The Day My Mum...

It's been just over three years since mum died, and I still have (some of) her remains sitting in an old fudge tin on a shelf in my living room.

Kinda macabre maybe.

But while the plan was to release her at sea (much like a recovered porpoise) once I got back to Oz after the funeral, it never sat quite right with me.

Mum hated the sea. She hated swimming. She could, and pretty well, but she swam like a puppy - keeping her head out of the water at all costs. She may well have been the only person I know that has a slight fear of dolphins too - so the idea of the idyllic Moreton Bay and it's sea life as a final resting place, while fine in theory, hasn't felt like where I should scatter her left foot, or whatever bit I have in that dinted fudge tin.

Abe knows she's there. Kind of. He knows not to mess with the tin. To knock it or open it. And to be honest, it's still all taped up to survive the UK to Oz flight, so he'd struggle to spill her. But we have talked about it. A bit.

That it's Nana who throws down the feathers and lives in the clouds and loves him more than anyone ever. That one day we'll have a ceremony or something and we'll scatter her ashes into the sea or, pot her with a fern. But, for right now, maybe until I buck up my ideas for her final resting place in Oz, she's happy on the shelf with the wooden bird and the day of the dead picture and the flying mouse figurine. She gets to see it all and hang with us and spend Christmas with us, and Easter and all the normal like evening TV and the morning hustle. And I know she'd like that. Certainly more than swimming with the dolphins.

He doesn't really get that it's actually her though. Or some of her. And after trying to explain how Christ rose at Easter recently and somehow giving him the impression that Jesus is a zombie, I've not been bothered to give the explanation it much effort.

But one day, when we were talking about how crap it'd be if we spilled her and she went in the vac, we wrote a story about it. A kid's story. A silly story. And I know wholeheartedly that actually, should I spill her and she end up in the Dyson, she wouldn't give a shit. So don't feel bad or weird knowing that she and her current resting place in the fudge tin on the shelf were the inspiration behind this story. Enjoy it regardless. Abe does. And I know mum would too...

The day my mum went up the vac,

We wondered if we’d get her back…

An ear went first, and then a chin,

A cheek, then two, were sucked right in.

A nose, an eye, an eyebrow gone,

Then, quick as a flash, the next one.

We thought that it might stop at her head,

And go back to tidying up dust instead,

But it didn’t, it carried on cleaning up mum,

Bit after bit, until she was gone.

Until not a part of her could be seen,

She’d been sucked right into the vacuum machine.

It whizzed and it whirred and it spluttered a bit,

Then instead of sucking, it began to spit.

Her feet came back, still in their shoes,

A robust pair in shades of blues.

Her legs came next, with her knobbly knees,

Her body in the dress the colour of cheese.

Then the vac began to wobble and we worried it would stop,

But with an almighty ‘ooof!’ her neck flew out and landed next on top.

I looked at dad, and dad looked at me,

“I think she’ll be right son,” he declared nervously.

We waited and we waited for her head to come back out,

And when it didn’t dad bent down and gently poked the spout.

There was a lump in the tubing we were pretty sure was mum,

But it didn’t seem to be moving and the vac began to hum…

The humming got louder and louder and I had a sinking feeling.

But her head shot out like a football then, and bounced off the ceiling.

It dropped perfectly onto the rest of her, not a hair was out of place,

Just two black smudges of dust upon her face.

We marvelled she’d come out at all, let alone come out just fine,

Until we started to notice, her words from time to time…

They’re a bit jumbled up now, not all quite as they used to be;

Her bottom lip and her top lip ended up the wrong way round you see.

#Motherhood #Mum #Stories #ChildrensStory #ChildrensBook #PictureBook #Vacuum