We will be thankful – apart but together

Forced into self-isolation for Mothering Sunday, Bel Mooney reflects on spending the day without her grandchildren

Mothering Sunday 1980 was so emotional I can remember its power even now. I cuddled my baby daughter – born that January against the odds with many physical problems – and admired my six-year-old son’s homemade card.

In between those two, I had given birth to a stillborn second son and therefore motherhood was never something I took for granted. It was indescribably precious – and still is. Forty-six years ago, I first became a mother and experienced the miracle of loving in an entirely new way.

Somewhere in a drawer I have a stash of Mothering Sunday cards from Daniel and Kitty. I know it’s hoarding, but when your adult kids still write “You’re the best mum in the world”, you can’t bear to throw those words away.

Now this is the first year I won’t be able to hug either of my children or (which is sadder) my beloved grandchildren, Barnaby, Chloe, Max and Arthur. At 73 and with a lifelong history of breathing problems (bronchitis and asthma), I chose to self-isolate even before government guidelines. My husband Robin is much younger but must still beware of bringing the invisible enemy into the house.

My family life is complicated by the fact that my very old parents (98 and 95) are still living at home, 15 minutes away. It is difficult to convince the last wartime generation that self-isolation means just that – and on Thursday my mother toddled off to the village to have her hair cut. Oh dear.

The problem is, I must see her on Mothering Sunday (this is never missed and they badly need the boost) and so my husband will drive over this morning, put them in his car, and drive back here for Sunday lunch as usual. And hope it will be OK. But with none of the young present… oh, we will feel that loss.

My father – in the early stages of vascular dementia, as well as being (very) partially sighted and hard of hearing – telephoned me yesterday to say: “I was thinking about you and feeling very lucky.” It’s typical of that generation to count blessings.

But, of course, he is right. Although I will really miss the voices and hugs of my children and grandchildren, I happen to know they are planning to come and stand in the garden and wave at me – and Mum – through the window. Thank goodness they live nearby so we can have our Mothering Sunday that way.

How much harder it will be for others who don’t enjoy such proximity. Online I saw a touching picture of an elderly man in a care home talking on the phone to his son who was perched on the windowsill outside. This is the glory of human beings – that we will always find creative ways of showing our love for each other. I had never used WhatsApp (although I am something of a Facebook addict) and was amused when my daughter telephoned my husband and instructed him to install it on my smartphone.

“Anybody would think me incapable,” I snorted, and went off to do it myself. But then I couldn’t remember my password and had to scrabble around to find where I had written it down. Result! I sent a weirdlooking selfie to them, which looked just like somebody on her second vodka and tonic. Which it was!

Now I hear the happy pings of my daughter and daughter-in-law chatting on WhatsApp and feel pleased when my son sends a picture of his fist holding out his favourite evening cocktail – a negroni. Cheers! It may sound trivial, but such silly little things are the stuff of family life, and we’re all so lucky to have these modern methods of communication. Even my 95-year-old mother gets a lot of fun from looking at pictures on Facebook and Messenger – so I just hope that plenty like her are online.

Giving thanks for good fortune in these testing times is all very well, but as an advice columnist I’m also time off to visit their mothers. That’s what I mean by it being a sacred festival – not commercial but embedded in the consciousness of our tribe.

I hope that – this year of all years – lovely cards have been sent and that the florists have made a nice profit, because flowers delivered can cut through the barrier of self-isolation, as long as hands are washed. I trust phone calls will be made and FaceTime and Skype used to share smiles at a distance. And I will wave at my family through the window and hope my granddaughter does a cartwheel (unless it’s raining) to make her great-grandmother giggle. Four-year-old Max will be so puzzled that he can’t come in and play with his favourite person – my husband – but he will have to be told why. How can a child understand that he might carry a “germ” that could make his grandmother very ill? It’s a pretty tough call.

My daughter says she feels sad not to be able to celebrate Mothering Sunday with our usual jolly family lunch. In recent years she’s demanded a ceremonial portrait of the female line: Mum, me, Kitty and Chloe. But not this year. I said: “Look, my darling, if you’d married an Aussie, you’d be miles away!”

She laughed. And somehow the knowledge that she has been getting shopping and leaving flowers for a 90-year-old neighbour, all alone, is the best present she could possibly give me. My children may not be able to boast worldly success but I have no words to convey the pride I feel that I am the mother of two warm, kind, funny, competent people who will always go the extra mile, not just for those they love but for others, too. And they each married somebody with those qualities.

This Mothering Sunday I give thanks – convinced nothing defeats love and that the good times will come again.

They are planning to stand in the garden and wave at me through the window