STRANGE DAYS INDEED

These past few days really have been strange days indeed as my sister and I, with a little help from our friends, have been sorting through the many and varied things with which my mother chose to surround herself throughout the last decade of her life in that little flat she used to live in.

Many of the things that were so important to her, thousands of photographic memories from her own adventures as well as those of her parents and even generations before that, and little keepsakes from long-forgotten "big nights out" were carefully preserved and, perhaps, forgotten about and placed in drawers packed full of such things that might not have meant much to anyone else, but gave her comfort and security as the light began to fade.

Some of the things have been easily disposed of. The dozens of sympathy cards sent after my grandfather died, carefully saved by first my grandmother, and then retained by my mother have had to be let go. Fleeting greetings from people we never knew and mostly now long-gone themselves which once meant so much but which now mean little to those who survive, and, in the end, after some debate, they were reluctantly recycled.

The photographs were more tricky. Looking through them was, of course, a job that needed doing in preparation for the services that needed to be held, and the many pictures of my mother's life, stretching across eight decades or more, have become endlessly fascinating and confusing in almost equal measure.

There are spectacularly beautiful and interesting images from times long ago which continue to fascinate me. The vehicles, the clothing and the landscapes from those lost worlds will no doubt inspire further words to pour out from me as the months go by, even though many of the faces and the occasions will remain a mystery. So many pictures taken at long-forgotten weddings of people I never knew and never will, but each of them fascinating in their own way and worthy of further research.

Going through the family albums has been more difficult. A thousand memories of views seen on holidays we never went on can be confusing, but the ones including actual people themselves, in scenes sometimes featuring ourselves, can be both intriguing and heart-rending at the same time, but seeing those pictures of mum in better days is already helping to make those final, gruelling months seem less significant than they had been, and the softer, happier images are starting already to blur the memories of those savage last days which seemed likely to be so deeply etched into my soul just a week ago.

Now the beautiful, glamorous version of my mother is starting to replace the broken figure we saw so much of during the past year or so, and that's a good thing to discover, although that in itself can bring its own heartbreak as the tragedy that each of us faces as we get older and our dreams begin to fade along with our bodies becomes so starkly apparent.

We have, of course, had to go through the rather more heartbreaking tasks of sorting out clothes and shoes, and deciding about what should be done with them all, but the fact that we were able to attempt this sad task together was a good thing and brought moments of jollity to the sadness when some of the more alarming outfits of yesteryear resurfaced.

Most peculiar, Mama...

Other thoughts and memories drift fleetingly by. The fact that, during that long decade called the 1990s which I spent alone in the world, the only person that I could always rely on to send me a birthday card, or to buy me a Christmas present was my mother has been a sharp reminder that I need to let go of the more brutal recollections of more recent times.

After all, when only one person seems to actually give a damn about whether you live or die, it's not really all that nice a thing to do to ignore and belittle their worry and just plod on with believing that you're best coping with everything by yourself, and just keep on going, but that's just how I was.

And that peculiar feeling that I got the other day, that strange moment when I stopped short and remembered that there was once a time when only one person seemed to care whether I got a hot meal or a cup of tea, has been in interesting memory to have resurface at a time like this.

Strange days indeed...