It was just a selfie with Mum, but this photo means the world to me now

I have this photo of my mum and me. We’re both beaming at the camera, heads together, in a coffee shop in Hobart. I remember the day well, we’d been Christmas shopping with my sister and were stopping for a coffee to refuel.

It’s the last photo I ever took with her.

The author (right), with her mother, Teresa. It is the last photo she ever took with her.Credit:

I lost my mum, Teresa, to dementia in October 2021, and this year will mark my fourth Mother’s Day without her. To be honest, I effectively lost Mum many years earlier, so cruel is this disease that eventually wipes your memory of even those closest to you.

In the last few years visiting her in Tassie, I knew she did not remember my name any more, or maybe even that I was her daughter, much less her youngest baby. But I did get a sense that she knew that I was someone close to her, such was the beam on her face when I walked into a room.

Mum and I never really had any Mother’s Day traditions. I’m sure I brought home the odd scented soap and illustrated card from primary school when I was younger, but after my parents moved to Tassie in their retirement, our annual celebration took the form of a phone call. Not much of a tradition, but a simple pleasure I would give anything for now.

My first Mother’s Day without Mum – just like the first Christmas, her birthday, and the anniversary of her death – was a bitter reminder that she was not here. I remember that first year, I took myself off for a sombre walk to Dee Why beach, feeling sorry for myself. I felt even worse after watching happy groups of women with their mothers, grandchildren with their grandmothers.

The following year, I decided I would light a little candle by that favourite photo of mine, a visual reminder that Mum is still with me, and focus on the happy memories. Like the times when I was in kindergarten and wanted to stay at home with her, so I’d turn sorrowful eyes and clutch my stomach dramatically. She’d smile and let me stay home, knowing full well I was not sick, but that I needed a comfort day nonetheless.

Or the time I found an old scrapbook in a box at Mum and Dad’s place containing all my early newspaper clippings. She was always so proud I got to live out my dream of being a journalist.

As a mother to two beautiful daughters, I am grateful I get to change the focus of Mother’s Day from my Mum to my daughters, who make an effort every year to celebrate me with breakfast and presents in bed.

I recently discovered that the origins of Mother’s Day date back to 1905. A Philadelphia woman, Anna Jarvis, campaigned to have a special day put aside for mothers, in memory of her own recently passed mother who was a women’s rights advocate. By 1914, her idea had been picked up and Mother’s Day was being celebrated throughout the country.

Anna Jarvis began to celebrate her mother publicly after she lost her.

I vowed I would do the same.

When I spoke to friends who had also lost their mothers, I learnt they too had arrived at different ways to keep the memories of their mums alive.

I met my dear friend Kayte at mothers’ group back in 2004, soon after we had both become mothers for the first time. Kayte had recently lost her own mother, Sheila. She marked her first Mother’s Day without her mum by planting a tree in her local area on Sydney’s northern beaches. Her husband, Andy, also planted one in memory of his mum.

“I became a mother less than a year after my mother died,” Kayte says. “My daughter was born on Mother’s Day that year, at about one in the morning, and I’ve always believed that my mum had a part in that, that she was and still is watching over me.”

One of my best friends, Chelsea, lost her dear mum Bernadette seven years ago, and Mother’s Day hasn’t been the same for her since.

“Without children of my own, the day itself can feel like a bit of a void that also marks the start of what is a difficult month that also includes Mum’s birthday and the anniversary of her passing,” Chelsea says.

“I know now that I need to give myself grace to feel whatever I need to feel, whenever I need to feel it.”

And that’s it. My mum had a cheeky sense of humour. She was a brilliant cook and could run up a dress on her sewing machine overnight. She enjoyed watching Mexican soapies and adored animals.

She always had a smile on her face. Just like in that photo.

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