Not cancelled

Christmas was always going to be different for me this year - the first without my mum. As it happens, it will be different for all of us. The new variant of the coronavirus has led the government to slap restrictions on large parts of the country that were not expected. People were already facing the awkwardness and anguish of choosing what households they would be allowed to meet over the sanctioned five-day period. Now those decisions have been taken out of our hands. Some are allowed to meet no one outside of their own household. The lucky ones can meet one other household on Christmas day. I say lucky, but it's a privilege that wasn't extended to the followers of other religions this year. Muslims, Jews and others have had to have lockdown celebrations, sometimes at very short notice. We've been given a bit of notice at least. It's easier for me in that I don't care so much for Christmas. Since my dad died, I've associated it with sadness. For years it was just my mum, sister and me who were thrown together on the 25th. Mum did her best to try and make things nice, but I don't think any of our hearts were in it. I always preferred the days either side of Christmas Day when I could meet friends, get drunk and forget about things. It changed when my sister and I had families of our own. The focus on children allows those of us who are not spiritual to find a purpose in Christmas beyond providing a massive drive for the retail sector. Young kids in particular get giddy with excitement in a way that I can barely recall. It's quite intoxicating and something I shall probably miss when my two become as lackadaisical about Christmas as I am. My wife is the complete opposite of me in her regard for Yuletide. She absolutely adores it, and the pleasure she takes has softened me somewhat and helped me appreciate it a bit more. She has a large, close and loving family who enjoy a get together, especially this one. As such, she has been hit harder by the doors slamming shut on the traditional loosen your stays festive blowout. So this year it's just the four of us, with possibly a friend popping round later on Christmas Day. We will, of course, have our Zoom contacts, which will be something. An interesting aspect of the pandemic is how it has affected communication. We were all in danger of slipping into non-verbal means of staying in touch - texts, Facebook comments, enojis, thumbs up, kudos... Nobody says what they mean any more - we're too busy trying to present our best lives. Not being able to meet face to face for a good deal of the year has perhaps made us appreciate the value of talking to others. Sometimes, as I've sat through stilted Zooms, it has felt like we're relearning how to speak to each other as we're forced to interact in real time, read facial expressions and interpret body language. There's an awkwardness and frailty to our conversations that we can't hide. Everyone has shed a skin. So this Christmas isn't cancelled. It's just different. For some, that will be a good thing, while others will find it tough. Like many things this year, it will make us reassess the normal and everyday, including how we celebrate and how we show our appreciation for other. I don't think we'll be having Christmas in summer, once we've all had the jab, as some are promising. If this year has taught me anything it's that sometimes you make a decision and move on. We cant live our lives looking backwards to see what we might have done differently. Enjoy the Christmas you can, and don't mourn what you can't have.

All this

It's now more than 100 days since lockdown. We may be starting to come out of the other end, or we may simply be experiencing a lull before the next wave. It's been, and continues to be, a strange time. We know it's happening - of course we do, the impact is all around in lives suspended, routines disrupted, and anxieties rising.
And yet, in some ways it's a bit of a phoney war for us. We don't know anyone closely who has been affected. I'm thankful for that. My tank of coping is still running on low after mum passed. This part of the country has not been as hard hit as some, despite the proximity to London. Infection rates and mortality is relatively low. We seem to be on top of it, for now.
But life has changed. The restrictions on us, and warnings are likely to stay in place for a while. The internal hesitancy may last even longer. When will we feel comfortable shaking hands with people again? What about hugging, or kissing? I catch myself watching TV images of behaviour that a few months ago was unexceptional, and bridling at the riskiness of it. And I don't consider myself to be especially subdued by this pandemic. What must it be like for others? As lockdown eases, and support for the most sheltered ends, it will be tough for some people to trust society again.
It hasn't all be terrible though. Family time has been great, and although work has ebbed, the measures that the government has brought in have helped my personally - it would be churlish to say otherwise. Not everyone has been caught by the safety net, but who'd have thought a Tory government would go so far? Strange days indeed.
I've been thankful for the reduction in options in some ways. Naturally indecisive, closing off choices hasn't been terrible for me. I'm happy to be guided in a particular direction at the moment.
Everyone has experienced this their own way. In some ways I've felt slightly apart from it because my focus was elsewhere for so much of it. Losing mum has affected me in ways I didn't anticipate. I've had feelings of guilt that I wasn't there for her as much as I might have been; feelings of loss - probably more than I expected; moments of  anguish as I pondered my own mortality, and... just sadness.
I've been drinking more than I should be and telling myself that it's okay. It's a coping mechanism. And that I can stop when I like, although I wonder. Are there things I'm not addressing?
We're moving on but there's still a fog.

Goodbye

Like many people at the minute, my sister and I had to arrange a funeral in very strained circumstances. It's never an easy thing, I guess - I've never had to do it before. When my dad died, we were both quite young - I had just turned 15 and my sister was 12 - and it was out of our hands.
I've been to enough funerals though to know the form, and currently there are many restrictions in place. We couldn't use the chapel. It was a graveside service, with a limit to the number of people in attendance, which meant my sister and me, plus immediate family. We couldn't even have floral tributes as florists aren't open. No hugging to comfort each other, and at the end we would head off back to our own lockdowns again.
It doesn't sound like much of a send off, does it?
Be that as it may, the stripped down affair on the day was quite touching.
If there can be such a thing as lovely weather for a funeral, then this was it. Sunlit blue skies untroubled by anything but a few fluffy clouds.
I drove to the funeral with my eldest son, who is 12. During the drive we chatted about what to expect. The only funerals he has been to before were when he was a baby. I said that I'd probably be upset, as would his aunt, and that he might be too, and that was alright. But it was alright if he didn't feel like crying - there's no one way to feel at a funeral.
I'd asked if he would read something on the day, and he agreed. We chose a poem suggested by the celebrant - She is Gone, by David Harkins. I asked him because I thought he could do it. He's very composed for his age. I hope he didn't feel pressured to do it, and I told him that if it came to it, and he didn't feel able, then he didn't have to read it.
With little traffic on the road we arrived in the town of Leighton Buzzard with about half an hour to spare, so we sat in a lay by for a bit. No cafes for a cuppa. The we drove to the cemetery where mum was to join dad.
My sister was already there with her partner and youngest son. So was the celebrant, who I had previously spoken to on the phone. We spoke briefly and anxiously to each other, but there was little time to say much to each other before the hearse arrived carrying mum's small coffin.
We followed the car into the cemetery to the strains of The Corries' Loch Lomond playing gently in the background. James, the celebrant, was a very comforting presence and led us gently through a simple service to remember mum. I said some words, getting through it relatively well until near the end when I choked. My son was next to do his reading and I'm immensely proud that was able to carry it out - he grew that day. It was also great to have him as my support - I don't know how I would have got through it without having someone to hug.
At the end of the service, my sister distributed some floral tributes that she had made, with pictures of mum with various family members and friends, and we dropped them into the grave on her coffin.
It was over relatively quickly, and with no hugs beyond the bounds of our two little groups, we went home.
It was simple, and that's what my mum liked, so it was a fitting service for her, even if it wasn't what we'd have chosen ordinarily. In some ways, the simplicity helped us deal with the day better. I think I'd have struggled to face all the family and friends on the day - it's such an emotional tidal wave. People want to pay their respects and offer their condolences, of course they do, and as someone who is grieving, you have to accept their wishes, but every one revives the upset you feel. It's a long and trying day.
This was more manageable for both me and my sister I suspect. We've spoken to family and friends before the day, and had lots of very touching messages, and that was plenty, to be honest. We'll see these people again at some point, and we'll probably cry with some of them individually.
We'll all remember her.

Mum

My mum, Jane, passed away on Friday 20th March. It's convention at times like this to say of the deceased something like, "They would do anything for anybody," or, "They never had a bad word to say about anyone."
Anybody who says this about my mum obviously never knew her very well.
She was fiercely loyal to family and friends, but woe betide anyone who got on her wrong side. She would never forget and could harbour an Olympic sized grudge, something she's passed on to me. Thanks mum.
She was a fierce woman, and a fighter. She had to be.
The youngest daughter in a family of 12, she had to battle for attention and a place at the dining table from when she was wee.
She had to share a bedroom with her five sisters when she was young, gradually getting more room as they left to get married one by one.
As a working woman she also had to raise two children while her husband, John, had to work ever changing shift patterns that left the burden of the care on her.
When my dad died, she had to raise two troublesome and troubled teenagers who didn't appreciate how hard it was for her. They say that you don't know how challenging it is to be a parent, let alone a single parent, until you have to do it yourself. Her lessons in tough love came back to me when I became a dad, albeit tempered by my wife's more relaxed approach to parenting.
The grandchildren were her payback and the best thing my sister and I were ever able to do for her. After probably despairing that either of us would ever start a family, she had a rapid fire introduction to grandparenting with four boisterous boys in the space of six years. Be careful what you wish for.
Did she spoil them? What do you think?
Becoming a grandparent softened her a bit and gave her a new purpose. She moved to Buckingham to be nearer my sister and consequently my nephews saw a lot more of her than my two. I know that my sister is eternally grateful for her help with the boys.
She was a regular feature in their lives with presents, going on holiday with us, and knitting some beautiful items for all of them. Love in every stitch.
Two years ago everything changed when she had a cancer diagnosis. This was a big shock for us all, and the treatment was hard on her. She was incredibly brave in going through the rounds of chemotherapy that she did, but it was brutal. She withstood it with a grimace and a grin, never wanting to make a fuss about it. That was her motto - "Don't make a fuss."
The treatment gave us an extra two years with her, and I'll always be grateful for that, but they were hard won years. She was more frail and less inclined to venture outside. The woman who had always been proudly self reliant spent more and more time perched in front of the telly, her once neat and tidy little house becoming slowly more dusty. She still always looked immaculate in her personal appearance. I guess that was as much as she could manage towards the end.
We talked about getting help for her, but apart from a brief period when she was undergoing chemo, she was stubbornly resistant to the idea of anyone - apart from my wonderful sister - coming in to help her. Even at the end, when she was incredibly weak, she knew what she didn't want, and made the case forcefully.
And in the end, she was in hospital where she was looked after with great kindness by staff who were facing an overwhelming demand as the Covid 19 crisis mounted. They took the time to cajole her to try to eat, and would get a smile out of Jane.
That's my abiding memory of her - smiling and chuckling at a joke she made the last time I saw her. Inevitably it was at somebody else's expense. Oh well. you can't break the habit of a lifetime.
I suppose we have to count ourselves lucky that she passed in her sleep and without great pain. We're not so lucky that her funeral will have to take place in such a trying period. Over the past few days I've heard from lots of friends and family who would be with us on the day, in normal circumstances. But these are nothing like normal circumstances, and it will be a very small gathering at her graveside, where she will finally join my dad, the love of her life.
It's sometimes hard to think of your parents as loving things as we do. My mum was quite an emotionally guarded person, but I know that she loved life. She loved her family, she loved her friends, she loved to knit, she loved to chat, and she loved a scurrilous piece of gossip.
I read once that as your parents get older, the best thing that you can do is tell them you love them as often as you can. I hope that message got through to mum, because we loved her very much and we will all miss her enormously.