Mum died on the 23rd of May. Here’s a little something I wrote to say at her funeral today.

Connie… Mum… Nana… Auntie Con… was a highly intelligent, funny, capable, assertive and strong woman; a true matriarch. And my word she was a stunner! Her commitment to looking after her own family and then the pursuit of a career in nursing meant it was a little later on in life before she was snapped up, but when that handsome bagnino approached her on the beach in Rimini and offered her some sun cream, and when he came back on the following days of her holiday and eventually got her to agree to go dancing, her days as a single woman were over. What followed were 52 years of dedication, adoration, a bit of bickering… a lot of bickering actually, that cemented Mum and Dad’s beautiful marriage. I’ll always remember Dad carrying Mum’s handbag upstairs every night as they retired to bed, it really was the sweetest thing.

Her many joys in life included reading, music, dancing, history, cooking, the sea (she loved the sea) and talking. When she was bluelighted to hospital ten years ago because her heart rate was through the floor, the ambulance crew remarked how they’d never known somebody who should be unconscious talk so much. When she, Dad and their friends Ivan and Sue were together, the combination of Mum’s chattering, my Dad’s strong accent and the reluctance of all of them to wear their hearing aids led to a rather shouty game of Chinese whispers in which, by some miracle, everybody eventually knew what was going on once the laughter had subsided. Oh the laughter.

Mum also loved football and she’d take any opportunity to watch her beloved Liverpool when their matches were televised, even to the point of watching their characteristically dismal performance in the recent Europa Cup Final from her hospital bed. In all the years of watching though, I still had to explain the offside and away goals rules to her.

She was a worrier though. Sometimes she’d worry about the daftest things: whether her hair was straight before answering the front door (or the phone); that she’d accidentally left her pinnie on when she’d nipped out to see a neighbour; that her lasagne was never up to scratch (it always was, without fail). When her concerns got the better of her, she’d utter those immortal words “What a life!”

You see, she had standards and a strong moral compass, which along with those from our Dad, were passed onto us lot, along with a keen sense of wrath should anybody sleight us. Her death stare left you feeling as if your soul had been ripped out through your backside. Always above herself, it was us who she worried about most of all – sometimes with good cause but most of the time with no reason at all. She worried because she cared, she cared so much for all of us and had so much love to give: to our dad who she absolutely adored; Alan… well, Alan – fiercely loyal number one son who will do anything for anybody; our amazing sister Anna and whatever life was throwing at her; me – although I obviously never gave her much cause for concern apart from her thinking I was a bit simple until I was about 35; and her beautiful, clever, funny granddaughter, Little Con. Add to the mix our cousins, other relatives and friends, and the eight cats that were the family’s companions over the years, not to mention my delinquent dog, we gave her plenty to worry about.

People meant so much to her and she to so many people. News of her death was met with such kind comments from those who we’d grown up with at school and others who had met her more recently. She left an indelible mark on so many.

Her beautiful heart seemed to beat for all of us; when ours got broken and our lives seemed to be over, her love was the emotional CPR we needed to pick ourselves up and learn to live again. It’s devastating for us all that her heart only had three billion heartbeats in it; a wonderful woman with so much love to give deserved at least another billion, especially since she’d shared so many of hers with so many others. We are privileged though to have her heart beating inside ours and, because of this, she will live on forever.