I'm sorry to hear that. My mums love for me and my brother was truly unconditional, and we were so blessed for that. Especially me, because I could have been born into unconditional hate like do many others.
She wasn't perfect, she eventually became unable to take care of us really, which was another reason why she had to move away. There were arrests, trials, community service. My mum certainly lived a full life in her 51 years
Before then, she fell in love with a talented singer, bought him a studio, wrote lyrics with him, I liked him at first. He was a good man, I could tell that. But he was enslaved by addiction. It's a parasite of the brain and controls people. It makes them steal and lie and they hate themselves for it just as much as you do.
But imagine 6 months in and you're deeply in love, and find an odd spoon in the draw and you wonder for days where it came from. You were born in a village, not a city, so it takes you a little longer than a lot of people to realise you have brought a heroin addict into your kids house. My poor mum was in love with him and he managed to hide it for a long time, she truly thought she could get him clean and signed I think.
Me and my friend found his drug box one day, the sight of manky burnt spoons and syringes and bloody tissues will never leave me. Never do heroin, it's so evil.
She tried and tried to help him get better, he even worked with the producers of Texas for a time in his studio and things looked better for a time but eventually the self proclaimed "biggest smack head in halewood" lived up to his title he sold everything, stole everything, from the kids and my mum, and left. That's when the parasite of addiction took hold of her brain and she hit the bottle and never went back
In many ways she was a "bad" mother by many people's standards; she battled with alcoholism, which I never blamed her for, but was extremely difficult nonetheless. She couldn't care for us properly. She kept me home from school for a whole year! Terrible mother! But I loved it! Because she was sober in the day, but when I came home from school she was drunk and not the mum I knew and loved
We would walk through the park to the post office to get her benefits Wednesday mornings, then feed the ducks, she would treat me to a pack of yugioh cards, and for Christmas spent an absurd amount of the little money she had, just to buy me that fucking magical cylinder card. It seems so silly now. And at midnight she walked with me through the graveyard to Asds to buy the brand new Harry potter book I was so excited for with her last bit of money. She was a bad mother in some ways yeah, but she was an amazing mother and loved me unconditionally always. I know it's still wrong and no excuse for her failures for a lot of people, but that's how I feel. I could never feel bad towards her for very long
I feel for any child of an alcoholic parent, because you love them so much, but you also can't help but hate them too. When she was drunk, she was another person. Her face changed, she became nasty. It was Jekyll and Hyde. The behaviour was usually embarrassing for everyone involved. But sober I loved her, she was kind and funny and witty and when she sang it wasn't at 5am and enraging but joyful and a good thing
You want to help them, but you can't. No matter how you try and how many years, the denial was impenetrable. There would be cracks every now and then when i would really corner her and push it hard, but the next day they always sealed shut again. It has to come from them, you can't help addicts
The ages of 10-13 are a blur for me really, I had to move with dad at 13 and she lived above a pub for a while, then a hostel, then back to her parents 45 miles away
Visiting her for the first time after she had to move away. Her room was very small, I'll never forget the sight of a floor totally covered in layers of empty vodka and fanta bottles, ashtrays overflowing, just a tip. Our house used to be so beautiful.
My mum, the woman who fed my tamagotchi while overseeing a brand new nursing home where she was the top of the top dogs, the strong, hilarious, fun woman in the suit, who went on holiday with her hen party friends and took a ride on the luggage belt posing like a swimwear model, who loved to dance and sang along to ELO in the car at full blast no matter how much I protested, which I would later thank her for as a musician, had been reduced to such a shell of herself.
And I couldn't help her. I slowly watched her kill herself for so long, but I carried her trough the airport terminal wasted, I carried her up early from the weddings wasted, and I loved her always.
I feel so bad for speaking ill of her, like I said she was a wonderful woman and my hero. She died in march, and it's been a whole since I cried about her, but today I did. I haven't slept for a few days and I always get more emotional when that happens. I'm sorry for treating you like a diary, I'm not drunk or high or anything. Some real life friends will probably see this too, which is embarrassing. But I just wanted to talk about my mum and remember by mum and share her amazing life with people.
I may have lost her at a young age, but I was so blessed to have a mum like her, and for that I feel so lucky. Some never know their mother, or have ones who don't love them unconditionally. I really lucked out with my mum. She was a hell of a woman.