I turn 52 today, in the January rain.
Yesterday, I went to the Maggie's Centre, with my mum who is 79.
Mum or Madeline or Madza, she was once called The Woman that Knows Things. She's the woman that raised 4 kids and gave her husband the space to be a proper author. She's still the woman who advises him (gently) that he really should buy a new jumper, and shouldn't wear that grey fleece, 'all the time.'
Mum is approaching the finishing line of five weeks of cancer treatment and the Maggie's is a fantastic charity, building calming spaces where patients can go for tea and biscuits and yoga and emotional support.
We went straight for the biscuits, of course. Irish genes with a weakness for sugar. Sugar that's linked to all sorts of health calamity. Doh!
We got chatting to a woman who was a volunteer. She was one of these women who is quite old but still radiates vitality. She told us that she walks 4 miles to the centre before volunteering. Wow. The sad part is, her daughter (who wasn't there) has a 'massive' cancer.
I wanted to jump in and say, what the feck is going on? Why is there SO much of it about? In young people!? Why won't the chemical polluters of the modern world admit they are the problem? But I didn't, of course. It wasn't the time or place.
What do you do? The vibrant volunteer woman asked me.
She's a poet! exclaimed my mum.
This is the part when I rush in with my, 'Oh, Fie!' face and shake my head. It's one thing to try to write poetry. Another to call yourself a poet. But I was touched by mum's proclamation.
Mum's most recent comment on my work was, 'I read your poem, and it can stand beside any one else's poem.' In our family, that's praise.
On the way out, the volunteer woman told us that she was sad that she seemed to 'infuriate' her own daughter, while only trying to support her. I suppressed a tiny urge to hug her, in the name of social politeness.
Her daughter sends her brief factual texts with medical updates.
'But you want to know,' said the woman, 'You know?!'
I know. We always want to know.
On the way out, my mum took my arm, to stop herself slipping on the leaves. I was glad I could be there for the small stuff, in the middle of the big stuff.
