We’re running up to the 3rd anniversary of my mother’s death. An end and a beginning. The end of this firery fearsome woman who always had the potential to be terrifying or hilarious… and never dull. A reminder of the beginning of a world without her.
Once, I accompanied her to Wythnsea and it was like being with royalty such was her popularity with everyone around and about that place. She waved, greeted, bestowed her smile on people, gossiped with some, asked after their children. She could have done anything: being voted in as councillor, MP, taken advantage of her celebrity. But she didn’t. Because she had integrity and she knew that being the fryer in a fish shop provides you with only so much certainty, only so many possibilities, only so many chances to be who you are or to re-invent yourself.
My mother could talk. Monologue actually. There was this time when I lived in a three storey house and I was in the process of a call with her on the extension in the attic, when I dropped the phone. The line went dead. An end! I went down the stairs, one lot, two lot, three lot, four - picked up the phone, and there was my mother talking away not noticing that I’d disappeared for a while. A beginning but not for her - from her perspective it just went on and on.
I do like to disappear sometimes. Not like Harry Houdini but by taking a break. Stepping aside and re-calibrating.
And here I am leaving a big management role for something else. A fresh start…
It’s funny how when you’re in an institution you start to feel like that’s all there is and that’s your only choice and you’d better hang on for grim death because, well, maybe you’re too old, or too afraid, or too set in your ways - instead when you do step aside you start to see the wider landscape, raise your head and remember who you are and what you can do or be and, if you’ve been there for a long time, who you are outside of the confines of the comfort of an institution. And breathe.
So here I am at the start of a new adventure. My mother, who was easy to underestimate especially as she got older, had a sort of instinct for knowing best. She’d have said, “you only get the one life love!” Or “don’t let the bastards grind you down” so here I am stepping out into the world as my whole self subject only to the limitations I set on myself, and excited to embrace what’s next.
Joyce Precious: 14th October 1938 to 14th June 2020