Priority #1 – to love

“I am so sad to receive the most distressing news that my dear friend for over 50 years has passed away. My hearfelt condolences. I was a guest of the Orane’s in 1952 – Douglas Roy was a baby. I was a member of Trinidad’s contingent to the WI Jamboree. Mrs Orane kept in touch with me all those years and used to send me Christmas food parcels when I was a student. I am deeply saddened” – Ram

My sister received this e-mail yesterday from someone who had sent our mother a Christmas card, and whom she had then informed of Mummy’s passing last year.

Ram’s e-mail touched me so much. Here is a man who as a teenager came to a strange country 56 years ago for a week or two and in that time began a lifelong friendship. I reflect on my mother’s kindness and consideration that she demonstrated throughout her life. Can you imagine us with our busy schedules finding time to send a young student food parcels, and then to keep in touch each Christmas for over 50 years? It boggles my mind, as I look at my own long list of things to do, and the seemingly longer list of things I still haven’t found the time to do! And yet, Mummy had the same 24 hours per day, 7 days each week, 52 weeks each year. She was certainly no less busy than I am – she mothered 6 children, cared for a multitude of extended family, ran a family business and volunteered for charity. How did she do it?

I believe Mummy did it by making a conscious commitment to love, to be that love and demonstrate it wherever she was. For example, she held her Christmas newsletter as a priority. She would harass us, her children, for paragraphs on our families, and we would lament about finding the time to do it, and didn’t she know how busy we were, and she’s alright – she’s retired. But the Christmas newsletter would go out to her circle of family and friends, including friend from Trinidad whom she met for a week or two when he as a teenage in 1952! She even sent him food packages when he was a student – and here am I wondering where I am going to find the time this week to go to the supermarket!

Whenever we travelled, Mummy would have a long list of people who she had to bring “a little something” for – her manicurist, her hairdresser, her helper, her gardener, the caretaker at church, our driver, my brother’s assistant. And somehow, she would do it. I was always amazed, as I could barely get through my own personal list in the limited time we had. It occurred to me as I was giving my gardener his Christmas bonus last month that Mummy would have bought and had a little gift for his 3-month old baby already beautifully wrapped and ready to go. These things were priority! They HAD to be done. At the time, we groaned and moaned, for as she got older, we had to do more and more to help her. Yet now I understand – she had made loving and caring for others her purpose.

Where on earth did she find the time? She found it right where it is – in her heart, as a number one priority to be, show and live love.