Remembering Mum...

On my other blog, I mentioned that some time during this month, I’d be paying tribute to a very special lady. I think some of my readers were expecting another post about Julie Andrews Edwards, and that would have been possible, but the special lady I want to highlight this month is my Mum, who died one year ago today, November 14, 2010. How can it possibly be a year since that day?

Some of my readers knew Mum, but many of you didn’t, so I’d like to spend a little while today just telling you a bit about the woman who so shaped my life.

My mother was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but when she was three the family moved to a farm near where her mother had grown up, and where her father had come when he left England as a young man. Her Dad, my Buppa (grandpa) was a real estate agent at that time, and had bought the farm in a “good deal.” The large house had been sitting vacant for some time, and when they got there, every window was broken. It took a great deal of hard work before the house became the beautiful and gracious home that Mum remembered with such affection.

The home Mum grew up in was always filled with music and poetry, and Mum created that sort of a home for me, as well. Buppa (Mum’s Dad) had been a boy soprano in London, and had sung songs ranging from “Cherry Ripe” to “The Holy City”, songs which Mum learned from him, and then taught to me. He sang in the local church choir after they moved to the farm (that town was renowned for its music), but then decided to stay home on choir practice nights to take care of the three children so that Nana (Mum’s Mum) could sing in the choir instead. All three children were musical, and although I’m not sure about Uncle Alvin, I know that Mum and Uncle Gordon both studied voice with a wonderful musician in town, who later became one of the foremost voice teachers in Winnipeg, and with whom I later studied. Dorothy, our teacher, would say to me, “Your uncle used to sing this, so you’re going to sing it, too.” And poetry — Nana loved to recite poetry, and won prizes for her recitations in local festivals. Mum absorbed the love of poetry from her, and passed it on to me. So often over the years, Mum and I would recite poetry together, and it was something that comforted and calmed her during her anxious times in her last years, even when I was simply reading to her over the phone.

Books were an integral part of Mum’s life as well. Mum was very intelligent, and always wanted to learn more, and more, and more. She loved school, and all my life I’ve been regaled with stories about her teachers — Miss Grace Eva Butler-Jones, Mr. Beckstead and others became almost the stuff of legend to me. Reading was always her favorite form of recreation, as well as of learning. Until the last month and a half of her life, when a broken bone in her shoulder made holding a book too difficult, she read for enjoyment and to continue to educate herself. Her doctor marveled at the number of books she read, and when she wanted to learn more about the human body and its workings, he looked through his personal library to see if there were any books he could bring her, then told me very specifically what sort of things to buy for her when all his books proved to be too heavy, either physically or mentally.

People have told me how Mum’s smile of greeting would make them feel so cherished, as if they were the only person that mattered just at that moment. She had grace — a deep-down quiet and calm caring, touched with humor, that made people feel buoyed up and nurtured by her warmth and her interest. She also had a spark of Irish temper, that kept her from being “too good for words.”

I could go on and on — but this is just intended as a glimpse, not a full biography!

For Mum’s 80th birthday I wrote a poem for her with the recurring line “for where you are, there’s music” as she taught me to love music, as well as the music in words. In it, I recall writing “Wind of the western sea will always sing you to me.” That was a reference, made with great love and warmth of remembrance, to one of the lullabies she sang to me so often, Tennyson’s “Sweet and Low.” I found a video on YouTube of a choir singing this. Imagine, if you can, a warm, rich mezzo-soprano voice singing, with her small daughter nestled in her arms…

Thanks, Mum.