Basia Unleashed

Donna Tartt wrote in The Secret History: “The dead come to us in our dreams because it’s the only way they can make us see them.” She went on to say that when we “see” the dead in our dreams, it’s akin to seeing a star….if that is true, and I think it might be, then the dreams I have of my mammy, each one portraying her ever younger and ever more glamorous, and always laughing and always the force of nature she was, is pure light from a dead star.

Let me set the scene.

My mammy and daddy met in a small village. She told me she loved him the minute she set eyes on him. She was 14, he was 15. They got together shortly after. They stayed together. They got married. Had me and my sister. He would never leave the house, not even to the post office, without telling her where he was going. He called her bird. She loved the very bones of him. This is my standard, this is what I have to live up to.

My mammy died of cancer two years ago. Today. She was living her dream and she loved every single moment of it. We had an inexplicable mother-daughter bond, yet in some ways I am half the woman she was. She was afraid of nothing. Nothing.

In the end, she went very quickly, once she knew I was on my way from London. All she was worried about was that my dad would be ok, that I would be there for him. I just hope she heard my healing prayers of hope across the miles and that she felt the bright white light kiss of my love.

She sang everywhere, my sister said she was singing some Irish song shortly before she died. It wasn’t a party until my mammy showed up. She was cute and funny and rude and bawdy and bloody bloody beautiful.

And I would give up every single thing every single thing just to have my beautiful bird song mother hold me one more time…

for Ruby. with endless love. 02.04.2004.