Mum

My mum is 92. She lives at home on her own since my dad died about 2 years ago. She is an incredible woman.

We have just been to Sainsbury’s for her weekly shop. As brother Graham is away for a couple of weeks, I have spent more time with my mum. The weekly shop has a great pattern. Mum writes her list, which varies very little week-to-week. The blue plastic shopping boxes, the cool bag and the wine bag with six compartments are put in the boot. We park in the mother and child section as she is my mother and I am her child, plus it’s nearer for her to get into the shop and we haven’t got round to updating the blue parking badge that my dad had. She takes my arm and we walk to the trolleys and once inside the shop, she’s off! Last time I wandered about doing my own shopping but this week, I kept a respectful 3 paces behind her as she went down the list – which was written in aisle order – and popped things in the basket.

When dad was still alive, they would shop together – although not in the generally accepted meaning of the word together. They would have separate trolleys and arrange to meet at the tills. Whereupon mum would roll her eyes at dad’s basket full of sweets, cakes, some sort of shredded wheat and cranberry juice. Oh, and some red wine. Mum would also have red wine in her trolley but they didn’t put any back.

Once all the items on the list are in the trolley, we find her regular “till lady“ and join the queue – even if it’s the longest queue. Today, the “till lady” wasn’t on duty so we were able to take the shortest queue.

When we get home, some of the items are put away in the kitchen and some are put in the freezer. Because I have done the shopping two weeks in a row, I am quite knowledgeable about my mum’s freezer. Currently, about 25% of the space is chicken tikka masala. This amazes me. We never had curry at home. My first curry was when I went to uni in Newcastle and we went to the end of the road and got chips with curry sauce. Who knew! I kind of fell in love with the Brighton Grove curry house. To this day, I don’t think I have ever eaten a curry with my mum.

So the next 25% of the freezer is loaves of bread – seed sensations to be precise. Who needs so much bread? My mum, obviously.

The other 50% has plastic containers with things like “apple puree August 2021”, or random chicken pies (not homemade). So the first week I put the stuff for the freezer in the freezer, I carefully moved all the old and very old chicken tikka masalas higher up in the drawer and all the just bought ones right at the bottom. I think I should say not to buy any more for a few months…

Am proud of my mum for being 92 and still looking so glamorous when she goes food shopping. We had an interesting chat on the way back from Sainsbury’s about what happens after you die. She believes she will be reunited with dad, Nick, her sister Margaret, her two brothers and her mum, among others. I asked her whether she was expecting to actually meet them in the flesh and she said yes. I asked her what dad would look like when she met him – they had been together for 70 years so the dad she met and fell in love with aged 20 would not look like the dad of his later years. She wasn’t sure but knew that she would know him and he would know her.

I have slightly different views and explained that whenever I thought about or dreamt about someone I was close to that had died, that was like meeting them again. It was good to talk about this stuff with her.