Hats

When I lived in bed-sit land in Balham in the late 1960s my treat of the week was gathering my laundry together on my Monday day off from hairdressing, as I didn't have a washing machine, getting the train to Croydon and meeting my Mum at West Croydon station at eleven, leaving my laundry in her original Mini ready to be laundered and dried at her home and we'd go to the Lyons Cafe, eat an iced bun with a milky coffee and then we'd Go Shopping. But this was no ordinary shopping. It was Trying On Hats in C & A Shopping. We did this every single Monday for years. We did this when I got married and then pregnant with my daughter. We did it when my daughter was in a pushchair (not called Buggies then) We did it together when my daughter was pregnant with her first child but in Tunbridge Wells, not Croydon. We did it because it was the funniest shared time we had together as Mother and Daughter and then as Grandmother, Mother and Daughter and the Great-Grandson safe in my daughter's womb.

We tried on every hat in the store. I loved wearing hats then and I still do but Mum never though they suited her. I have a large head, my Mum had a tiny head and my daughter is somewhere inbetween. So a hat that fitted me would slip down over my Mum's eyes, hit her nose and drown her so we would cry with laughter at her image in the mirror. My daughter pulled funny faces and made sure her ears stuck out when she tried a hat on so by this stage we were rolling on the floor knicker wetting with laughter.

After an hour of this we sensed the sales assistants were watching us. Quite rightly because we had made a mess of their orderly hat display. We were obvious time-wasters. My concience would kick-in and I knew I had to buy a hat whether I wanted to or not. No chance of Mum or Daughter buying one. I've kept all of these hats. They are stored in chests, black sacks, ottomans. I have panamas, berets. cloches, fedoras, straw hats, sequined, trilbys, waterproof, fur, animal print, fascinators but I've never bought a Funeral Hat.

My dear Mum passed at four o'clock 8th January 2010 aged eight-nine.

I spent this morning searching on eBay and found and then bought my first Funeral Hat, pictured above, as a tribute to wonderful shared memories of Hat Shopping with my dear Mum. We shared many other things together. Our relationship with Hats represents our relationship as Mother and Daughter and then Grandaughter.

Mum loved to laugh and I imagine if she could see me in this Hat at her own funeral her eyes would crease then twinkle, tears of laughter would form, she'd ask me if she could try it on and - the result would be historic.

Loss

Six months ago my family lost a precious family member. This loss was unexpected because they hadn't been ill and they were young. Since then we've wept together, held each other, laughed together and are rebuilding our lives. I spoke at the Humanist Celebration of their life. I spoke of happy times, of their funny ways, of our relationship, of his life. I didn't cry throughout. I looked nobody in the eye as I stood on the rostrum. I stayed strong for everyone else. How I managed this I will never know.

The above photo of myself and a new friend was taken last week at the Wake of another young man. He was in his early fifties and left a widow and two young sons. I had never met him. He was an old friend of Morty's and over five hundred people attended the service. I look happy don't I?

That's because I cried all the way through this stranger's service. All my tears, emotions and heart wrenching pain was for the man who died six months ago - my son-in-law. He also left a widow and two young sons; my daughter and my two young grandsons. Releasing my previously controlled emotions in a place full of people I didn't know and will never meet again was cathartic. My sense of relief was dramatic.

So I smiled and circulated at this stranger's wake. I said appropriate words to his widow. I spoke to his two young sons. Perhaps I was one of the few mourners among the many hundreds honouring this young man's life who knew exactly how this family feel. How they will face the future without their husband and father. How his two young sons will look after their Mum - just as my two young grandsons are looking after theirs.