To Eyes That are Bright as Stars When They’re Shining on Me!*

Today would have been mammy’s 95th birthday. It’s not a case of me ever forgetting her birthday. I always remember it. But today is her first birthday since Darren died, and my head was filled with so many thoughts and emotions this morning.

I was 13 when my father died. Nine months later, my grandfather, my mother’s father, died too. When you’re a child, your capacity for knowledge and emotional maturity is that of a child, and you don’t really understand grief and how it is. I certainly didn’t understand what my mother was dealing with after my father died, and then her own father dying so soon afterwards.

She was only 55, so she was only a couple of years older than I am now. She didn’t drive, and I think there must have been a lot of isolation, loneliness and sadness. I often heard her cry at night.

Throughout my life, I always thought that the early death of my father gave me a greater understanding of death than others my age. I suppose you think you’re mature because you’re dealing with adult situations, but you’re a child no matter what. Now I see that the maturity I thought I had was actually limited. I didn’t see the pain she was carrying, having to deal with both those deaths at the same time. It’s like I didn’t have a real understanding of what she was going through because it was all new to me, and my teenage brain was trying to process things in my world.

When Daniel and I were in the wee room, trying to ignore the sounds of the paramedics working on Darren, we didn’t know if he was dead or not. I found myself praying to her. I said something like, Wherever you are, can you do something? Can you make sure he’ll survive? It was an instinctive, almost animalistic kind of thing, looking back for someone to give me strength and hope.

During that week, I was sometimes getting only an hour and a half’s sleep a night because there was just so much going on. There was a brief moment one day when I thought to myself, Why did I not think of this before? I must give her a call. Mammy’ll know. I’ll be able to talk to her about it.

The thing was, I wasn’t going to be calling the woman who died at 90. In my head, I was calling the woman who was maybe in her seventies, or had just turned 80. The woman who was mobile and capable, and able to do lots of different things. I was reaching for the Mum I remembered from 15 to 20 years before she passed.

She was the woman who thought nothing of getting the bus up to Belfast on a Sunday and calling to me. I would make her an omelette, and then we would get a taxi up the town so she could get to her favourite shop, Primark.

Since Darren passed, time has felt non-linear. It feels longer, and it just doesn’t feel the same as it used to. It gets to points where I will try to remember: is she four or five years dead? At times, I can’t place where her death is in my whole timeline.

It’s not that I have forgotten her or that I forget her. But Darren’s passing has confused my brain about where those years fitted. I believe that’s quite normal. Widow’s grief, I think it’s called.

That change in how I experience time has made me think about what Mammy would have made of Darren’s death. Daniel asked me a number of months ago how Nanny would have been if she were alive and knew that Dad had died. I said I think she’d have been so, so upset. I think she’d have been upset on so many levels.

Mammy liked Darren, and that’s quite something, as my mother wasn’t really a fan of many people. That makes her sound awful, but quite the opposite: her world revolved around her family. She was both sociable and antisocial, like me, and friendly but didn’t require friends. She was a gentle, keep-yourself-to-yourself kind of woman who got on with it.

And even though she was a traditional country woman, not quite used to long-haired, bearded uni-types like Darren, he was part of her world and was never excluded. She knew Darren and I had been together forever, from the time I was 20. He wasn’t just someone fleeting in my life; he was part of it.

I feel I kno and knew her well enough to know she would also have been heartbroken. She would have been thinking of Daniel and me on our own. She would have known Daniel was going to be left without a father, and she would have known I was about to go and walk a lonely path she walked.

She always worried about me because of my epilepsy. She worried that something might happen to me. Darren being there gave her some comfort, because she didn’t have to worry as much- she said that to me many times. I suppose it’s that natural instinct: you’ve got someone else worrying about your child, so it gives you a bit of a break from worrying yourself.

Putting this down on paper has me tripping with tears, but I wanted to mark Mum’s 95th birthday and record my emotions because it’s her first birthday since Darren’s death.

Later on, I’m going to get one of those dinky small cakes from Marksies, and Daniel and I will wish her a happy birthday. We will reminisce and laugh. Her cursing and opinions were legendary. She was as stubborn as could be and as honest and decent as the day is long. She was also very self-deprecating and had no desire to be the centre of attention. She was a mother hen, her love for her family was fierce and unrequited.

But most of all, we will laugh. I can imagine telling her I’m writing an article about her and putting it on the internet. I can hear her saying to me, Don’t be fucking putting anything up about me! I don’t want anyone knowing about my birthday. Take that down. And somewhere, she’d know I’m as stubborn as her, and that I’m going to spend half an hour trying to convince her it’s a good thing and that it’s staying up.

*Mammy’s favourite film was The Student Prince and she loved all the songs, esp this one, The Drinking Song. I just know she will be watching it today. Then either Keeping Up Appearances, a bit of snooker or a Bette Davis Movie.