The story goes that when he went he left part of himself behind – a connection between there and here, a communication line and a comfort for orphans.

There was not much comfort when my mother left. I was 12 years old and she just decided to go. Maybe she didn’t decide, maybe she was pushed by an unseen force: depression is after all a disease of the will, making clear choices impossible. Anyway, that didn’t mean much to me at the time – she just irreversibly left, and that was that: I was motherless.

Looking back now I can see that she did leave part of herself behind, but not by way of communication or comfort. At the time there was just numbness and a hole and getting used to being alone and independent. My dad wouldn’t let me keep anything of hers – I guess it was just too painful for him. Keeping us around was too hard for him too, so he sent me and my little brother off to boarding school. After I had grown up I think even looking at me reminded him of her too much, so we were never close. I was effectively an orphan.

My brother still thinks she is looking down on him, a guardian angel. How old would she be now? What would she look like? Angels don’t age! But if she is still 34 she’d be younger than I am now – hardly a mother-figure! No - what she would have become is something we will never know.

I have not allowed myself the fantasies: they are cold comfort. I have taken the path of hard choices of forgiveness and moments of intense heartache and loneliness – on my wedding day, at my children’s births and birthdays. She should have been here! She missed it all – and we missed her. There has never been mum to run home to or seek advice from, ‘how do I cook this?’ ‘what should I say?’ ‘What would you do?’ Oh, I’ve had many adopted mums and a sweet, fussy, little, Welsh mother-in-law, and a great husband who loves me to death and many dear friends, but there has always been a mummy-shaped hole.

I really don’t think about her much – except writing this now. I do forgive her for abandoning us, so there is peace for us both. But I do feel so sorry for her short, sad life: married at 22, two kids, travelling husband, loneliness and misery, mental illness in a society ill-equipped to deal with it. We found her sprawled on the kitchen floor one Saturday morning, after a morning out with dad. I couldn’t open the door because her head was in the way. She’d drunk mole poison… shocking, isn’t it? A final, desperate act of escape. The last time I ever saw her was as my father dragged her away into the bedroom. It was the 60’s – you didn’t talk to children about death or take them to funerals. In fact, he didn’t talk to me about her for 10 years… and then I made him, fearing for my own mental health. Poor mum.

However did I end up so whole? It’s a bona-fide miracle! I really am alright. Of course it’s been a journey through the years, times when I’ve been low, when the long-buried pain found a way to the surface, times when her depression rose up in me. But I found a way through - and in the end I would have to give the credit to the one who said he wouldn’t leave us as orphans. He brought comfort and healing. He helped fill the hole and gave me the strength to grow through it.

And of course she did leave part of herself behind. My kids and I have her genes, her eyes, her temperament. And if you look carefully at me, or at my daughter, and at one of the few photos I treasure, you can see the likeness… We look like Byllie.

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