The first thing to say about my Mum
is that she is utterly, unreservedly selfless. She’ll put anything off to help
you out, when in a group she has an inability to make a decision just in case
her preference doesn’t match with someone else’s, and she always makes sure she
gets the burnt end of the lasagne. (Not that Mum ever burns her lasagne – it’s
the stuff of legend – but you know what I mean.)
It’s probably also worth noting a few
of Mum’s other qualities: like how she’s THE person you need around in a crisis
to get things in order, yet has been known to descend into a full-on meltdown
when she can’t lock the patio door. More than that, she’s dependable, almost
embarrassingly kind, and I’m lucky enough to call her my very best friend.
One thing for which Mum has never
taken credit – nor have I ever publicly given her credit – is that, for as long
as we’ve been alive, she and Dad have surrounded both my brother Jamie and I
with only the most excellent, upright, wonderful people; whether in family
members, or the kind of friends that might as well be family members: something
I like to think each of us has taken with us in our future choice of mates. And,
by ’eck, it hasn’t half contributed to a happy life.
One such friend is the other Jane in
my life – the Jane who sends funny cards on every possible occasion, who once
warned the doctor investigating her piles that she might fart in his face (‘Why
do you think I’ve got a swept-back hairstyle?’, he said), and who has – particularly
over these past few years – become a cross between the daft-as-a-brush,
filthy-joke-texting mate that everyone should have, and a surrogate mother on
supply-staff hours. (Seriously, you should read one of our text conversations –
you’d have yourself an immediate sitcom.)
While spending time with my lovely
fam back up in Derby this week (part of the holiday from treatment and blogging
that I’ve been enjoying so much I’m this close to crowning myself the Judith
Chalmers of Cancer [see previous post for details]), I spent an afternoon with
Jane and her gorgeous, soon-to-go-to-uni daughter, lapping up the sun in their
garden while eating my favourite cob, crisps and cake (okay, cakes) from my favourite local bakery,
Birds. (If ever I decide to move back to Derby, Birds will be the reason why.)
The night before, I’d wondered
whether Jane might let me have a look at her wedding photos from 1983, when she
married Russ, with me as one of her bridesmaids. Jane and Russ and
my Mum and Dad were really good mates. They met through the cricket club my Dad
played for and – given the many, many happy stories Jamie and I were told as
kids that involved them – it was clear to us from the get-go that Jane and Russ
weren’t just especially dear to our folks, but were bloody special too.
A perfect example of their mutual
daftness was the night before my Dad was due to have a vasectomy, when there
was a knock at the door. When he answered, he saw Russ driving away, then looked
down to find two bricks and a note that read: ‘Save yourself 80 quid, mate.’ There was the time Jane and my Mum went to see Paul Young and a security guard searched Jane’s handbag to find six pairs of knickers with her name and number written on the gusset (all Russ’s doing); and the brilliance of Russ calling his
parents to announce that he and Jane were coming round to announce ‘something
important’… only for the expectant grandparents to open the door, ask ‘Well,
what’s the news?’ and Russ to answer ‘Jane’s made a trifle.’
They had such fantastic time, the
four of them, all at an age with which P and I can identify – that poignant
pre-and-post-30 time when everyone’s attention seems to be switching to weddings
and babies and settled futures. The stories of their good times formed my
earliest childhood memories – alas, I don’t remember many specifics; more the
sheer joy that was in the atmosphere whenever this fantastic foursome got
together, and the residual warmth that passed, osmosis-like, onto their
children. Until Russ died suddenly, aged 30,
leaving 28-year-old Jane with their 12-month-old son.
What happened next isn't my story to
tell, but surely anyone with half a heart can attempt to fill in the horribly
life-altering gaps. Rather, what I want to try to get across about my ‘other
Jane’ in this post, is just how brilliantly, reasonably, admirably – and
continually hilariously – she has continued with her life; much later marrying
a wonderful man: a man who loved and appreciated and respected her so much that
he simply couldn’t not make her his wife.
Jane was taken completely by surprise, perhaps to a point where she didn’t
really want to at first. ‘But I’m still married to Russ,’ she thought – a point
she made clear to her soon-to-be fiancé: ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I will be your wife.
But only if you can appreciate – and be happy – that I’m Russ’s wife too.’ And,
of course, he did. And soon a daughter came along, completing a family that’s a
normal and happy and brilliant as any family could be.
Once our cobs and crisps and cakes
were eaten, we headed back inside, where Jane immediately produced her 1983
wedding album – without me even having to ask (something that tends to happen spookily
regularly with the two of us).
‘Do you fancy?’ she asked, holding up the album.
‘Hell yeah,’ I answered. ‘But are you
sure it’s okay?’
‘This is happy stuff, Lis,’ she said.
‘Why shouldn’t we remind ourselves of it?’ Damn right, too.
As we tearily and teasingly looked
through the images of Russ, typically handsome in his suit, and Jane, pretty as
a picture in her wedding dress and yellow bouquet, I clocked the yellow roses
on the mantelpiece. ‘It would have been Russ’s birthday yesterday,’ she said. ‘I
don’t like to take the flowers anywhere else, cos he’s not anywhere else. He’s
here.’
I completely got it, of course:
though our stories are very different, Jane and I understand each other in a way
that nobody else can. Granted, she doesn’t know the details in full like Main-Jane
Mum and the rest of my immediate family, but nor does she need to. Because Jane
appreciates the acceptance one must begrudgingly come to after a tragedy. And –
better yet – she appreciates that it’s perfectly possible to live a very happy
life thereafter.
