Friendships

Like many women in their fifties, i have had many friendships, many more acquaintances, but only three best friends in my long life! Friendships do come and go, often, we over associate with old friends to maintain the connection of our joined history. As a child, i did have a best friend at infants school - her name was Heather - she lived on Valencia Road near Picton Clock but left after Top Infants to attend Belvedere School. I suppose i went through school in a bit of a daydream - so much drama was happening at home with my mother and father arguing daily (which i thought was completely normal) - then being sent to my sister most weekends in Woolton, then Leigh, then Skelmersdale - i didn't really feel very "connected" to other children at school. In the midsummer of 1974, my mother moved to Shaftsebury in Dorset. She secured a nursing post running a district nursing service - she had looked at a map, and felt that it was near Bath, Avon, which is where her second husband had taken my half brother. I knew nothing about it as usual, i was put on a train to Bristol, I dont remember saying goodbye to my father, (who remained at the Liverpool house) - they were divorced by this time.... and mum's second husband ( My dad was the third of five), collected me from Bristol train station and took me to Bath. I was used to going to spend summers with him - i called him "Uncle Joe". I recall going to a junior school in Bath for a week, then my mum collected me, and took me to a B&B on a farm in the Countryside - I then attended the village school for the remainder of the summer term with the farmers son and we were in the same class, though he was two years older than me. My father came for us and we came back to Liverpool at the end of August. I was told that mum couldn't sell the house - my dad had painted the hall white and it was so bright as i walked in. Back at the local junior school, i simply moved up to the next class - nobody seemed to ask any questions - maybe they did, but i was not made aware of it. High School was the same, i was friendly with children, i was the "sporting third" in any given group - i wonder if i really knew how to be a friend - nobody was allowed to come home for tea or a sleep over... It was an odd childhood existence really, i was always friendly with other children, i found i could make them laugh - something i have always relied upon as a coping mechanism, but, on reflection, i was very mixed up, lonely and unhappy underneath. I learned to hide it well, as mum would say i was selfish!.... "after all ive done for you how can you be unhappy??" a wallop or something thrown at me would follow... Whilst seeing Uncle Joe and my brother Tony, i had friends in Bath - Zoe and Leah and i spent many summers with them - all ancient history now, but i remember those times clearly. Friendships came and went in Liverpool once i became more aware of what they entailed and how to keep in touch with friends without my mum sabotaging them - i found them unique really, and my first real friends were Ondrea and Carol. Ondrea lived in the same road as me, and her mum, like mine, was divorced. In the mid 1970's, very few families had divorced parents, so my mum, and Ondrea's mum, (Josie), stuck together and forged an unlikely friendship that lasted from their thirties until my mum died last year age 90! Carol was very sensible, we went to junior school together, and although we went to different secondary schools, we remained close friends as we attended youth group and Brownies, then Girl Guides and finally Rangers together. After i left home for London, we stayed in touch on and off through our parents - Carol's mum lived in the next road so we would try and plan visits to coincide with each other. We remain friends. My third best friend is Nikki. Nikki and i became friends due to our children having difficulties at school. Our friendship is unique also, because we needed each other. We chose to become friends, to enable each other as well as our children. We worked together, holidayed together and have a friendship that has endured my marriage breakdown, my moving 250 miles away, but we remain close friends. These friendships often begin in the playground or nursery with your children, and because you want your children to be friends, they endure. Some friendships change as we grow older, but with my friends, there remains a consistency. In the hierarchy of relationships, friendships are at the bottom. Romantic partners, husbands/wives, parents, children - all of these relationships come first. Unlike the more formal roles of family relationships, friendships lack a formal structure - with friendships, you make up the rules as you go along - i have friends whom i have not contacted for months, but i know if i call them, i will talking to them for hours as if we have not spent time apart... Our lives are busy that it can be difficult to make time to keep in touch on a daily basis, but that should not deflect from the bond of friendship. People want three things from friendship:- Somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy. These expectations remain the same, but the circumstances under which they’re accomplished change. The voluntary nature of friendship makes it subject to life’s whims in a way that the more formal relationships aren’t. In adulthood, as people grow up and move away to start their own adventures, friendships are the relationships most likely to fail. You’re stuck with your family, and you prioritise your husband / wife / family / mother. However, where you could pop over to Carol/Nikki/Ondrea's house to see them, real life now gets in the way, and you find that they are busy - particularly now we are all in our fifties - our children are grown but some have not flown the nest yet, and parents are now taking up much time. The fabulous thing about friendship however, is that friends are friends because they want to be - they choose each other - from school, to old age, friendship continues to give health benefits both mental and physical. My mothers friendship with Josie - Ondrea's mother, endured over 50 years - they laughed, argued, had fun. During young adulthood, friendships become more complex and meaningful. In childhood, friends are mostly other children who are fun to play with; in adolescence, there’s a lot more self-disclosure and support between friends, but adolescents are still discovering their identity, and learning what it means to be intimate. Their friendships help them do that. In adolescence, people have a tractable self, they change so much between the ages of 16 - 23 - By young adulthood, people are usually a little more secure in themselves, more likely to seek out friends who share their values on the important things, and let the little things be. Friendship networks are naturally denser when you are a young adult - i left Liverpool and moved to London to attend nursing college and university, You spend so much time living and working in that environment that many friendships are made. As we enter middle age, it is more difficult to manage friendships - there are more demands on time - with work and attending school plays for children and grandchildren that take up time rather than catching up with friends. As we move through life, we make and try and keep friends - Some of us make friends wherever they go, and may have more friendly acquaintances than deep friendships. Others are discerning, meaning they have a few best friends they stay close with over the years, but the deep investment means that the loss of one of those friends would be devastating. The most flexible are the acquisitive—people who stay in touch with old friends, but continue to make new ones as they move through the world. Some people do manage to stay friends for life, or at least for many years - my mother used to say "I wish i had a Nikki" - i am so lucky to be able to maintain this friendship... but what is it that predicts who will last through the maelstrom of middle age and be there for the silver age of friendship? Whether people hold onto their old friends or grow apart seems to come down to dedication and communication. The more you’ve invested in a friendship already, the more likely you are to keep it going. There are different levels of maintaining a relationship, and digital communication works better for some than for others. The first is just keeping a relationship alive at all, just to keep it in existence. Saying “Happy Birthday” on Facebook, liking an instagram post, emailing - these can keep relationships going but only mechanically - Next is to keep a relationship at a stable level of closeness. Social media makes it possible to maintain more friendships, but more shallowly. And it can also keep relationships on "life support" that would (and maybe should) otherwise have died out. What is completely bizzare - is facebook - the fact that i have Heather on my facebook, who i was friends with when i was 7 years old and have not seen since, but i have no connection to her current life - and going back forty plus years is now on my facebook - weird when really, in normal life before the internet, apart from living in Valencia Road, she should be a memory to me - why would i care about her children winning a cup in the sports day at school - She actually does not have any children, but why should i know that? - in this era of mechanical friendships with facebook and prior to this with Friends reunited, these very old childhood relationships have never timed out because they are there in our newsfeed though should really be a memory. By middle-age, people have accumulated many friends from different jobs, different cities, and different activities, who don’t know each other at all. These friendships fall into three categories: active, dormant, and commemorative. Friendships are active if you are in touch regularly, you could call on them for emotional support and it wouldn’t be weird, if you pretty much know what’s going on with their lives at this moment. A dormant friendship has history, maybe you haven’t talked in a while, but you still think of that person as a friend. You’d be happy to hear from them and if you were in their city, you’d definitely meet up. A commemorative friend is not someone you expect to hear from, or see, maybe ever again. But they were important to you at an earlier time in your life, and you think of them fondly for that reason, and still consider them a friend. Facebook makes things weird by keeping these friends continually in your peripheral vision. Perhaps friends are more willing to forgive long lapses in communication because they’re feeling life’s velocity acutely too. It’s sad, that we stop relying on our friends as much when we grow up or move away, but it allows for a different kind of relationship, based on a mutual understanding of each other’s human limitations. It’s not ideal, but it’s real. Friendship is a relationship with no strings attached except the ones you choose to tie, one that’s just about being there, as best as you can.

The First Day 2

My mum has always known that i love dogs - despite not being allowed a pet and bringing all sorts of birds, cats, frogs etc home as a child, they would be taken to the RSPCA off Edge Lane. So, as i was now hitting forty, and a sensible adult, living in my own home with children, I did not expect to have my values and choices questioned as i had put everything on hold for mum being with me for a few weeks. The first morning, lots of crashing and banging was going on upstairs - I had woken up early, driven the boys to school, taken the dogs out for a quick constitutional, my best friend had come over with the newspaper for mum, and we were all set for her grand entrance... It was 0930hrs... Clatter clatter, bang bang thud - mum descended the stairs and knocked two photos off the wall in the hallway... She was using a hospital aid (stick) with her good arm, and refused any help to bring down her handbag and worldly possessions in the process.... "Mum, do you want any help?"..... "NO! The only thing i want is to go home to my OWN house in Liverpool where I live"... Such was the conversation every morning - challenges as she had not made the decision herself to come down to stay with me in Essex. "Ok, fine, but you have to stay with me for a few weeks to get your arm and you stronger, so you can cope at home" - There really was no reasoning with her at this time of the morning, and it was a case of simply diverting her attention to what might be in the newspapers, or the crossword, or on daytime, mind numbing TV... We found that she enjoyed Judge Judy, and playing cards, as well as estate agent shows where purchasers went to Auctions to bid on houses, and, as mum would say - "a Doer Upper" would be a bargain - and the TV crew would return later in the show to see how they coped with the renovations... That first day, i had mum registered with our family Doctor in Maldon - he came out to see mum. It was inevitably always such a pa-lava to get her into the car and to any appointments as mum did love a drama and would scream if i touched or looked like i was going to touch her knee (which had been painful for 40 years but she had not had it replaced as she was afraid of anaesthetic...) getting her in and out of the car - her screams would be louder if there was an audience of poor members of the public minding their own business at bus stops etc... They would give me the evil eye, which mum would love! I was concerned about mum's arm - it was fractured in five places and she had been on the bathroom floor for 14 hours before Diane found her and took her to hospital.... Inevitably, mum became ill and had caught a chill - the GP wanted to get her into hospital, but mum refused to go - "I will die if you take me there!" - so we left it that day and just gave her lots of vitamin drinks and supplements with her meals... By the end of the first day i was completely shattered - my nerves were on edge - she would say "living on her nerves" - that is how i felt... the anxiety was killing me, but with a large glug of wine, we got through the first day!!!

Introduction to Life with Mum 1

It all started in December 2009. Life as a mother was becoming easier, my children were becoming less dependent, were in secondary education, my mortgage was getting more manageable, and my career was wonderful and fulfilling... in fact, everything was pretty much tickety boo... It is amazing though, that the minute one part of your life runs smoothly, another part looms on the horizon and is in danger of falling apart... So was the case for me.... December 12th 2009. I tried to call my mother, as i did every day - she was recently widowed (October 2009) and welcomed the contact - on her terms... no reply - at first, this did not worry me, mum had an ability for selective hearing and would often purposely not answer the telephone if the mood took her, or she wanted us to worry - i say "us" loosely - there is a brother and sister, though i, the prodigal daughter, was the one who remained constant. At times it was "three rings and put it down so i know its you!" - then this changed to five rings - i think with hindsight, we all had different codes so she would know who was calling her! By 6pm, i still had no reply to my calls, and living some 250 miles away (where i had run to after a troubled adolescence, 20 years before to start my adventures - and which at the time, had seemed a safe distance) i felt compelled to phone my sister who lived only 60 miles away. She was not concerned as she had spoken to mum the previous day, but i persisted.... My sister begrudgingly went to the house, to find it locked with the chain on from inside... they got bolt cutters from the local DIY store, and found mum in the upstairs bathroom on the floor having fractured her humerus falling off the toilet.... They called an ambulance and went with mum to hospital. The following week, after assessment, she was to be discharged for "conservative home management" which remains the NHS's way of preventing bed blocking and sending out elderly, vulnerable patients back home knowing they are unable to cope, but no risk assessment and fingers crossed anyway! Being a nurse specialist along with my sister and mother, i created a fuss and threatened safeguarding, but to no avail, so I decided to step in, arranging with my sister to get mum from the hospital and i would meet her half way down the M1 and i would take a sabbatical from work for two weeks to see how mum managed with her fracture. I really did not notice my sister whoop whoop with a happy face as she backed out of the service station car park, but i am pretty sure she did - as we did not see her again for five months except for one weekend to fleece mother out of money for her daughter's double glazing!!... that was the beginning of our journey...

Summer Reflection

It's nearly August already! - this has been a pretty busy summer for me. My life seems to go through cycles of being extremely busy (most of the time - especially last year) interspersed with short lulls. The lulls are never long enough. For me, with two adult sons and a young step daughter approaching teenage years, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on summers gone by, when my boys were young (my step daughters age now), especially as she finishes her Junior school)- these last weeks have been such a milestone for us all - the end of year parties, the swimming drama (one parent did not invite all the children - obviously plateaued emotionally age 13), the summer disco - or ball - complete with a limo which only the select few were invited on.... the dress and getting step daughter to actually like a dress, and the school end of year year 6 play.... On top of this, it was the last time seeing friends who we made along the way - other parents - whom we will obviously stay in touch with, but not see as often as we did in the playground.... We all went as her little army... Grandparents, Parents, Aunt, Step Parent, it was obviously going to be a tear jerker, especially for my mother in law and I - we are fairly similar old Capricorns, born on the same day... For me, I've watched this little girl evolve from a youngster to a mature 11 year old (nearly 12), plus, I recall the end of year parties, plays, trips of yesteryear with my sons... both now in their twenties, but still so vivid and high in emotion. It's also the first summer without my mother. Thirty years ago i did not appreciate my mum - i found her very 'hard' - she was always so busy with her work (in charge of a team of district nurses then setting up the family planning service in South Liverpool), that once she did get home, she would easily become exasperated with me - a late child... Her other two children whom she had in her twenties, left with their father, then she ran off with my father as the grass was greener - i appeared on the scene as her thirties ended, and was not planned.... I had left home after a heated argument the day after my last exam, and headed off to London - i had a job as a CSV - Community Service Volunteer already organised, and lived in London until i was old enough to commence nurse training - i think i was either very brave, or stupid and it must have driven my poor mum to tears and constant anxiety wondering where i was - i did not tell her for months. Our relationship was very disjointed and toxic, there would be months when we did not talk, it was extremely difficult to maintain a civil relationship as she would play one sister against another, and I was never "the favourite" - she would often tell me in a heated discussion that she wished she had me adopted - although this was said so often, it meant very little in the end - it was her inability to articulate what she was really feeling, and of course, my pecker was up as I knew she was going to say something hurtful. She was very mixed up growing up with a mother who cared little for her. Years later, i read mum's diaries, and found that she had made tentative arrangements to have me adopted - i had been fostered for some time so she could continue to work, and my father was in and out of her life, not reliable as a husband - though very reliable as a father. In 2009, my mum came to live with me in Essex, she had fractured her humerus - a complicated, spiral fracture in 5 places, and had been sent home from hospital for "Conservative Home Management" - probably because she was creating mayhem being an ex nurse.... It was an impossible situation with her being at home and being unable to use her arm, my sister was unable and unwilling to have mum, and so me, the black sheep, brought her down to Essex - somewhat begrudgingly at first, as we had not had an easy relationship in my younger years.... We tolerated five long months together with daily tears and tantrums, plates being thrown (she was very volatile) and my husband and youngest son - who was then 16, decided they could stand no more - both left!! Mum went back home with my brother, who stayed with her long enough to relieve her of £10,000 at the bank, and left her to it... Mum continued to try and cope at home, but her last husband had died in 2009, and she really had lost her confidence and her "get up and go" had gone... She continued to be admitted to hospital with UTI's, going into hospital for weeks, then being discharged with a care plan and carers - who she would sack after a week... One year she had 15 admissions to hospital - all to do with toxic confusion from her UTI's - I would drive up every Friday, come home exhausted on the Monday - work for a week, and go back the following weekend - so it went on.... Finally, in 2013, mum realised that she was unable to manage living at home, and signed her house over to her husbands family - on reflection, i feel this was unwise - I should not have listened to the social worker, I should have taken legal advice at that time, as mum could have rented the house out to offset her care home fees later on... however, hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing... Mum came down to live in a residential home in Essex two streets from me, and managed 3 days before wanting to go home... so was the pattern of her decision making throughout life... I went back to Liverpool to find her another similar provision, and eight weeks later, we moved mum into a home in Broadgreen, Liverpool - an area where she had spent many years living and working. Again, she did not like the home, and after 5 days was arrested for assaulting another resident - she felt out of control and went to hospital. This continued through another four residential homes, until we found one which she liked. In the meantime, it seemed silly to continue to live in Essex when my boys had both flown the nest to start their adventures, I rented my house out, and moved to Liverpool to be close to mum, and although she lived in an EMI residential home, she was out with me three / four times each week. Last Spring, mum was diagnosed with Cancer of the Stomach with Liver Mets, as well as her mixed dementia diagnosis, she had been deteriorating for some years, but i did believe she was immortal and would go on forever... We moved mum in with us, as well as her circus entourage of carers, district nurses, social workers, case managers, GP and Psych Doctors, and we kept mum going for another three months. In that time, we learned to respect and love each other. We became friends.... Obviously there were days when mum would throw something at me, but as a child, I had learned to dodge the bullets (hair brush/plates or whatever was to hand) but i understand that this was her frustration at not being able to be the person she was. I feel so privileged to have had so much time with my mum - she spent her 90th birthday with a garden party, and she had many lucid times, Christmas's with my in laws and Christmas's at home with us and her grandchildren... She was there for me coming into this world, and i was there for her going out.

A year since mum's 90th birthday

My mother died a year ago on the 13th August 2018. She was 90 years old and was living with myself and my husband. It had been a roller coaster life of technicolour, ups and downs, marriages, divorces, drama, and the last ten years with her to-ing and fro-ing to Essex (where we lived then), and back to Liverpool to hold on to her independence.... Ending up with us moving back home to be near to her, and finally, with her moving in with us - which is what she wanted all along.... My actual memories of the days and weeks that led up to mum's death are slowly fading, but my feelings of immense sorrow stay with me. I don’t need to remember with any amount of clarity in order to feel overwhelmingly sad. There was a point, when i was younger, when mum and i would spat regularly, she would wish i was adopted, and i would wish she would just leave me alone to live my adult life and not draw me back into thinking i was a thirteen year old naughty teenager.... I would never be "good enough" as a child - i could not play the piano as well as my sister, i did not write as neatly, i was not as amiable - i think i just knew my own mind - much as i see myself in my children - i love that they are both different, and that David is very like i was as a child and teenager... I believed then, that one day, i would be free of all the drama, the anxiety, the worry, the bewilderment, i believe that i went into mental health nursing to somehow get my head around my mixed up childhood with her... It helped me give her behaviour a label, and friends would stick their "two penneth worth in" as to what they believed the problems were, and my problems were.... but in the end, with my husband Neil, we worked through all our angst, our hurt, our relationship issues, mum's anxieties and anger, and we became reluctant friends who cared very deeply about each other, and were not afraid to say so... Mum was provocative and would demand a response and as a child, i would be determined not to! As the arrival of mum's birthday looms tomorrow, it's knocked me for six - a whole year since we had the family and friends over to celebrate her 90th birthday, and my grief is still present - all week i have been so sad, bursting into tears for no reason... my husband thinks it's the change - maybe it is? I find it hard to keep a lid on my feelings. I feel good, bad, grateful, deprived, strong, vulnerable, and a hundred other things. My memories, thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions about life and loss have become very mixed up. At 52 years of age, i am an orphan, and what i find incredibly sad, is that i have not seen my sister or her family since the day of the funeral, nor my brother - (the brother is no loss as he skips in and out of peoples lives to cause chaos).... Because of mum's will, which i knew i had an up to date copy, mum had left what little she had, to my boys as was her wish. The government take your money in care fee contributions until you have only £12,000 left, - luckily, mum was a very keen invester, and had given away as gifts her properties and capital sums years ago. My sister seemed to be so almost histrionic and excited a day after mum died about the will and it leaving money to her son (who had already had £66k from the sale of my mothers last house, and his daughter, (my mother's great grandaughter,) who had already had gifts during her young life of Savings bonds and cash sums, We felt that my sister behaved very poorly when she found out that their will out of date - even demanding to see it and saying i would need a solicitor as there was so much to organise! - My husband had recorded the heated discussion as he wanted me to realise how obtuse they were being. The funeral itself was enormously sad - both myself and my son and best friend Nikki read an Epitaph about mum's life, my sister insisted on a hymn to make everyone emotional, when surely the service itself was emotional enough?? - and afterwards at the wake, and then at home, they had their own funeral party in my sitting room not mixing with family and friends who had come to pay their respects... Some months after the funeral, i received a text message from my sister wanting money from her share of the top up fee for the care home mum had stayed at, but the will did not allow for this. Not a word since.... When she thought the will was made out to her families favour, she had looked up how much an inscription would be for mum on the exsisting family headstone, and was balking at a new headstone being purchased - however, once she realised that the will was made out to my boys, she actually had the audacity to tell the stonemason - "Oh, money is no object" - she wanted as little left to my children as possible....I really saw her for who she is... So very sad, and this breeak in the family is not what my mum would have wanted, but there it is... I am now at a paradox of opposite emotions, which is confusing for everyone, but really its ok - Life after a loss is simply perplexing but it is normal and my feelings of sadness are very real. As the seasons have come full circle, I have found that although it's nearly a year, i go back to the past more often - whether that is because i do not have a "present" time to think of her, or whether in me knowing her better over the years, i understand her foibles more... i suddenly have a lightbulb moment and realise - "Ahhhhh - thats why mum said this"... whereas before, i could not always understand it, and could not dissect her behaviour from her feelings... Liverpool was home - my mum was "home" - yet here i am without mum - feeling somehow without a pull to her as she has gone, though now i am secure with my family half here - David has come home, and i have Neil and my step daughter Sadie and parents in law and sister in law in Spain - but my own blood line - sister and brother and their families are no longer part of the equation... What is odd for me to get my head around, is that some days i could crumble under the sadness of mum and my sister as she was such an important part of my life, yet I have to be secure and represent stability for my husband and children... My mother was pregnant with me when her own mother died - i recall her saying she cried for three months - yet, in later years she would voice how hard her mother had been... All of this is normal grief, and although time doesn't heal - it distances itself and you remember the funny times, or the times when she did something which left me in such a high emotive state that it remains in my long term memory...

My Mum's May Blitz 1941

My mum was born on 9th July 1928... in two days she would have been 91, but she died last August, after a short illness. She had a wonderful, exciting, long, technicolour life. She was born in Liverpool, the third of eventually seven children, and spent the majority of her life in Liverpool - the City that she loved. For the majority of her life, she was a very bright, formidable lady, a mother who gave me goosebumps at times, very strict, and she found it hard to articulate her feelings or show her emotions due to her upbringing and early years growing up in the thirties with very little money or love. Her experience of the May Blitz was a personal account. Merseyside and Liverpool were bombed every night of the first week of May with over 1750 people being killed. The worst single night was the 3rd/4th when an estimated 850 people were killed. The ammunition ship Malakand, being loaded with 1,000 tons of munitions caught the flames from nearby burning warehouses. Desperate attempts were made to control the fire but she blew up hours after the ‘All Clear’ was sounded on the 4th, killing four fire fighters. The fire continued for another 72 hours. My mum and her four sisters, were living at 21 Wandsworth Road in Norris Green during the May Blitz - mum's father had died in 1936, and although the girls had been evacuated at the beginning of the war in 1939, they had all returned home as there did not appear to be any danger in the city. When the girls returned home, they found their mother had remarried, and was living in another house in Richard Kelly Drive, which she shared with another family and now had a new baby (Johnny) and their full brother Teddy who was 4 years old. My grandmothers husband was a Merchant Seaman and did not know that his new wife had six children! Due to it being wartime, there was much confusion, and the girls were very much left to their own devices - Geraldine, the eldest would run to their mother for ration books and food and after a fashion, try and look after the four sisters who were running wild... Mum's aunty Mary, who lived in Bootle came to see them during May 1941 as she herself had been bombed out and wanted to check on her sister - Geraldine told her that her sister was now living in Richard Kelly drive with Jack Peel and a baby plus Teddy.... Aunty Mary said to tell their mother that if she was not at the Wandsworth Rd house with the children at 9am tomorrow morning, she would report her to the NSPCC.... My grandmother was in turmoil, she had a baby and husband and did not know what to do about the girls - Mary told her that they could be reevacuated in view of the blitz, and they all were - including Teddy who was just 6 years old.