That's When I'm Happy

There was just the bedroom left upstairs.  I think we had left it till last because it seemed the most personal.  Claire had helped me sort through the clothes in the wardrobe.  Most of it we packed into the various plastic sacks that had collected in the porch.  Mum would have approved of her things being used to try to help others have a better life.  She didn’t have a huge array of clothes, but they were good quality.  Soft fabrics, bright colours, patterns that let slip her joy of life.   There were a few pieces we kept, shared between us.  Some we might wear, some we just couldn’t bear to let go.  Her jewellery, her shoes, her scarfs.  Mostly we sorted in silence, but held up items and smiled and occasionally “Do you remember…”  Sometimes we hugged each other and cried.

The piles grew – charity, keeping, bin.  Mike brought up tea now and then, brushing my hair with the flat of his hand as he set the cups down on the bedside table.  He was wearing his old jeans and at first the thick dark jumper he always wore when he worked in the garage or garden.  As the afternoon wore on and he grew warm in the spring sunshine, I saw it lying on the garden table and one of his old tour t-shirts saw the light of day.

“I’ll start taking these downstairs.” Claire picked up two of the sacks and paused in the doorway.  “You okay finishing off?”

I nodded.   I was sat on the bed now.  “I’ll just go through these drawers and I’ll give you a hand.”

I adopted the method I used at home when I was sorting out.  I emptied the contents onto the bed and rummaged through.  It must have been a while, judging by the dust in the corners, since mum had sorted through the drawer, but there wasn’t a great deal in there.  An open pack of tissues with one or two missing; a couple of biros, one leaking blue ink onto my fingers.  I wiped them with one of the tissues; they had holly leaves printed around the edge and I recognised them as a pack I had put into a Christmas stocking I had made up for her the year before last when she had come to us for the holiday.  There was a paper clip, a used emery board, that sort of thing.  Most of it I threw into the rubbish sack, though I put the tissues to one side.  I was going to keep them in my handbag; they smelt of her perfume.

The little book had caught my eye, but I left it till last.  It was only about six or seven inches high and maybe four or five wide.  It had a pretty cover, ruched fabric, a soft pale lilac.  I couldn’t recall seeing it before, but the pages were yellowed with age.  Thick pages with a scalloped edge.

“That’s when I’m happy!”  Mum’s hand inscribed the inside of the front cover. 

The first entry was dated more than forty years ago.  I would have been four.  I settled back against the pillows, the late afternoon sun warming my legs and feet.

“Watching my little girl on the swing, she’s really pushing her legs backwards and forwards.”

Then a few days later

“Charlotte has just picked me a daffodil.  I love to see her playing in the sunshine.”

I turned the pages.   Most were miniature diary entries of trivial, everyday things mum found pleasure in.  Finding a pound note in her purse, a robin in the garden, or funny little things Claire or I had said over the years.

“Christmas isn’t all about vegetables you know mummy!”

Some were lists – the moon in the sky during the day; hedgehogs; a purring cat; the sound of children playing, thrown over from the school playground two streets away; the greenness of trees against a blue, blue sky; washing blowing in the summer breeze – nothing extraordinary, but I found them so.  I knew mum had loved spring flowers and bird song and the smoothness of newly plastered walls, but I never realised they made her soul sing.

I turned another page – “There was a fox in the garden this morning!” It was dated for my sixth birthday.  I remembered the moment of opening the curtains in mum’s room and there, staring up at the window, startled by the movement out of the corner of its eye, was a thin, young fox.  It turned and hurried across the garden, leaping over the low fence made of chicken wire at the bottom, and then disappearing into the undergrowth of Mrs McKenna’s garden next door.

I closed my eyes remembering how mum and I had hugged each other with excitement about The Birthday Fox!  I had forgotten all about him, but the pleasure of that moment with mum had come flooding back reading that entry in her untidy writing.  Not just the memory of the fox, but the special feeling of a lovely shared experience.  I closed my hand around the little book.

I felt someone sit on the bed close to me, but I struggled to open my eyes.  Sleep had been evasive in the last few days, but now I had found it, it didn’t want to let me go.

“In the midst of sadness, happiness is all around.” 

My eyes opened.  “Mum?”

Mike took my hand.  “Charlotte, it’s me, it’s ok.  I’ve brought you a cup of tea.  We should get going soon.”

I nodded, sat up slowly and took the mug from him.  “I’ll come down.”

He took the mug and placed it down on the bedside table beside the two half empty ones from earlier. He wrapped his arms around me and I sank into him, holding him tightly, grateful for him being who he was.

Shall I take this rubbish?”  He gestured to the bag.  I wiped my eyes and nodded again.

“Are these to go?” he picked up the pack of tissues and the book that lay next to me.

“No – I’ll be needing both of those.”  I said.