rirv
09-11-2009, 11:50 AM
...10th September, 1990.
That was the day my mother died after a four and a half year battle with breast cancer. I don't really remember her being ill - I knew something was wrong because we'd keep going to the hospital, but to a four year old she might as well have had a cold.
She was Czech - having escaped from behind the iron curtain in the early 70s - and my Czech grandparents were visiting and I'd just started school a few days earlier. They were looking after me and my brother, though we didn't speak any Czech and they didn't speak any English. It was one of those inevitably sunny early September days - just like we're having now. My dad arrived home. I remember watching him coming up the stairs saying something whilst crying - a really vivid memory. My grandparents and brother understood what he was saying but I didn't. I was just really confused by all the commotion.
I don't have a large amount of memories of her but those that I do have seem to stretch out and fill huge gaps of time - the way everything seems to last forever when you're a child. My dad died five years later from a brain tumour and because of this I've always felt like I'm piecing together bits of memories and trying to imagine them, sometimes trying to live for them vicariously by persuing similar interests or visiting places I knew they used to live or visit: the United Arab Emirates where I was born, places in London, Czech Republic, and where I live now which in a certain light can transport me back to 20 years ago when we first moved there.
About a year ago an old friend of my parents sent a DVD on which they'd recorded some old footage of my mum and dad they'd filmed with an new-fangled camcorder back in the 80s. There's also some of them with me as a toddler. That was incredible - the first time I'd seen moving pictures of them and heard their voices since they passed away. Before this I didn't even know if my mum had a foreign accent.
Occasionally on this board there have been people's parents passing away and I have wanted to say something to them but I think for everyone the experience is different and affects people differently depending on how much their parents were a part of their lives. I've lived more of my life without them than with them, so what is normal? For those who have spent the best part of thirty years growing up with their parents I imagine it's worse. I know I was more affected by my dad's death because I was nine years old not four.
Anyway, RIP mum and dad.
/serious post.
That was the day my mother died after a four and a half year battle with breast cancer. I don't really remember her being ill - I knew something was wrong because we'd keep going to the hospital, but to a four year old she might as well have had a cold.
She was Czech - having escaped from behind the iron curtain in the early 70s - and my Czech grandparents were visiting and I'd just started school a few days earlier. They were looking after me and my brother, though we didn't speak any Czech and they didn't speak any English. It was one of those inevitably sunny early September days - just like we're having now. My dad arrived home. I remember watching him coming up the stairs saying something whilst crying - a really vivid memory. My grandparents and brother understood what he was saying but I didn't. I was just really confused by all the commotion.
I don't have a large amount of memories of her but those that I do have seem to stretch out and fill huge gaps of time - the way everything seems to last forever when you're a child. My dad died five years later from a brain tumour and because of this I've always felt like I'm piecing together bits of memories and trying to imagine them, sometimes trying to live for them vicariously by persuing similar interests or visiting places I knew they used to live or visit: the United Arab Emirates where I was born, places in London, Czech Republic, and where I live now which in a certain light can transport me back to 20 years ago when we first moved there.
About a year ago an old friend of my parents sent a DVD on which they'd recorded some old footage of my mum and dad they'd filmed with an new-fangled camcorder back in the 80s. There's also some of them with me as a toddler. That was incredible - the first time I'd seen moving pictures of them and heard their voices since they passed away. Before this I didn't even know if my mum had a foreign accent.
Occasionally on this board there have been people's parents passing away and I have wanted to say something to them but I think for everyone the experience is different and affects people differently depending on how much their parents were a part of their lives. I've lived more of my life without them than with them, so what is normal? For those who have spent the best part of thirty years growing up with their parents I imagine it's worse. I know I was more affected by my dad's death because I was nine years old not four.
Anyway, RIP mum and dad.
/serious post.