Our mum, her eulogy
Our mum died in the spring of 2023; 18 months on, it still feels very raw. She was an amazing mum and an amazing woman. This is the eulogy my sister and I gave at her funeral.
Our Mum; Church Cove, Cornwall
Our mother was beautiful in every sense. She had such a big life and touched so many people; it’s hard to know where to begin. She was a wife, a granny, a great granny, a daughter, a big sister and an aunt. She was a close friend, a fabulous cook, an avid reader, a great talker, a dog walker, a gardener and an animal lover.
She was our mum.
Mum was born in 1934 in Godolphin but grew up in Gweek and then Falmouth, not too far from here, with her twin brother John and younger brother Peter.
Our mum was a strong, independent and fearless soul who didn’t like doing things by half — as she would say, she hated pussy footing around.
This is probably why, as a child, she decided the only sensible way she and her brothers could learn to swim was by jumping into the river at Gweek from the top of the wharves and then working out the rest after they hit the water!
Mum loved music and dancing, and it was at a local dance where she met a young vet from Belfast, our Dad. And in 1955, when she was 20, they got married in Falmouth and moved to Bedford, where they set up the practice and started a family.
I suspect few people would have been able to cope with the stream of exotic animals that appeared in their houses in those early years. But mum’s determination to just get on with life meant she was the first person in the UK to breed a bushbaby and the first in Europe to rear an anteater.
If you’re interested, apparently, the trick is to hide the mealworms at the bottom of a fury boot and let the anteater stick its nose inside.
Growing up, we were lucky to have lived with lion cubs, chickens, hyraxes, deer, kingfishers, kestrels, and yes, dogs and cats too. Finding a bongo in the bathroom or a flamingo in the shower was not unusual. Coming home from school to a tiger cub (which later gave us all ringworm) is another experience that neither we, nor our GP will likely forget.
I’m not sure, however, that everyone appreciated our pets and wards quite as much as our mum.
I remember Mum telling us about the time she was looking after a baby woolly monkey; it must have needed round-the-clock care because when she needed to see her dentist, Gordon Mitchell, rather than leaving it at home as you or I might have done, mum popped it down her bra. This might have been fine, except, at some point, the monkey woke up and reached its tiny, hairy arm out and grabbed Gordon by the finger.
Our mum was an amazingly positive person. She never saw the point in worrying about things you couldn’t change nor complaining about those you could. If she could do something about it, she did.
She would fight her corner when she needed to knock down walls in the house she wanted gone, and spent all one summer with wire brushes and gallons of paint stripper to expose the wooden beams in the cottage we grew up in.
But it is, I think, her cooking that I will remember most.
Our mummy was a feeder. She loved to cook for her friends and family. Which was great for all of us because she was such a brilliant chef.
Growing up, the house was often full of people eating, drinking and talking.
Mummy brought us together with her food, a glass of wine or few, and her willingness to welcome anyone into her life.
And when Dad died, she organised the Onesie Dinner Club for some of her neighbours who had also recently lost their partner. She loved food, loved her friends, loved the community she was a part of, and she wanted to do something to help, to bring people together. Food was how she did this.
Mum loved people, and she loved to hear what they thought. She read widely, from art, fashion and current affairs to fiction. She loved a good discussion. She loved politics, different opinions and a good debate.
She loved Cornwall; she would walk for miles over the headlands and beaches with her dogs, and when we were down, with us, her family. We all have so many happy memories of walking the Cornish coast with our mum and her dogs, often in the howling wind and sometimes with one of Mrs Lugg’s pasties.
Our mummy lived her life to the full right up to the final moment.
What she was, was how she died. Mum did not want to compromise her independence, and she did not want to go back to “bloody Treliske”. She wanted to live her life as she chose.
She died happy, having lived an amazing life. She loved living in Cornwall with Pip. She loved watching rugby. She loved walking the Cornish headlands and beaches. She loved her friends.
She loved us, her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
She was proud that she had helped us be who we wanted to be, to be able to find our own way in the world, knowing that it was always better to do what was right and not simply follow the crowd.
Please, don’t mourn her death; she wouldn’t want that.
Instead, remember her as the strong, generous, kind and wonderful woman she was. Remember her the next time you talk about the weather, walk with the wind in your face or the sun on your back, or perhaps when you’re drinking your 6 o’clock gin and tonic.
Posted on November 19, 2024 #personal