Don’t know when I’ve been so blue

If you recognise that line as the first of Don’t it Make My Brown Eyes Blue by Crystal Gayle, I salute you. If not, give it a listen one day and if you ever met my late mum, picture her belting it out full of self-belief and pure enjoyment with hands firmly clasped together behind her back.

I’m not blue… I’m absolutely heartbroken. I’ve lost a piece of myself and it makes me cry all the time. When it gets too much I drink some wine (ok, loads) and do some singing with my sister, brother and our friends. We stick on the Sound of Music soundtrack and have a rave. For a few hours my heart doesn’t hurt as much.

Singing is a truly pleasurable thing to do and shouldn’t be underestimated as a form of therapy and release. My mum sang things she could have simply said just to make any situation a little happier. Morning cups of tea had a song, as did getting in a taxi to the airport on our way to holiday, cooking, going to bed, bath time, all the mundane tasks had a tune and a rhyme.

I’m going to sing to Clover as much as I can just to make up for all the songs my mum won’t sing to her. Trying to describe Clover’s ‘Suenanna’ to her when she inevitably asks one day will be some challenge and I think about it all the time. I can start by cooking her something exotic then serve it up with a song perhaps.

So to my mum, I’ll keep singing just like you and I’ll do my best to do it with all the love and entertainment value that I never truly appreciated until you were gone.

To my friends, if you think of her, tell me. If you think of me, tell me. Memories we all hold of her are just as comforting the first or hundredth time we share them.