Editorial: Loss leaves a vale of tears

This Mothers Day is my first as a motherless child.

Born in London in 1921, mum died in January 2012 in Christchurch, NZ.

She was third from youngest of so many siblings none could agree how many. Eleven girls - who twirled each others' long hair with rags to make ringlets for church on Sunday - and twin boys who died too young was a popular consensus. They slept three to a bed (first up best dressed).

School finished at age 11, then, mum, as her sisters had before, started work at a dressmaker's, sweeping up pins and rising through the ranks to swanking around London in high heels, colour-matching cottons to swatches of cloth.

In World War II she joined the Waafs (Women's Auxiliary Air Force), in the parts department at Bomber Command.

She exchanged love letters with dad while he battled through France, Egypt and Greece, and was taken prisoner of war in Austria.

Afterwards they married, and immigrated to New Zealand on the ex-troop ship RMSP Atlantis.

Mum was unimpressed. Supposedly it was their honeymoon but since the ship was still fitted out for troop transport, genders were segregated. She was also terrified of water (never learned to swim) and subsequently refused ever to set foot willingly on another boat.

Landfall in Wellington was shocking. Tin roofs and wooden buildings signified a transit camp; surely the city must be elsewhere?

They settled in Christchurch where I, the first Kiwi in my family, was born, followed by my brother and a move to Dunedin.

Mum sewed and knitted everything we wore (except dad's uniforms), bottled, made jam, fund-raised on committees and put on amazing spreads of pavs and chocolate éclairs in the best dining room.

Should I live to be 90 (heaven forfend), I will never manage the fragrant, folded, ironed laundry perfection she achieved.

Singing, dancing, shopping and dressing up were her forte.

In our family we all talk at once. The culture came from mum's heritage, where no-one could get a word in edgeways and any sense floated to the top like cream. She was a story teller - no object was ever as important as the story attached.

Mostly we didn't see eye to eye. How could we from different times, different places? ("You don't know how lucky you are.") I was a severe disappointment in the sewing and knitting departments and far too messy to be allowed anywhere near the kitchen.

We did laugh though. The last time was when in her later years - blind and stroke-disabled - out together, we were faced with accessing the sixth floor of a hotel.

She couldn't do stairs and I'm lift-phobic. The only answer was to pop mum in the lift then sprint up the stairs in time to release her, whereupon we both fell about in hysterics because we each could do what the other couldn't.

She spent her last sad months back in Christchurch - the earthquakes in her mind far more severe than those which broke all her treasures - carefully folding and unfolding her sweet-smelling handkerchiefs as if her life depended on it.

I inherited them.

Thank you mum, I couldn't live without them in this vale of tears.