margaret s (1935-2005)

I've been conscious of your accounts of these troubles adding a layer of darkness to ILX, by which I mean a thoroughly good kind of darkness, one which makes this place much deeper, wider, wiser and more mature.

mark: i'm incredibly sorry for your loss, not least because i have been entertained and fascinated and touched by your stories of your family and family history on ilx over the past few years. it know means little at such a time, but nevertheless, i will join the chorus in saying that i offer my condolences and wish you the strength and sanity in the coming months/years/eternities. god bless.

In my case, about 250,000 words over the last three-and-a-half years.

Last week I realised I had said everything I needed to say, so I stopped.

In three months' time it will have been four years.

"What's WRONG with you, it's four years, move ON!"

Except four years isn't nearly long enough.

From my perspective it seems like four minutes.

Not sure if I can help you here, Mark. Edward C (1931-81) died 11 days after his half-century essentially because of his own stupid stubbornness - he wouldn't slow down, he couldn't relax - and neither I nor my mum were at all surprised when it happened; the only surprise being that it had taken so long.

Can't afford to think of anything happening to my mum. What has STOPPED me these last four years more than anything else is that damned line from Godfather II - "Not while my mother's alive."

This always happens when bad things happen to friends of mine. I can sympathise but never empathise. I don't have T&G's gift for the latter. Except when Laura's mum died, but then that leads to something else and back to where I started.

I realise that this is of zero help or consolation Mark but...

to marcello and sterl and nath and strongo and others, who worry about saying the right thing or the wrong thing, all i can say from this side is, i'm not sure there is a wrong thing: as billy dods says, there is no "magic pill" - that's not a benchmark you shd should worry about falling short of! it is just nice to hear from people, basically - even if i haven't always replied... and don't assume that what you find to say will be something i don't want to hear, or already know and needn't hear again, or whatever: i posted this on a morning when i wz very stressed and angry, and what matt said, in the second post, was unexpectedly soothing and helpful - i'd simply not thought of things that way before, and at that moment it hit the spot

(also: billy, i'm desperately sorry to hear how hard the time is you've been going through)

several times over the last few days, since i've been back in london and back at work, i've heard a phone ring and wondered momentarily if it was mum, and how things are, hoping to hear that she's feeling a lot better and to chat to her about silly things

i like writing about her and i'm sure i'll continue to do so

the bed I COULDN'T BEAR to sleep in (I slept on the sofa until I left Oxford).

the smell of her clothes in the wardrobe, the smell of HER, still fresh.

the books she never got around to reading.

the music she'll never get to hear again.

and i still can't get past any of this.

but this is not the same thing as losing your mum.

so really i should shut up.

That might not fade much - even years afterwards I was getting that about Dad, like the first time I saw Highbury (he was an Arsenal fan, but only on the telly), or when I started to learn more about Dublin, and stitched together bits that featured in car journeys into the city from when I was little.

Like Gareth, I stopped interpreting this as pain.

I know two other people who've lost their mums very recently - one after a long illness and the other due to a sudden worsening of a condition diagnosed over 20 years ago and thought to be under control. It's hard to know what to say, hard to rein in one's own selfish thoughts about the inevitable day when...