads)’ by John Denver, and though it’s just a small thing, ‘collaborating’ with my mum (who is singing the lead) went some small way to making up for the conversations I miss having with her.

This is also dedicated to my Auntie Mo who also passed away in 2022.

After my mum passed away in September I found some old cassettes in cupboards in her attic room and over the last few weeks have been converting them to digital files which I have more lately been restoring.

One of the tapes contains music mum recorded with her two sisters (as M3) around 1975/6. Among the recordings is a version of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home (Country Roads)’ with my mum singing the lead. It was obviously very emotional to hear her and, thinking of the date it was recorded, I couldn’t help thinking of myself as I was back then – a small boy of 4 or 5 years old.

With the audio file converted and restored I then set about isolating the vocals so I could create my own backing track. Having done that I discovered that although the backing had been removed, there remained elements of the banjo bound up in with the voice. The software I was using has been called Photoshop for audio in that it shows the audio file as a spectrograph as per the image below.

The file runs from left to right with the lower frequencies at the bottom and volume indicated through the brightness (the louder, the brighter). Zooming in, one can see different sounds, for example in the image below you can see my mum’s voice (bright at the bottom of the image) with the harmonics in layers above.

Zooming in between the harmonics (for example, between the brighter bottom two layers) I could see the bits of banjo, and, using the software’s brush, could paint these sounds into the background. As a result, mum’s voice (and that of her sisters) was even better isolated enabling me to create a new backing track for the vocal.

Creating a new backing track was great – a collaboration of sorts – but one of the things which struck me was how the act of removing the unwanted bts of audio, like an archaeologist removing dirt from a dug up artefact, was like those moments when grief is suddenly focussed by an object, a sound or a memory and the loved one is remembered against the inexplicable backdrop of their absence. These pointed moments of grief are not simply remembrances of a lost loved one, but sudden realisations, each time as if for the first time, that they have gone. 

Looking at the image above, one can see the yellow lines of my mum’s voice against the noise and silence, bright like those flashes of realisation.    

On Thursday, 29th September, my wonderful mum, Mary, passed away. She was 78 years old and had been diagnosed with both lung cancer and glioblastoma 15 months ago. Throughout that remaining time, she displayed her typical resilience in the face of adversity; carrying on with life as normal and living it to the full. Only in the last 3 months did things become difficult. In June, on Father’s Day, her condition worsened suddenly, and after 3 weeks in hospital, she returned home with round the clock care, where, 3 months later, she passed away peacefully with her family beside her.   

Seeing her in her own home, unable to look after herself was, perhaps for me, the hardest part of those last weeks. Mum was a very independent woman; strong and determined, and the fact she now had to rely on 24 hour care was as tough as it was necessary.

Over time however, that initial ‘shock’ wore off. Aunts, uncles and cousins popped in regularly, to help or visit, which was itself something mum, I’m sure, delighted in. Having such a large network of support, including that of neighbours and friends, was hugely important for me and my brother too, and the team of carers (including those from Sobell House and Marie Curie) were absolutely wonderful.

Because of the glioblastoma (her lung cancer had also matastasised to the brain), she – in terms of her character – was diminished  as the illness progressed, and, just as with someone who has dementia, she had to some extent, already left us before she passed away. 

In those last weeks, it became increasingly difficult to remember what mum was like before she was ill and when people are diminished in this way through illness, it’s often a relief when their suffering ends. That doesn’t mean, of course, that one isn’t, at the same time, desperately sad. But that part of one’s grief is, for a short time, suppressed. 

In preparing for her funeral however, looking at old photographs and watching videos of her performances on stage in the 1980s and 1990s, that diminished part of her – the mum we knew and loved; strong, fun, charismatic and hugely talented – took centre-stage once again, Suddenly, all memories of mum being so ill in those last weeks were gone.

The mum we had lost had returned and, as a result, that sense of relief began its transformation into grief.

I always loved seeing mum perform, and for a couple of shows, I watched her from the wings, enjoying the buzz and the thrill of the whole performance. But it’s only now, as a 51 year old man, watching her performances as a woman in her early 40s, that I can appreciate just how good she was.

The videos themselves aren’t great quality (recorded from a distance on old VHS camcorders and then left in an attic cupboard for 30 years) but despite this, her talent and her wonderful voice shine through. And so, what I’m left with now, in these first weeks after her death, is, coupled with sadness, an overwhelming feeling of pride.