Tag: mother and daughter

My Writing Journey

lizaaitken

Today I got notification that I had published 500 posts on WordPress!  That’s amazing, I would imagine most of them are in the last few months or this year because before this I wasn’t at all serious about blogging.  I started my blogging journey by writing a letter to my mother who was at the time seriously ill with an incurable lung disease.  I was struggling to come to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t be around for too long.  After mum passed away I lost any ability to do much at all, I was frozen but gradually I started to write again.  Writing helps me work myself out, I answer my own questions, change my mind and answer them again.  I like to write poems, some silly ones that make me laugh and some deeper.  I love spiritual philosophy and use my blog to share my own philosophy.

Today I would like to republish my first ever post in celebration of the journey and celebration of my mother who continues to be my inspiration.

My Mothers Love

Mum, I have always written in your cards that I love you with all my heart, and I do, I love you deeply with my whole being. I want to try and explain my love for you but it’s not an easy task talking about an emotion that is invisible yet at the same time tremendously powerful. I have not experienced life without your love so its hard to fathom what that might feel like, maybe a big empty hole, falling forever with no attachment to bind me. Thinking back, I remember you used to say to us as children ‘I love you with all my heart and I did right from the start’. I imagined, as a small child when you said it, you meant the start of time, because that’s how big, warm and safe it felt. When I tell you I love you it does not seem enough, those are words used by everyday people and you are not an everyday person, you are so much more. I could write about my love and appreciation for you until there were no trees left on the earth and a mountain of paper, covering the horizon and blocking out the sun and moon, but I’m not sure I could capture the words, I’m not sure there really are words in this world.

Your very poorly now and carry so much pain and yet you are so incredibly brave, you don’t dwell on that bastard illness, you fight it with that huge spirit of yours. When you first got ill the doctors said at that stage you had no time left, but you were never having that, and went about visualising my sister Laura and I inside your lungs with cloth caps and brooms, sweeping out all the bad, singing as we worked and by some miracle we did it, you improved. We know that it wasn’t really a miracle, it involved the power of thought, coupled with determination, and we know really it worked because of the magic of the love we share. You are so brave, you sing to yourself now to help you to breathe easier and make the pain go away, you tell yourself, believe and sing about how happy and lucky you are. In my minds eye, I can see you stooped and in awful pain struggling as you walk towards Green Lane singing your little song ‘I’m so happy’, it makes me want to cry, you crazy, wonderful, beautiful woman! You see yourself dancing at Claude’s wedding, it’s a long way off but your sheer determination might get you there.

From the day I was born I know without a shadow of a doubt, that you have loved me every moment. I know that you think of me shortly after waking, throughout the day and last thing at night. Your love keeps me safe, I know that you think I am special and I can never really be lonely or lost in any way with your love around me. I can’t describe to you how wonderful it has been to be in receipt of your love, it’s like I won the lottery of life having you as my mum. You have always put me and Laura first, there is not anything you would not give up for your girls and grandchildren, you would go to the ends of the earth and back for each of us. We know you would genuinely die for us, that you feel our pain every bit as much as we do and would willingly carry it for us. It is lucky for all of us that you also share our joy, and our achievements are your best achievements.

Small things give you pleasure, being with your family, being together, sharing a meal and celebrating. I get that now and it is what is important to me too, I wish I had understood that sooner. You have a silly way of looking at us, full of love and pride, it used to embarrass me, now I embrace it. I am turning into you in a little way, I hear you speaking when I speak to my son sometimes but your shoes are too big for me, I could never fit into them. If only I could be as selfless and giving as you, more spiritual and less materialistic. I am trying, as to be a fraction as good a person as you would be amazing.

You are the most giving person and you are gentle and kind, passionate and full of empathy for others. You’re interested in people, not in a nosey way but with concern, you share the troubles and joys of others, you grieve and celebrate and above all try to understand. Your love is as big as the world and as warm as the sun and everybody who has ever known you would agree, we know there is a lot of love for Jean!

I speak to you every day, about six times occasionally but always more than once. We are sometimes deep and meaningful and make sense of the world, put it to rights but often we talk complete mindless rubbish. I know how much it means to you and that talking to your girls keeps you going especially now that awful illness is taking over more and more we are your lifeline and what keeps you going. Mum, I have been meaning to say, you must change that voice mail message, I will help.

I’m frightened sometimes mum, I’m frightened of losing you, of not hearing your voice anymore of not making you laugh. You might have years left, your spirit is still young, but I don’t want to leave it at that without telling you how special you are and how much you have given me. I know that one day you will leave me for a while but you will always be there too, it’s what we believe and we will still talk, I’m absolutely sure of it. You will just be in the next room, the door to that room will not be immediately accessible to me and take me some time to find, but I will find it and you will be waiting there for me.

Your love grows and spreads everywhere, you gave me and taught me empathy and I only work with troubled children now because of the understanding I got from you. You showed me how to reach out to others, really listen and be interested enough to do something to help. How to love, care, communicate and understand the needs of others, understanding the troubles and be there. I’m sure your love is catching and I hope everybody comes down with it. I am blessed to have you as my mum, the children I have worked with have benefitted in a small way because you are my mum.

Your beauty has no comparison in this world, the first sunrise, the deepest colour, the saddest song, and the brightest flower all diminish in your shadow. I was right, there are not words to tell you how I feel, it’s big and warm and makes me cry and laugh at the same time. I won the lottery that’s for sure, I probably jumped a few lifetimes with what you have managed to teach me and the world is a better place for having you in it.

I know that for as long as I live and long after I will be loved by you, and that love comes back at you mum, a million times.

Thank you mum

 

What was your first blog post?

The Chase

lizaaitken

I thought I saw mum, I was ecstatic, I hadn’t seen her in so long.  I ran to her quickly, I was running down a hill to where she stood but didn’t really notice my steps keeping my eyes upon her should she move.  I reached her in no time and instantly I could see I was mistaken, I was distraught.  There was a likeness, defiantly in build and hair style and colouring but she  just didn’t have mums beauty or light. Then as I stood thinking about the comparison, mum ran past a few feet away.  I took chase, knowing as I did that I had little chance of catching her. She flew across the ground and she looked to be heading back up the hill I had just travelled down from. I hadn’t noticed the big stone steps as I had come down minutes earlier. This time it was definitely her, I saw her beauty and light. She was dressed in a brightly coloured costume gown with a fancy head dress upon her head. I fleetingly wondered how she could bare it, she hated anything on her head and that dress was awfully long to run so fast in. The dress was cut out at the back, gathering just below the waist.  I could see it was mum, her tapered back and tiny waist so familiar.  I knew for sure because I had seen her lithe and beautiful body all my life, I had cuddled that waist many times, reaching up as a small child does.  Her skin was soft and shiny and looked to be touched by the sun.  I felt hopeless, she was going far too fast and I had little hope of catching her.  I shouted out for her but my voice got lost in the crowd or didn’t leave me. She stumbled and dropped something, turning and stooping to pick whatever it was up.  I clearly saw her gentle face as she turned.  This was my chance to reach her – I woke up.

The Visit to the Medium

lizaaitken

‘Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny two a penny, hot cross buns’ she sang across the room almost in a whisper. ‘Is there something about Easter I should be thinking of, is it a message of some sort?’ the young woman asked the medium sitting patiently across from her. ‘The thing is I can’t seem to get the tune out of my head, it is like it is on a loop and I can’t think why. I mean it is only January for goodness sake and I don’t believe I have even seen one in the shops yet, surely we have to get through Valentines Day first’. She looked across the room at the spiritual medium she was visiting who was silently smiling over at her. She wondered if she appeared mad, what did she really hope to get from today.

Rosie had booked the appointment on the spur of the moment, she had seen the card on a shop notice board, it had jumped out at her. She took it off of the cork board and slipped it into her pocket hoping she wouldn’t be seen and scurried from the shop to the park bench, where she made the telephone call to Myra. The woman on the other end of the phone sounded friendly enough. She said in a gentle voice that interestingly she had just received a telephone call from a client cancelling an appointment, and yes, although she had been fully booked today this cancellation opened up a space at one o’clock. She went on to say that maybe it was synchronicity, it certainly felt like that to Rosie.

After making the call Rosie began to feel a little nervous, she hadn’t been to see a medium before and today she was going on her own. Why did she even feel the necessity, what was she hoping for she asked out loud.  She scrolled down through her contacts on her iPhone wondering who she could persuade to come along. Exhausting the list of hopefuls Rosie realised she would have to go it alone, she didn’t want to put it off now she had made the call she didn’t know if she would be brave enough again.

Myra was situated just off of Haydon’s Road, in a little cul-de-sac full of red brick victorian cottages. Rosie got there a little early and walked past the house looking up at the windows. The curtains were drawn against the sun at the front which sent a little shiver through her, would the house be full of the spirits of the dead she thought, would she be frightened. Rosie waited a little further down the road, propped against a garden wall until the time of her appointment. At 12.50 Rosie watched as an elderly lady left the house, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue before getting into a waiting taxi.

On arriving, she was shown into a small siting room, Myra told her she used specifically for spiritual consultations. The walls were painted white, but the room was full of colour. Everywhere she looked Rosie could see bursts of colour, from the crystals, ornaments, pictures and statues to the spines of the many books stacked neatly on shelves. A picture on the wall above the medium appeared to draw her in, the colours where quite overwhelming.  Rosie believed could feel the colours in her stomach, she felt a pull that she didn’t recognise. Surprisingly Myra herself looked quite ordinary, nicely painted finger nails, long blond hair and wearing a black dress with a scarf tied neatly around her neck. Rosie had expected something else, a gypsy maybe wearing silk, bangles and beads but Myra looked like anyone else, although admittedly attractive.

Hearing that Rosie hadn’t seen a medium before Myra had explained a little about how she worked. ‘I don’t give predictions my dear, I see and hear spirit and pass on messages from the afterlife’.  She paused a moment before continuing ‘I have had a lady with me all morning and I wasn’t sure who she was, now that you are here I know that she is here for you.  But first I would like to know what you hope to get from our meeting today?’. Rosie wasn’t sure, she had come on a whim after not being able to get the hot cross bun song out of her head, but now she was here she didn’t have a clue as to what she wanted from the session.  Rosie garbled out how she had the song stuck in her head, she didn’t know why.  In fact she didn’t really know what had brought her here today, she had just not been able to stop thinking about it and then the card on the notice board.  She fell silent feeling a little silly and out of control.

Myra began to describe the woman she had with her, it was clear it was Rosie’s mum wearing the dress that Rosie alway saw her in, the green one with the cream spots and the lace cardigan. Rosie listened silently as Myra spoke of memories from her childhood. A tear trickled slowly down her cheek as she felt her mothers love and the words the medium said resonated throughout her very soul. ‘Your mother has a message for you my dear’ Myra said as she looked directly into Rosie’s eyes. ‘She want me to ask you why you don’t speak to her now she has passed, she wants you to know she is really here, that her love hasn’t died and she is with you every moment’. Rosie looked across at the medium, through her mother who stood between them in the small room. ‘I don’t know what to say’ Rosie whispered. ‘I see her all the time, standing by my bed, looking over my shoulder in the mirror and sitting next to me on the bus, but I can’t speak in case she disappears, you see she is in my imagination, she died last year’. Myra smiled gently ‘ oh you really don’t know you have the gift do you, do you not realise it is you mother you see not your imagination my dear’ she paused ‘Imagination my child is made up of the word image, you have to start believing in what you see’. Rosie looked up at her mother, standing in the room between them and for the first time since her mothers death realised she was still here.

There really wasn’t an awful lot more to be said in the session, the main message had come out straight away. It wouldn’t have been right to carry on with a reading they both agreed, well all three of them in some ways. Myra gave Rosie another card with the details of a development group, she told her it would help her begin to understand work with spirit when she was ready and Myra said she would be happy to talk to her if she had any questions. Myra told her she was very happy to have helped today, this wasn’t what she would usually expect on meeting new clients. Myra said ‘you never know what spirit have in store for you’ as she saw Rosie out.

Arriving home that afternoon Rosie put her key on her mothers trinket tray by the door and sat for a while reflecting on the days events, she thought back over the last year, realising at the same time her mother had been with her all along, she hadn’t left her at all.  Later Rosie opened the freezer looking for dinner options, she was starting to feel hungry. There on the top shelf was a pack of hot cross buns, frozen and forgotten. Rosie turned looked at her mother who was standing beside her ‘thank you for taking me there today mum, for putting the song in my head, for showing me the card, we won’t be needing her anymore but I did need to hear the message to really see you’.

My Mother’s Love

lizaaitken

Mum, I have always written in your cards that I love you with all my heart, and I do, I love you deeply with my whole being.  I want to try and explain my love for you but it’s not an easy task talking about an emotion that is invisible yet at the same time tremendously powerful.  I have not experienced life without your love so its hard to fathom what that might feel like, maybe a big empty hole, falling forever with no attachment to bind me. Thinking back, I remember you used to say to us as children ‘I love you with all my heart and I did right from the start’.  I imagined, as a small child when you said it, you meant the start of time, because that’s how big, warm and safe it felt.  When I tell you I love you it does not seem enough, those are words used by everyday people and you are not an everyday person, you are so much more.  I could write about my love and appreciation for you until there were no trees left on the earth and a mountain of paper, covering the horizon and blocking out the sun and moon, but I’m not sure I could capture the words, I’m not sure there really are words in this world.

Your very poorly now and carry so much pain and yet you are so incredibly brave, you don’t dwell on that bastard illness, you fight it with that huge spirit of yours.  When you first got ill the doctors said at that stage you had no time left, but you were never having that, and went about visualising my sister Laura and I inside your lungs with cloth caps and brooms, sweeping out all the bad, singing as we worked and by some miracle we did it, you improved.  We know that it wasn’t really a miracle, it involved the power of thought, coupled with determination, and we know really it worked because of the magic of the love we share.  You are so brave, you sing to yourself now to help you to breathe easier and make the pain go away, you tell yourself, believe and sing about how happy and lucky you are.  In my minds eye, I can see you stooped and in awful pain struggling as you walk towards Green Lane singing your little song ‘I’m so happy’, it makes me want to cry, you crazy, wonderful, beautiful woman!  You see yourself dancing at Claude’s wedding, it’s a long way off but your sheer determination might get you there.

From the day I was born I know without a shadow of a doubt, that you have loved me every moment.  I know that you think of me shortly after waking, throughout the day and last thing at night.  Your love keeps me safe, I know that you think I am special and I can never really be lonely or lost in any way with your love around me.  I can’t describe to you how wonderful it has been to be in receipt of your love, it’s like I won the lottery of life having you as my mum.  You have always put me and Laura first, there is not anything you would not give up for your girls and grandchildren, you would go to the ends of the earth and back for each of us.  We know you would genuinely die for us, that you feel our pain every bit as much as we do and would willingly carry it for us.  It is lucky for all of us that you also share our joy, and our achievements are your best achievements.

Small things give you pleasure, being with your family, being together, sharing a meal and celebrating.  I get that now and it is what is important to me too, I wish I had understood that sooner.   You have a silly way of looking at us, full of love and pride, it used to embarrass me, now I embrace it.  I am turning into you in a little way, I hear you speaking when I speak to my son sometimes but your shoes are too big for me, I could never fit into them.  If only I could be as selfless and giving as you, more spiritual and less materialistic. I am trying, as to be a fraction as good a person as you would be amazing.

You are the most giving person and you are gentle and kind, passionate and full of empathy for others.  You’re interested in people, not in a nosey way but with concern, you share the troubles and joys of others, you grieve and celebrate and above all try to understand.  Your love is as big as the world and as warm as the sun and everybody who has ever known you would agree, we know there is a lot of love for Jean!

I speak to you every day, about six times occasionally but always more than once.   We are sometimes deep and meaningful and make sense of the world, put it to rights but often we talk complete mindless rubbish.  I know how much it means to you and that talking to your girls keeps you going especially now that awful illness is taking over more and more we are your lifeline and what keeps you going.  Mum, I have been meaning to say, you must change that voice mail message, I will help.

I’m frightened sometimes mum, I’m frightened of losing you, of not hearing your voice anymore of not making you laugh.  You might have years left, your spirit is still young, but I don’t want to leave it at that without telling you how special you are and how much you have given me.  I know that one day you will leave me for a while but you will always be there too, it’s what we believe and we will still talk, I’m absolutely sure of it.  You will just be in the next room, the door to that room will not be immediately accessible to me and take me some time to find, but I will find it and you will be waiting there for me.

Your love grows and spreads everywhere, you gave me and taught me empathy and I only work with troubled children now because of the understanding I got from you.  You showed me how to reach out to others, really listen and be interested enough to do something to help.  How to love, care, communicate and understand the needs of others, understanding the troubles and be there.  I’m sure your love is catching and I hope everybody comes down with it.  I am blessed to have you as my mum, the children I have worked with have benefitted in a small way because you are my mum.

Your beauty has no comparison in this world, the first sunrise, the deepest colour, the saddest song, and the brightest flower all diminish in your shadow.   I was right, there are not words to tell you how I feel, it’s big and warm and makes me cry and laugh at the same time.  I won the lottery that’s for sure, I probably jumped a few lifetimes with what you have managed to teach me and the world is a better place for having you in it.

I know that for as long as I live and long after I will be loved by you, and that love comes back at you mum, a million times.

Thank you mum