OUR MAM....GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN!

Bit like going to confession here....Catholics amongst will know what I mean......

Forgive me, readers, it's been 3 weeks since my last blog post.  So what's been happening!?
Well it's not been the best 3 weeks of my life but as they say life goes on and we have to make the best of it.

We try to be positive in negative circumstances but some things take a bit of getting used to.  I still keep reaching for the phone to have a chat with my mother in Manchester then quickly realise she is no longer with us.  She passed away last month in a manner which shook all the family.   Seems only months ago that we were telling her to watch her weight only to see her "fade away" over the last few months.
    But "making the best if it"  she was 93! and was joking and winking with us all to the very end.  
She'd had a hard to start to life without a father, a hard middle coping with the bringing up and keeping 4 children in school up to 18 and then having to cope alone when we'd all left home and my dad died suddenly at 63.  
  She remained positive, resolute and often stubborn throughout; trying to stay alert, alive and active and encouraged us to "enjoy it whilst you can".   I don't think though she could appreciate that my running is my enjoyment and such a big part of my life.
   I didn't run the day of the funeral. I did have time but it seemed appropriate really. As "mam" wasn't really into my running.  She simply didn't have time when I was a teenager and of course lately she thought after 50 years , surely I'd "done enough"!    If the weather was bad, she say, "you haven't been running in this weather, have you?"  or "why don't you have a rest" or  "when you going to stop"!
  But then again I didn't do what she told me to do as a teenager and I certainly wasn't going to in my '60s.
Having said that  I did give her the medal from the Morecambe marathon when I won in 1984 and it was still hung on the wall in her lounge when we cleared it nearly 30 years later.
                       WHO IS GOING TO TELL ME TO STOP RUNNING NOW?