The old jumper that made me feel so close to Mum again

2022-10-09

The old jumper that made me feel so close to Mum again – BEL MOONEY explains how her mother taught her that love was more important than appearances

Bel Mooney describes the pain she felt at packing away her parents home
UK-based author said goodbye to her 98-year-old mother after ill-health
She held onto her mother’s jumpers as they brought back memories of love

There are still a couple of bin bags in the corner of my bedroom, afflicting me each day with paralysis as well as grief.

They contain all my mother’s underwear. No use to anyone. Far too much stuff goes into landfill, so what to do?

As autumn lengthens into winter, the pile of old, unattractive items could be added, bit by bit, to our wood burner each night, I suppose. But would that be very green? I like the idea of sacrificial burnings and we do live in the middle of fields…

I just don’t know. So nothing happens and those last bits of her life have the power to make me uselessly sad. Some – thing must be done.

Bel Mooney (pictured) describes the pain she felt at packing away her parents home. She explains how she found comfort in her mother’s jumper

The other day, as our old house chilled down, I decided to wear some of my mother’s good clothes. Her old cotton pull-on trousers were so comfortable! And the fine cashmere jumper in palest peach with beautiful rib detailing… that felt like a lovely, gentle cuddle. She looked pretty in it and now it is mine.

How moving it is that the simple act of wearing Mum’s clothes should make me feel so close to her again.

When my mother died the day before Mothering Sunday, aged nearly 98, after months of illhealth, my immediate priority was to arrange the best of funerals. After that I faced what so many of us have to cope with — getting rid of a parent’s possessions. That rite of passage can fracture the heart.

Last spring, after Dad died, we had the mammoth task of selling their home they’d lived in for about 25 years. I wept as I folded away his clothes into bin bags for charity, donated furniture and bed linen to the local homeless shelter, and packed away the gifts and holiday souvenirs that meant so much to them.

Mum chose the things she liked best to take into the annexe we’d made comfort – able. Then, just ten months later, it was time for a thousand little partings once again, in more visits to charity shops.

I couldn’t touch her little home for quite a while, once the funeral was done. You tell yourself it’s only things and old clothes don’t matter. Oh, but a coat on a peg can make you howl.

When grieving relatives believe it’s their duty to cling to everything treasured by the beloved dead

You have to act. You simply can’t let that stuff weigh down your own life. It was painful to know that the reproduction antique furniture she loved was all but worthless, though thank – fully my daughter found room for her little desk. Then I confronted that huge Victorian chest of drawers and a wardrobe stuffed with clothes — by far the hardest part. The sparkly top she’d customised with sequins and furry red trim for our millennium party blinded me… an agonising something in my eye.

Then I shed tears over the outfit she’d chosen for my second wedding in 2007, remembering how happy she was. The suit looked terrible on me. In any case, you simply cannot hang on to your parents’ every possession.

When grieving relatives believe it’s their duty to cling to everything treasured by the beloved dead, normal grief can turn into such a dragging weight it can entomb the spirits for ever.

On the other hand, when a widow goes to bed each night with her husband’s favourite checked shirt, you know the scent of it brings her comfort. A middle-aged man can find joy in wearing his dead father’s fishing cap, because the shape of it, moulded by that dear old head, will be like that big hand tousling his hair when he was a little boy: You might pull on your mother’s favourite Puffa jacket, just to be able to chat to her.

So I faced the clothes. The beige cardigan, and her old green one? Nope. I dislike ‘dusty’ colours, so some of that knitwear must go. The M&S slacks were perfectly good but too ‘middle-aged’ for me — even though I’m 76!

And tiny Mum’s pretty blouses would not fasten over my more ample bosom so they had to be packed up.

But not everything. Mum had a weakness for jumpers — the best of them cashmere. And I encouraged it. She’d worked hard all her life, moving from packing biscuits, to typing, to learning shorthand, to taking a couple of O-levels in her 40s, and ending her working life as a civil servant in the Magistrates’ Courts Office. She and Dad saved and saved and were able to help me when I needed it, and my children too.

When I was young she knitted ferociously every night and so shop-bought knitwear was a rare luxury. As a teenager I sewed her dresses and she knitted me big sweaters I still have, with the sewn-in label saying, ‘Made by mother with love’.

When she found it difficult to roam M&S, mail order became almost a hobby. Knowing how much she hated ageing, I urged her on. ‘Why shouldn’t you send off for another jumper, Mum? Go on… I like that peachy colour.’

So the parcel would arrive and she’d wear the new garment for Sunday lunch.

So I knew I must keep the best of her knitwear, hoping my daughter might like one or two of Nan’s jumpers.

Now I look at the little pile, and the couple of Monsoon tops that look good on me, and pick up her favourite necklace (made from seeds and bought when I was at school) and suddenly it feels both a comfort and an homage.

Mum didn’t go for fancy things. A blue-and-white shawl I pick out from the other scarves I kept was a Christmas gift from my son and his wife, and although Mum loved it she was afraid of spilling tea, so it remained almost unworn. It won’t now.

Valuing her garments as she did has a powerful symbolic value for me. Yes, I will look after and wear your clothes, Mum, because you taught me that appearances matter — and that was just one dear lesson in a lifetime of love.

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