Round Robin

And so, suddenly, December is further along than I would like and Christmas is nearly upon us. Our first one without Mum. And for many of Mum’s friends and relatives, their first one without her annual Christmas letter. Every year without fail, Mum bashed out this missive of doom and gloom using two fingers and an argument with Dad’s computer. It usually contained the stock phrases “I haven’t had a very good year healthwise” and “Stuart is still living at home.” Well, this year was certainly one hell of a motherfucker healthwise, but, believe it or not, Stuart is no longer living at home, since he moved out to a cottage with his girlfriend in the summer.

Mum’s parents were determined not have big-headed children and so they were extremely reticent when it came to paying compliments. Mum’s writing proudly continued this tradition, not wanting to seem boastful to her friends. She tended to focus excessively on whatever dark calamities had befallen Stuart or myself over the past 12 months. I had to beg her to include the fact that I graduated from York University with a First, but I don’t believe that I ever managed to persuade her to also mention that it was not only a First with Distinction, but also the highest-scoring degree my department had ever awarded. (Forgive me for finally blowing my own trumpet here, eight years on.) It’s not as if Mum’s friends ever exercised the same restraint – one regularly submits an essay of such nauseating pink-hued fluffiness about how marvellous her family are that on occasions I’ve nearly felt compelled to send it in to Simon Hoggart’s column in the Guardian. I’m waiting to see if we still receive it this year – as the eldest daughter recently had a baby, I’m expecting it to be a classic. Keep your eyes peeled if Hoggart ever publishes a sequel to The Hamster That Loved Puccini.

Dad said the other day that he has no idea who he should send Christmas cards to this year. It’s certainly true that not many of Mum’s friends were Dad’s friends too. Perhaps this year it’s up to them to make the first move. Despite my facetious comments above, I do miss hearing about Mum’s friends. It’s not as if I ever saw them that often, but as Mum always keep me posted as to what they were up to, I sort of felt as though I did. As they were people I’d grown up with, I feel some strange need to know about them still. It must be weird for them to no longer hear about us either.

I don’t know how I’ll feel on Christmas Day. We will be in Grasmere in the morning, so I will be able to visit Mum’s grave if I feel her absence too sorely. I’ll then spend the rest of the day with my in-laws, which will be perhaps a comforting sense of normal family life, even if they are tee-total. Last Christmas was simply horrendous. Mum was struggling after a hefty dose of chemotherapy and had to spend most of the day in bed. The underlying fear we all shared that this was to be her last Christmas with us was so overwhelming that we all ended up shouting at each other and crying. Stressed-out dysfunctionality nonetheless belittled by the fact that half of Asia was wiped out the following day.

I had my last bereavement counselling session on Monday. A gigantic horse chestnut tree outside the North London Hospice is completely covered with white bulbs, each one sponsored in memory of someone who has died. When Mum smiled, it was as if someone had switched a light on in her heart. She may have written morose-sounding round robins at Christmas time, but her spirit was still the brightest star. Ironically, when Dave and I were walking next to Brothers Water in the Lake District in September, a robin started chirruping loudly and excitedly at me, just as Mum would have done. If I ever wanted to believe in reincarnation, that was my moment.

REBECCA