Eighty Years On

About eighty years separate this photograph of my Mother, taken around 1936 when she was 18, and this drawing, hastily completed as she concentrated on her newspaper last Saturday afternoon:

May (A5, ink and pencil on sketchbook page, 2016)

In between she had two children, lived through the war that brought with it many personal tragedies, suffered a betrayal by one of her two brothers, and moved into – and later out of – her dream house. She outlived her brothers and her five sisters and nursed her husband – my Father – through his only serious illness (which eventually killed him) – all etched in the lines on her face.

It’s probably about 75% accurate as a portrait: what I couldn’t capture is her humour. Despite everything that life has thrown at her she has a wonderful sense of the ridiculous, so much so that it was difficult to detect the onset of her dementia five or six years ago. Now that reality is something of a sliding scale for her, the disappointments of her life have largely fallen away leaving intact her ability to laugh.

Although she sometimes feels alone, or tired, or lost – despite being supported in her own home by a network of carers and daily visits by my brother – how wonderful to approach one’s 98th birthday with laughter and amusement!