16 Years Ago...

To this day, 12 January 1991, my mum died.

I was only 13 at the time and as a result, I have to confess, I don't have that many active memories of her. I mean I remember her and everything, but they're more flashes of moments, of sensations, or conversations than anything else. I don't have a full-fledged minds-eye image of her... and that was the thing I feared the most when she died, that I'd forget her. Now I'm older and have lived more years without her than with, I find that more comforting than anything else. I may not recall the sound of her voice or what she smelled like, but I do remember, very vivedly, what it was like to be with her.

I think I find that comforting because my precise memories are much more of how I was a dick to her, than of her being nice to me. My dominating memories are of how unsympathetically I reacted to hearing she had Leukemia, or of making her cry during the school holidays circa 1986, or how, critically, I chose to go swimming on the day she died, not go and see her in hospital.

I don't have guilt. I was a 13 year old boy going through a rough time and, overall, I handled it very well, but my memories naturally lean toward the negative. We had a great relationship - that much I which I am sure - and while I may have only a handful of moments that remind me of that, it's all I need.

In hindsight it's very easy to wish you had an adult mind throughout your childhood - those ex-girlfriends would be rationalised, those significant moments seized, those bullies put in their place - but the truth is you did't, and it is those experiences, good or bad that form you. When my mum died I became an adult very quickly. It established my healthy attitude towards death, it made me a stronger person and it, crucially, formed my character. I don't look upon her death as a terrible thing that happened to me anymore, I look at it as one of the many good and bad things that's happened to me during my life.

Normally I make a point of remembering this day, of taking a few minutes at 1.21pm to just sit down and raise a glass to her, but this year I forgot. It's not like I forgot forgot - I knew it was coming up, obviously - but this year it wasn't all prevailing, as it is normally. I didn't remember until late into this evenings shift. I don't feel too bad about that - it was a busy day and I was distracted - but I can't shake the inkling that forgetting this year is the start of another stage of forgetting... the kind where it slips into the back of your mind and it takes more and more to remember each time. I wouldn't like that.

This has been an unusually personal post for me. My apologies to those who found it to be cringingly embarrassing / too much information and / or a reminder of why heartfelt confessions really should be best kept in the head. I've found it quite cathartic, personally, and I never really understood the point of writing something if it wasn't going to be read. Warts n'all.