I’m sat on the sofa with a coffee and some biscuits, I’ve tried to work out how to write this for weeks now but the words don’t want to form. It’s been just over a year since my Nan passed away, it’s been a year of mixed emotions and conflict. A year of feeling as though I’m pushing against the tide that at any minute could engulf me and pull me under.

My home life growing up was normal enough, my Dad was always at work, something that hasn’t changed! My Mum whilst present in body wasn’t always there in spirit. For the majority of my childhood memories, my Mum was just a shadow in the background, I can’t remember many days where we spent time together or where Mum played games with us. As the years passed by, my parents divorced, an inevitability. My Dad continued to work hard, and suddenly my Mum came out of the shadows.

Looking back I can see she was depressed, that she was struggling with internal issues that would send her into huge mood swings accompanied by spontaneous camping trips, drives to London and extravagant shopping trips.
We got into financial trouble, as a result of those crazy shopping expeditions. Money seemed to have no bearing, we rarely had food in, we couldn’t pay the bills and eventually we were forced to sell our family home.
My teenage years were a constant battle with Mum, who one minute would be my best friend and the next her mood would change like the wind and I would be her worst enemy. I was hated for having contact with my Dad, if I mentioned his name the mood would turn sour and slowly bonds with other family members loosened as she alienated us from them. We were forced to keep secrets about the financial situation and we hardly had visitors.

The one constant in my life was Nan, she knew what was happening without having to talk about it. She did simple things like having us round before school to make sure we had breakfast, then after school to make sure we had food in the house. She’d lend us money, listen to us and care about what we were saying. She once helped me with my food technology coursework, which was to bake and decorate a cake. She loaned me her oven, the ingredients and the space to make the cake and then advised me how best to decorate it to the design I wanted. Something deep inside me knew that these things should have been done by Mum but the older I got the more obvious it became that she didn’t know how to be my Mum. She acted differently around my sister, in fact she treated her differently and that made me feel a bit like the black sheep. For years I blamed myself for Mum’s issues – where in reality these were things I had no idea how to control.

Our relationship slowly died. I felt I couldn’t talk to her about my life without an argument, or a manic episode and if I hinted I’d seen Dad I was outcast.

My life changed when I moved from Essex to Leicester, we’d grown up in Leicestershire but moved to Essex so we could work things out. After 3 years of trying, I decided to move forward.
2 months after moving I met Brett, and moved in with him. Six months later I was pregnant with Edward. Everything was great, my personality and own well being changed overnight and I started to repair bonds with my other family members. Sadly Granddad passed away, and that raised some issues with my Mum, grief can do odd things to people. Once Edward came along, we worked on things from a distance and we found a happy balance.

Then Nan passed away, it seemed to trigger something in me. I struggled to sit back and accept my Mum’s behavior and pushed back, because this was the straw that broke the camels back.

So this past year I have said goodbye to my Nan and my Mum.

I do love my Mum, I just can’t keep crying over the same things.