"Today on Mothering Sunday, and Sheila and I give thanks to two great women in our lives. While both came from different hemispheres of the world and enjoyed a much different lifestyle as they brought up their children, each woman possessed a tenacity of spirit, a positivism of outlook and a dogged determination that is rare. Each woman would rarely been seen without a smile across their faces or a song close to their lips.
While my mother died at the early age of 64 years, Sheila's mum, who lived in a nearby 'Old Folk's Home' in Oakworth before her death last year managed to keep going until the age of 85 years. Indeed; from all of the residents there, she was the only one to our knowledge who went out for a 'wheelchair walk' daily, weather permitting.
While each of our mothers never had the pleasure of knowing the other, had they met, I have no doubt they would have hit it off instantly. While their upbringings and adult lives were at opposite ends of the pole, they were neverthelesss so close to each other in the more important things of life; their positive attitudes to adversity, their automatic belief in 'self' and the natural goodness of their fellow beings, and the constant smile that each carried throughout their entire lives, and which never left their face from morning 'til night, from cradle to grave. Both would have become Suffragettes had they lived at the start of the previous century in England, and although each was 'religious' throughout their lives, a strong belief in self always ran a close second to their belief in God!
Mum Elizabeth was a barrister and was married to a barrister, while Mum Maureen Forde served tables in a restaurant part-time after her seven children had grown up. Prior to then, Mum Maureen was the full-time housewife and mother to seven children, and was married to a husband who always laboured as a miner or foundary worker.
The most prominent characteristic that both mothers shared was their constant smiles that never occupied any other residence in life than in their faces. Whatever difficulty they faced, whenever life gave them a knock, they simply got up like all the rest of their generation, dusted themeslves down and started again.
Throughout their lives, each mother were dreamers. Mum Forde would forever dream of one day owning her own little cottage with roses around the porch and a garden filled with flowers all year long. She'd to wait until after her death to see her dream realised by her firstborn child,myself. Her favourite song was 'Far away places'; particularly her homeland of Ireland. She would have been so pleased to know that her oldest child would one day become good friends with her favourite singer, Vera Lynn.
Mum Elizabeth's dream was to return the Holy Land which she often visited before she could no longer travel. Like Mohammed, if the the mountain wouldn't come to him, he went to the mountain. Before she died, she became virtually blind, yet Mum Elizabeth would sit in her chair beside the window and listen to the birds and see the faded outline of a favourite tree nearby. Mum Elizabeth lost the sight in both eyes and was 90% blind for a few years before she died. Always a lover of books and church, she could always be seen holding a book to read in her hands, even when she could feel the book but never see its pages. Her virtual blindness was due to cataracts and a simple operation to remove the cateracts would have instantly restored her sight. Despite all attempts to persuade Mum Elizabeth to have her cateract operation and restore her sight, she doggedly refused. In a strange way, while she may have held some fear of the small operation, I'd like to believe that it was because she'd always been so happy with the world as she'd always seen it, that in her last years, she preferrred to keep seeing it the way she had come to love it!
The words and activity of both mums that sum up their overall philosophy better than any other aspects of their characters I can remember could be summerised by two examples. Each saw the world they looked at with the most positive pair of eyes. Each lived in the world they inhabited, forever remaining largesse in their generosity, compassion, understanding and sheer goodness. And both women always sang to Nature's tune as they lived in harmony with the world and all its creatures; and at peace with themselves and their God.
The last words me and Mum Forde spoke to each other was when she had been taken into Dewsbury Hospital in her 64th year of life (over thirty years ago). While her condition was serious, it wasn't particularly considered as being life threatening. As I left her after visiting her, in her hospital ward we kissed and told each other 'I love you', and on my way out of the ward I turned and said jokingly, 'See you tomorrow night, Mum, so don't go dying off on me before then, will you?' She smiled back. By noon the following day she had suddenly died. My lasting memory of Mum Forde was seeing her wave and smile at me from the hospital window by her bedside as I walked to the car park below. I love you Mum. Thank you for always believing in me and telling me every day of my life that 'I was special' and that you loved me.
Ever since Mum Elizabeth went in an Old Folk's Home' after contracting dementia, my wife Sheila visited her daily. In the early years, I accompanied Sheila, but after I contracted a terminal blood cancer and was left with no effective imunisation system, I could only occasionally go with Sheila on her daily visits to see Mum Elizabeth.
On every fine weather day, Sheila would take mum on an outside 'wheelchair walk' near the Oakworth Home. On warm/hotsummer days, we would drive up to the long road by Haworth cemetery where Mum Elizabeth would use her walking frame to walk a quarter of a mile alongside myself, Sheila and our faithful dog, Lady. Her walk would always end overlooking the 'Sladen Reservoir' in the distance. During the years when she had her eyesight and could see the reservoir below, she would call it, 'The Sea of Galilee'. Like Mohammed, when she could no longer visit the 'Sea of Gallilee' where it had always resided, she brought the 'Sea of Galilee' to her own doorstep!
Both Mum Forde and Mum Elizabeth lived their lives from beginning to end seeing what their eyes wanted them to see; always loving and appreciating the beauty of song and nature and the goodness in all of God's creatures; man, woman, child or beast. God bless you Mothers Elizabeth and Maureen. We love you and will never forget your presence on earth. Now you are in your heaven, please take the opportunity of getting to know one another, as you'll most definitely like each other. xx" William and Sheila Forde:March 11th, 2018.
P.S. I enclose my own version of one of Mum Forde's favourite songs, 'The Isle of Innesfree' which I sang in her memory earlier this year. Please bear in mind that this was the first song I had publically sung in over fifty years and my lung capacity was not as good as it is now, since I have practised singing daily over the past month.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKzmf_hZQ14