The Mum Effect

Dear Mum,

There are so many things still to say and you’re no longer here for me to phone you. I often think about how you managed through what must have been a hugely diverse and difficult life but you did, and you more than managed – you thrived.

So I’m doing the one thing that you know I’m good at; I’m making a story about You and how You impacted my world; about how You are still impacting my world and always in a good way.

This is the only way I know of how to share the example, share the love, share the enduring spirit of the woman who is Doreen.

I Love You.

Learning Love in Hard Places

My Mum was born illegitimate in 1927 in New Zealand, a time when the shame fell on the single mother and the resulting child. She didn’t get adopted or fostered but was raised by a collection of ‘aunties’, family friends I think.

When my Nana got pregnant the sire already had a family in Australia and when Mum was 5 years old she was shipped across the Tasman Sea to live with that family in a position that turned out to be more of a house maid than family.

At 16 years old she found her way back to New Zealand and made a life for herself. There must have been fond moments with the different carers through her life because I remember visiting them and holidaying with them as a child.

In her twenties she went to live and work in a hotel as the cook in a place called Roxburgh and that’s where she met Dad.

Just quickly, so that you get the picture of these two adventuring spirits, Dad had grown up in occupied Holland. He joined the Dutch Army when he became of age and travelled to Indonesia to fight in that civil unrest. He didn’t want to go back to Holland so applied to become a resident in either Canada or New Zealand. I’m glad he chose how he did.

Honing Strengths

The core strength in my Mum was growing stronger as she ended up marrying Dad, a Dutch Catholic, and having to ‘become a Catholic’ for this to happen.

This was the fifties, a time of families and regeneration, so Mum and Dad helped the statistics by creating a large family, which Mum effectively raised by herself while Dad worked, some of this work taking him away from home for the week.

Showing Love Her Way

It wasn’t until Mum died that I really began to look at the example she set for us all and hearing the limiting beliefs that other kids had been raised with just made me look further into the quietly set example of:

Make your own way

Choose wisely

You make you bed and you get to sleep in it

Adding Value to our Home and Community

Mum never had a regular money earning job although she did a variety of income generating things. Her main offering to our small town was in a voluntary way, being the Cub Scout leader for many years, raising awareness for a town dilemma by taking a petition to government, and the list goes on. This seriously undereducated woman just moved towards what she wanted with a smile, with purpose and with any knowledge that she could glean along the way.

Having been raised essentially without family love Mum found a huge love with Dad plus she shared her love to us kids through her cooking and through her playfulness.

We lived with tank water but I still remember having water fights, just with limited supplies. Mum really did know how to make fun out of almost anything.

One of my major memories is how Mum used to make our clothes and there are many photos of us girls in matching dresses. Mum had taught herself to sew and her creative gene really showed up in this arena. Knitting as well, mostly completed on the trusty knitting machine.

She taught us all to sew, girls and boys, and the first lesson was always with thread and needle which, for me, meant making something for my doll. I’ve used these creative skills all through my life and find that they gave me grounding in not just clothes but in colour and shape. As a retired (hah) women Mum made me a quilted matched set of a pincushion and a sewing machine cover, two things that feature in my life regularly.

The Angel Mum

There’s one area where my mother reaches Angel status, and that’s with our hobbies and how she supported us in those. Dad played a major role in our small town’s brass band so two of my sisters joined him there. I figure that Mum and Dad both just Knew that I’d never sit still long enough to play in the band so Mum got me involved in Highland Dancing where I competed and exceled.

This is where the Angel bit comes in.

Imagine, if you can, sitting in an old wooden town hall (as that’s where most of these events took place) while the lone piper plays the same ditty for the different age group for each different dance. When I really thought about this as an adult I was gobsmacked. This really was Love, plus endurance with a healthy dose of pure women friendship thrown in.

Guiding Me on my Journey

My interest in school was minimal, it really bored me and even though I had the scores to enter university I couldn’t see my way to it. So Mum took charge and without giving me too much time to think about it she took me through to the nearest big city and checked my into a room at the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) where the rules were worse than home.

Mum never did drive, so all of this was carried out by bus and still she got home to have dinner ready for Dad. Her parting comment was to get myself a job. Which I did, by the way, her example of ‘just go on and do it’ was already engrained.

From a Distance

Most of my adult life had me living away from the very small town where Mum and Dad lived but I remember always being in touch by phone and regularly going to Mum for advice, especially when I finally needed to learn (remember) how to cook for myself.

Unexpectedly I found that quite a few old boyfriends actually visited Mum on a regular basis, testament to the way she treated people and how she listened. Us kids were always able to bring friends home to have a drink with Mum and Dad which was our family way of creating a gentle drinking habit but which appears to have had a longer lasting effect.

Maybe I’m a cliché here but I really didn’t fully understand how much of a gift my Mum’s mothering example was to me until I couldn’t actually visit her and thank her.

An enduring memory of Mum is her smile, her optimism and her bright blue eyes. I can still see her eyes sparkling as we shared (in what would be the last time) a glass of her favourite bubbles.