To be feeling a tad emotional?

[TigerDroveAgain]

DM, who was old old, died about 5 months ago. I’ve had her house on the market and accepted an offer but the conveyancing has dragged on and I assumed it would take a few more weeks with potential bumps along the way.

Separately, we were given a giant marrow and I had no idea what to do with it. I remembered a marrow dish that DM did, pretty much her signature dish, but no chance of finding the recipe.

But:

• I found the exact recipe this morning on Pinterest
• my solicitor emailed to say the sale had completed unexpectedly!
• we had the marrow stuff and it was delicious, exactly the taste of my childhood

I’m somehow in bits over the coincidences. I’ve not cooked this dish for 40 years, and only then under DM’s tutelage.

Anyway no idea why I’m posting but blimey I feel wrung out.

I'm not surprised you feel wrung out - that's a huge amount to process. All those memories just being stirred up at once - the taste of the marrow, her house becoming officially not her house anymore - that's a hell of a lot. I'm sorry - this must all be really hard for you. You must miss her, and these things coming together like this is just going to emphasize that.
However old your mother was. and however much you may have been expecting her death, it doesn't mean it won't hit you like a ton of bricks when it happens and it doesn't mean you may not need some help. Cruse are very good - there's a website. Hope you're OK.

Grief can hit you in all sorts of unexpected ways.

Selling the house makes it more real.

Nothing useful to add, am afraid, just that I've been there with my beloved late Grandmother's house sale (and revisiting recipes unique to her, thinking about it), and it really does stir up all manner of emotions.

It's hard.

Wish you well, OP.

Thank you both. It’s just odd. I felt as though I’d come out of the grief, which in itself surprised me, but today has been very strange - and precipitated by a marrow! I think it will continue to creep up and surprise me

Emotions hit us in the funniest ways and over the funniest of things.

I remember getting really upset years after my granny died. All because I remembered the rice crispy cakes she always made for when we went to visit. She obviously put syrup or marshmallows or something in them because they were always gooey. It dawned on me I never found out what she used and I never would. It was so upsetting at the time.

you have went through so much.
Be kind to yourself.

I had a pair of blue shoes I opened and cried that mam would never see them. Blue shoes weren’t her thing 🤷‍♀️, still think this whenever I go to put them on.

Thanks all

I know exactly what you mean.

It's often the unlikeliest, smallest things which (for me anyway) tend to produce the most poignant reactions.

Years after a dear friend died, I remember finding at the back of a drawer a very rude limerick scrawled on the back of a random old menu!
Something about the combination of her handwriting and outrageous sense of humour, plus memories of meals out at said restaurant, were really overwhelming at the time.

Think I cried for over an hour, very nearly threw it away.

So glad I kept it, though: it takes pride of place on a mantelpiece and makes me smile every time I catch sight of it.

OP, may you enjoy your Mum's marrow dish, and reminiscences of past times together, for many years to come.