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| Relationships | Families | Death in the Family
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DEATH IN THE FAMILY |
 What my Mum was Really Like |
| Coping with my Mum's Illness and Death |
| Happy Memories, Small Regrets and Words of Advice |
| My Dad and Us |
Mummy
by
Philip Bell-Young 13th January 2003
Dearest Mummy you will always be the best
Loving, caring and kind, you never took a rest.
You were there If I needed your help for a test,
But now you can do anything because you have
been blessed.
Your hair was a glorious Autumn gold and bright.
The pain you had has now gone away forever.
Because you wanted so much for us all
You got us all sorts of stuff like a love ball.
You were the best of all, you couldn’t be better,
You got all o f the best and loving letters
You were the best person and a nurse
You made it clear to me that there was no
such thing as a Bell-Young curse.
Your laughter made the sun come out
Your smile was an inspiration for all.
Your love of adventure was too good for me,
Your love for all creatures was great to see.
You were more beautiful than words could tell
You were our very own Galadriel
Your favourite season was Autumn light
You were a lady with dignity and would
Never give up a fight.
You were an Artist so great
And you loved everyone, even our mates.
Oh how you would always come up with great games
Making us all happy was your greatest aim.
Mummy never liked to see us unhappy
So cheer up if you are crying a lot
You planned a summer holiday in May.
Now just before I end there’s something
I have to say.
I know you’re there Mum
I can feel your presence
And hear your sweet voice in the wind
I see Autumn in your hair
Your hand touches me in the air,
Mummy, Mummy, I know you’re there. |
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About the Poem |
Finding inspiration
I wrote the end before the beginning. It was done over different weeks, but the bit that really got me started, well it was in the winter just before the funeral and it had been really badly snowing and my friend had took me to Bradgate park and we had a bike ride, and I took some pictures, but it gave me all this inspiration. When I got home I couldn’t write it at first I had to get into bed and when I was trying to get to sleep I just stood up and wrote my poem.
I kept writing it down in my notebook and I had to, you know, change the sentences. It didn’t always begin “Dearest Mummy.”
At the funeral I went round to everybody and everyone wanted a copy and we haven’t had the time yet to send them all off. We’ve still got a few but my one’s very special cos my one was done by my learning support teacher and um it’s got the poem and then it’s got decoration and it’s laminated. It’s outside my bedroom door.
My mum was our Galadriel
Galadriel is an elf in Lord of the Rings and she reminds me of my mum. The dwarf Gimley is talking to the hobbit and saying that as soon as anybody lays eyes on her they fall in love cos of her spell, cos she’s like a witch, and Gimley in the end falls in love with her. They don’t all, but Gimley does and it’s just cos she’s a witch I think, but also because she is really beautiful, and I put that down. She has long blonde hair just like my mum. She descended in to the west and remained in Galadriel, and at the end of the book you see a boat taking Arwin, Galadriel and I think Frodo to what they call heaven. They call it differently but they actually mean heaven. I don’t know it, my brother told me. I haven’t read the end of it yet; I know my mum’s been reading it.
The Bell-Young Curse
I used to think we were cursed, that’s why I wrote about it in the poem. Whenever we were going to school and we got to the traffic lights, and the lights seemed to be saying “Here come the Bell-Youngs!” cos they always turned to red. But one day we actually made it through the green lights. We came through the green lights and then we got stuck at roadwork lights, and mum convinced me that it’s just typical and it happens to loads of people and I just called it a kind of curse.
Saying a proper goodbye
Mum gave me lots of help, especially with my dyslexia, and I just thought that at the funeral I would like to say a proper goodbye, by writing something about her to let everyone know what my mum was really like. And I writ it… I got everything that she was, and the reason why I want to be a zoologist is cos mum taught me about nature and that. It’s down somewhere in the poem.
The games we played
My Mum was great at inventing games for us to play.
The Love Ball
A long time ago before my sister was born and I was just a little boy, we were on holiday and I got shouted at by my brother and I went off. Mum and dad were so worried, but these two people, that were also from the camp found me sitting on the main road. It was around that time, and we’d gone to the beach. We were up early - we’d had a bad night and mum bought this little beach ball, and you know how you pass things on, well it was like that and I couldn’t play properly but, you went like… “I pass the love ball to Sean” (my brother) and I’d pass it to Sean, and then he’d pass it to my Dad. It’s called the “love ball” cos you could send your love to that person. When my mum passed it to my brother he just whacked it and the wind caught hold of it and chucked it in the air, and it’s like the wind was playing “I pass my love to the sea”, and it got in to the sea and just went whoosh and the wind took it in to the sea.
The Minister’s Cat
We played this at dinner. I think it was alliteration and would go like “seven silly snails swam seven slug miles” something like that, and then the other person would do it in the ABC, so the first person would do it A, like “ants are antibiotic” and then the next person would do B, and Sean would say, I can’t remember it exactly, but it had bottoms in it and everyone starting laughing.
Of course when mum did pass away we still played some of the games. I can’t remember them all, but there were lots more, all types she played, not only to make some fun out of dinner, but also to help our vocabulary. |
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