Come And Tell Your Mother You Love Her

The embroidery on the inside of this purse represents the internal monologue my mother gave me through the words she spoke repeatedly for decades. On the outside are words my father said- barely visible, but indelible in impact. 

The purse is representative of many we found tucked away in my mother's bedroom when we cleared her house after her death. 

Initially we cleared a light debris of scattered rice pudding tins and all the prescription meds she hadn't been taking. Then we moved on to the contents of her cupboards.

Centre stage was her chest of drawers, tacky with badly applied paint effects and tea-stains. In the top drawer we discovered a range of bedraggled little drawstring bags in different sizes and colours. Opening each one revealed a further small and tatty gift box or purse, and inside each of those, a further grubby trinket box or tiny organza bag- the sort cheap jewellery usually comes in- and then within that, a selection of odd items; maybe a broken earring coupled with an ancient newspaper cutting and a hairgrip, or a pre-decimal coin combined with a lock of hair and half a belt buckle.   

Weird shit, yes? And that was only the first day, and the first drawer...

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This is the back story: 

My mother died in 2019, three months after my father, her husband of 53 years. They were both teachers who participated fully in the community life of their suburban village.

Throughout her life my mother had a raft of mental illnesses and conditions, most of which went undiagnosed and untreated. Although she maintained a reasonably normal public persona, her behaviour at home was erratic and terrifying, and got progressively worse as she aged: screaming and shrieking, smashing up the house, threats of violence to her family, half-hearted suicide attempts, and sudden dramatic disappearances. 

In between the drama, which could- and did- strike at any time, there was self-pitying, judging, manipulation and gaslighting. Affection and approval was conditional upon adherence to an ever-shifting and non-specified set of academic and behavioural codes.

My brother and I both left (at least, physically) but my father would always be drawn back into the vortex. He remained her punchbag and puppet until his dying day. 

When we cleared their house it was full of what I respectfully call this 'weird shit' which demonstrated the extent of it all. 

I will be memorialising this in a series of embroidered purses and containers. This one is named for the dreaded instruction we would get from my battle-weary father: 'Come and tell your Mother you love her'- I felt the sickening hypocrisy of it even at the age of eight.