I've spent most of today working my way through more of my mother's effects. It has been a powerful experience and I find I can't do it for too long before something catches and I realise just how much I miss her. Like most people it's the little things that catch me out. I have been sorting out the small geological collection my Mum accumulated over the years following her degree in Geology and Geophysics. I could remember where she found some of the specimens. It was a family joke that she collected pet rocks after one outing when she had asked my brother to paddle across a stream to pick up a particular stone - only to be told it was actually a duck. She needed glasses - certainly - but from then on her collection had a name!
I found a file full of photographs and pictures taken from magazines of wild animals. I knew she loved animals but I didn't know she had made a collection particularly of monkeys and wild cats; part of the inner life I had been unaware of.
This afternoon I changed gear and took someof the files of photographs and memorabilia through to the study and began scanning them onto my computer. I found everything from a picture of my father in his fireman's uniform from World War II through to a photo of me on the day I graduated with my doctorate. At first sight it seemed a higgledy-piggledy collection until I saw on the envelope "Special". Everything is, in actual fact, meticulously organised. Mum had prepared beautifully for me to work my way through her effects and know exactly what everything is, when the time came. That in itself is very moving and very typical of her; it feels like a final act of extraordinary love.
I have been particularly moved by photos of my brother and I as children. Also programmes, posters and photos from the early years when my parents married and set up their own entertainments business specialising in Gulliver's Puppets. I found a programme for a show my Grandfather had put on. He was on the bill, second act in the second half, but he had given top billing - closing the show - to his new son-in-law and daughter. My Mum always said that her father could be difficult profesionally and personally - however - for this show at least - he rated his daughter's work. He was never a person to risk putting a poor act on to close a show. I wanted to show her the programme and remind her.
My childhood came flooding back helping out at shows and learning how to set up and strike Punch and Judy - getting a bonus payment if I did it in under 5 minutes. I think I need to paint myself through some of these memories - they are powerful, colourful and warm. They were also suppressed once I realised that in a world populated with people who have rather more 'normal' upbringings it isn't always wise to go on about the weird and wonderful world of magicians, puppeteers and variety artists. Now I know that this is a rich seam of memory and formation and it deserves to be celebrated.