A Message From Mam…

Well now, isn’t this a fine kettle of fish?

I’ve been a bit tied up, you see. There’s a lovely bridge club up here – Ethel from down the way, Mrs. Donnelly from over the way, and your Auntie Petronella (who still cheats, by the way). We’ve been having ourselves a grand old time, and I only just tuned in properly to the shenanigans going on down there.

And what do I find? Bully puffing up like an old rooster with a new truck, Fanny fluttering her lashes and acting innocent, and the pair of them circling your poor father like vultures over a warm Sunday roast. I knew it. I always knew they’d wait for a crack in the window to slide through. I just didn’t think they’d have the gall to shove the whole door open while your father’s mind was slipping.

It was a quiet betrayal, wasn’t it? Not with shouting and slammed doors, but with sly nods, whispered kitchen conspiracies, and papers slid across tables when no one else was looking. And your poor father – he wasn’t himself anymore. That’s what hurts most. Not what they took, but how they did it.

But listen to me, love – and listen well. They might have fiddled with ink and paper, but what matters never lived in those lines. It lives in you. In the stories, the stubbornness, the unshakeable sense of right and wrong we tucked into your bones from the day you were born. That’s your real inheritance. And it’s something no truck, no house deed, no pile of cash can ever match.

Let them have their ill-gotten spoils. Let them cling to their temporary crowns. It’ll all turn to dust soon enough. The weight of what they did will come tapping at their door one day, and when it does, it won’t be me knocking – it will be their own conscience.

You, meanwhile, keep shining. Stay rebellious. Stay kind. Stay exactly as you are. I’ve never been prouder, and that’s saying something, because I was proud every single day I drew breath.

Oh, and give my boy Heff a scratch behind the ear for me. I swear he’s been giving me the side-eye from your side too. Knows too much, that one.

Message of the Day from Mam…

When people show you the sharp edges of themselves, don’t let it make you jagged too. Stay smooth, stay soft, stay stubbornly kind. It drives them mad, you know – when you refuse to let bitterness take root where love once lived. They can twist wills and rewrite words, but they can’t touch the parts of you that sparkle when no one’s watching.”

Today’s little mission:
Do one thing, no matter how small, that feels like rebellion soaked in kindness. Plant a flower where they said nothing would grow. Laugh at a memory they tried to bury. Love louder than their fear.

I’m right beside you. Always.

– Mam