Mum’s Story

Anne thought of the amount of work piling up waiting to be done. 

She didn’t feel enthusiastic about it at all! The accounts needed to be finished and submitted to the Accountant, meetings needed to be organised and summary sheets prepared.

Instead, her mind wandered to the story she’d always wanted to tell. It was her mum’s story really, a story she’d always wanted to get into print, one she’d always talked about doing but had never started. Other things (like work) had always got in the way but she felt it just had to be told, but where to begin? It felt like a mountain to climb. She’d need all the relevant dates of births, deaths and marriages etc… and she’d need to talk to the only surviving member of the family from her mum’s era, Auntie Jean, to pick her brains and make sure to get all the details correct. “What an effort that will take” she thought! It just sounds like more work to do!”

A sudden wisp of wind toppled the photograph she kept of her mum from off the mantelpiece, it slowly floated down next to her feet. She picked it up and put it back in its place next to the photo of her dad.

“Think I’ll check my emails and see what’s of interest there” she thought and ran upstairs to get her laptop. “I’ll tackle those Accounts as soon as I’ve finished, and at least I’ll be able to catch up with friends and see which sales are on – perhaps it’ll cheer me up”.

Anne turned on her laptop and scanned through the 100’s of emails in her inbox. Her eye was drawn to an email, the first Silverhairs Newsletter. She remembered having signed up to their site recently. She clicked onto the link to see what they had to say. She read through the various articles and one stood out from all the others. It was entitled ‘Silverhairs Members – Write to Win’. Straight away she thought of her mum’s story. “Gosh” she thought – “it must have been fate that’s brought this to my notice or maybe my mum’s watching over me and is trying to tell me something. That’s just what I need to get me going”. She looked over to the photograph of her mum on the mantelpiece, “Thanks mum, you’ve given me the incentive to do what I always promised I’d do. I know you’ll help me even though you’re not here anymore but you couldn’t be any more here with me at this moment”.

She suddenly felt uplifted. She took a deep breath. She logged out of her emails and relished the feeling of looking forward to telling her mum’s story. She decided to call Auntie Jean there and then to organise when she could meet up with her to start getting all the relevant details she needed. She’d made the first step to tackling that major ‘job’ – her mum’s story.

Written by: Anne Pritchard