Life's Little Interruptions

When you embark on something you anticipate to be as time-consuming, and as mind-consuming as a PhD, it's easy to forget that life goes on and you have to be part of that life. Our family don't stop needing us, we don't stop needing them. This post is dedicated to my mother and her role in my life.

Mum's in a nursing home, about two and a half hours from me. She has dementia and because of her early diving career she's in a lot of pain. She's also one of the strongest women I know and she and my Dad instilled a sense of resilience and determination in me that I'm sure can be frustrating for some! Born in 1935, she challenged gender stereotypes and showed me a world that was not gender typical. My earliest memories are of my Dad looking after me as a child. Sitting up in the tractor in my Dad's lap while he attended to the tasks on the orchard, while Mum was at work. Of my Dad cleaning and cooking, reading us bed-time stories while Mum was too tired or perhaps at meetings. When she retired to work the farm with Dad she didn't play a passive role. She spent hours negotiating with agents and the freight company, ensuring the best produce was sent to market while looking after her workers. When she became the first female forklift instructor anyone had heard of, she had to endure the assumptions that she was just the assistant, and the assumptions that she was a pushover and would hand out licenses regardless of competency.

Mum taught me to learn. She taught me to be curious and to question everything (and I'm sure she regretted that when I was a teenager!) She taught me justice by being just, resilience by being strong, and independence by allowing me to make mistakes, but loving me anyway. She loves me with my tattoos and piercings, encough to be curious, to talk to me, because she knows who I am.

So now I go to see Mum in a little room in a nursing home which is warm and friendly, but Mum's not there. I'm not sure where she is. She could be on the farm, or in front of her class of primary school kids. She could be seeing her grandchildren for the first time or comforting her eight year old daughter who's pet died. She could be meeting my young and handsome Dad at the local sports ground, or on her honeymoon at Vaughan Springs. She could be relaxing in her armchair watching TV with my Dad lightly snoring by her side, her children grown and living their own lives.

I know Mum won't be with us for too much longer and life will go on for me, and for my kids, and for my siblings and their kids. She'll be with our Dad who we still grieve for, but still talk to, who lives in our mannerisms and memories, and shares our joys and disappointments. Because regardless of what happens after this life, we are family.

So I'm doing my PhD and worrying about getting my Literature Review done, and what it's all going to look like, while trying not to worry that Mum doesn't know where she is or who is around her. What I need to remember is that I'm allowed to worry about Mum and if that makes me a little less productive sometimes that's ok. In fact it's required. Mum and Dad had so much to do with me getting to where I am now, it's no surprise they're still with me on the journey.