Two great, huge hearted, kind, charitable, glamorous women have left this world over the past two weeks.

Both aged 80, both after a short battle with cancer, both with an incredible make-up bag.  One was a legendary icon. The other was Dolly Parton. 

Artist. Poet. Traveller. Garden witch.  Creator of the best deep fat fried crinkle cut chips. My mum.

I’ve had a month off both the day job and readings while I cared for my mum in hospital and the hospice, until she left us on August 18th. Just six weeks from her cancer diagnosis.

Yes she was 80. Yes, it’s not tragic as such. But the grief. It is overwhelming for my sister Suzanne and I.

Our mum, Joy, taught us so much. To be independent women. To be resilient. And the most important lesson of all, never leave the house without a full face, even to bring in the milk.

Mum made many sacrifices for Suzi and I. The world wasn’t set up for single mums in the eighties, but she was wily and resourceful, working in care homes, cleaning, catering on a building site, side hustles of beauty products, keyring making and bizarrely, miniature marzipan fruit, before beginning her full time career with British Rail. 

Our home was immaculate. Everything tidy, not a dirty dish in sight. In fact, Suzanne and I both still eat at the speed of lightning even now, because if you paused for even a second she’d whip your plate away, wash and dry it and it was back in the cupboard before you’d even had time to swallow.

Money was tight, but we never really noticed, because mum could make a walk in the meadows feel like the biggest adventure. She spun stories of magic and elves in Bluebell Woods in Bilton, running ahead and planting little gifts from the fairy realm for me to find.

Mum made me believe, with no doubt, in fairies. I still do. And every night I’ll clap my hands, like Peter Pan, and say it for you mum. 

For a long time, it was just us three. Us three, always, was one of our sayings. Along with:

Knowledge is power. Feel the fear, and do it anyway. Go with the flow.  

The only thing you didn’t teach us mum, was to how to live without you.

On her last day she squeezed my hand tight, and told me she would always be with us. I vowed then I’d always look for signs.

Magpies have always had such meaning to Suzi and I. Her YouTube channel is called Stone Magpie, and she nicknamed mum MommaMagpie when she was videoed for the channel. For me, I have always been dreadfully superstitious, waving and saluting like a maniac whenever I see a solitary one. 

Just after mum died, we went out onto the terrace of St Michael’s to breath in the stunning surroundings, the view of the viaduct and the fields – that view we had spent her last lucid day sitting out in front out for hours, laughing with family and delighting in a delicious cheese board with grapes (Suzanne flapping around like a loon trying to get away from the tenacious wasps and making us laugh) and me reading Anne of Green Gables to her until the sun started to dim

We looked at that view, overwhelmed with grief, yet with peace that mum had passed in exactly the way she wanted. In the hospice, holding our hands.

In the memorial garden below, two magpies landed gently in front of us.

One for sorrow.

Two for Joy.

Thank you mum