Mother's Day

Friday the 4th of April was the anniversary of my mother's death.

14 years ago.
The year I left my then husband. The year I met my now husband.
A lifetime ago.

In previous years I have marked the occasion with a special dinner with my sisters, or an hour meditating under a tree in the botanic gardens. This year I chose to do something different and had a huge fight with C because he stayed out til 3 in the morning the night before celebrating a co-worker's award.

While C slunk off back to bed with his hangover, I took our child to the museum (his first time) and looked at dinosaurs. Then I decided to join the museum which meant my entry fee was refunded. At first I asked for just a Single membership but when they took me to the membership office, none of the right people were about so I was asked to drop in later.

And if you don't get the time to do that, said the friendly staff member, just think of this as a free trip to the museum. It seemed a very nice and generous thing to do which made me feel a teeny bit better about the way the day had gone.

This also gave me time to reflect a little, and to play magnetic fishing with Tricky in the Under-Fives section, and peruse many tiny thin bones and skeletons in the over fives section. I was able to send sad text messages to my sisters re the day, and a slightly terse text message to C re the day (I knew he had forgotten).

Before going home I went back to the membership office. And when they asked me what sort of membership I thought that C would love to come back to the museum with both of us and so I said Family. Which meant I must have forgiven him, somewhere between the fossilized shells and the green tea in the cafe.

They took my details and siphoned off my credit card and gave Tricky a plastic T-Rex head, featuring a mouth that opens to reveal many many teeth, on a sort of handle thing.

Sadly he was unable to operate it but he was able to hold up the head and nibble thoughtfully at the brows.

It was that sort of day.