My dear Nan,
I wanted to wish you a happy Mother’s Day, even though you’ve not been with us for a long time. When I was little, I used to come home from church with a daffodil for you. In later years it was a phone call, and when I became an adult it was lunch in our favourite greasy spoon.
I miss sending you flowers every month; I miss our phone calls.
The Mother is awakening now, Nan, and so is the Green Man. Already they have awakened the wildflowers in my garden. You always did love spring, where you could get wrist deep in the soil to plant something new and wonderful. I used to love helping you – be it planting new bulbs, sowing new seeds, or helping you to prepare the new spring vegetables from the allotment. If I can ever walk unencumbered again, I think that I would like to rent an allotment. I would grow cauliflower, runner beans, beetroot, broad beans, broccoli – all of your favourites! I’d keep tools, a kettle, a nice big mug and my favourite tea in there. Yorkshire, probably, since that’s proper tea for a hard-working person.
Ah, you’re wondering how I’d cope with the spiders in the tool shed now, aren’t you, Nan. I got over my arachnophobia a long time ago. I keep tarantulas, and I always have leftover live food that I could offer to spiders in the shed. You would be so proud of how I fought that phobia and won.
Happy Mother’s Day, my dear Nan. Perhaps you’re not here physically, but you remain. I love you.
Until we meet again.
An Accident In Space And Time 