Honouring My Mother

Margaret Leach (née Greenwood) 1936-2021

On Tuesday January 19th my beloved mother unexpectedly passed away at home, and though it was unexpected my family are now feeling grateful for the manner and timing of her death. Mum had vascular dementia, and not knowing exactly what caused her death, this is what the coroner decided should be recorded as the primary cause on her death certificate. Though her short-term memory was significantly impacted, we are relieved that she could still mostly recognise her family when she died. Indeed only minutes before she passed she had proudly told her carers with pride in her voice ‘That’s my daughter’ as my sister spoke to them at Mum’s flat, where Marie has spent much of her time since Mum’s hospital stay during autumn.

Now that she has passed my memories of Mum in former days, before her health declined, are flooding back, and I am overwhelmed by gratitude for the generous, loving, and cheerful woman she was. Fortunately her dementia rarely affected her temper, so right until the end she was almost invariably sweet and full of humour.

Mum was a teacher, who met Dad while at teacher training college in Bradford. They were introduced by Dad’s aunt, Aunty Mabel, who was a music lecturer there. Mum didn’t have a partner for the annual ball, so Aunty Mabel arranged for Dad, a young widower, to be her blind date. Mum often told us that they they were so engrossed in conversation that they didn’t dance, and because they didn’t dance Aunty Mabel thought they hadn’t liked each other, while the opposite was true!

Mum was a very caring person, remembered by my childhood friends for the warmth of her hospitality, which always involved food. My best friend remembers regularly enjoying Mum’s wonderful homemade chips (made from scratch), and another friend says that she learned from Mum to always feed anyone who sits at the table.

Mum’s giving nature also manifested in lots of charitable work. For years she voluntarily ran a childrens’ playgroup at our local Catholic church, where Mum and Dad were very active members of the congregation. She also volunteered with the local Cyrenians, providing food and shelter to homeless people. She was also a counsellor with the Samaritans and the local Life group, for many years running pregnancy support services at the local Life centre.

We believe that Mum is with Dad again now, over ten years since he died. A friend of ours said that he will have welcomed her to heaven with a twirl, a joyous image!