Dear Mum,

It’s been nearly five years, nearly five years of living without you and I still cannot believe that I will never see you again.

The pain is always there especially now with Mothering Sunday coming along. I still cannot believe that I will never again see your sunny smile and beautiful green mesmerising eyes. To think that only six years ago you were the picture of health and then all of a sudden you were stricken with cancer.

Even now, I question how your illness came about although I know it is to no avail because you are gone. Do you remember what a fuss we made of Mother’s Day Mum? How you would be busy cooking like a one armed man selling newspapers without wanting any kind of help from us, your two daughters?

We always came to you for lunch on Mothering Sunday because we knew that in spite of you being as busy as a bee, you loved cooking for all of us. O how I miss you. People say that time is a great healer but I find this to be false because as time goes by, I miss you all the more.

Staring at mother’s day cards literally makes me sick and whenever I hear of someone wanting to get a gift for his mother for her special day makes me want to cry. O Mum, how wealthy you were in contentment even though you had a small bank account,

What a magnet of peace you were! On Mothering Sunday I will probably go through the same ritual I have been going through the last five years, buy you a grand bouquet of flowers and then go up the short hill at the Addolorata Cemetery and turn on my right.

I could go there blindfolded because I have been there so many times, to your resting place and dad’s. Sometimes I cry and sometimes I tell you my troubles as I did when you were alive but of course you never answer me.

Some people find the cemetery depressing but somehow I always feel better after having visited your grave. I guess I feel especially close to you my mother, my sister, my best friend all rolled into one.

No use telling you I wish you were still alive so I could hug you and kiss you to my heart’s content because you knew how much I loved you almost as much as you loved my sister and I. Sometimes mum, that yearning to kiss you and hold you is so very strong that it takes me a while to restrain myself but with God’s grace, I manage to do it. Oh mum, if only those who have a mother know how lucky they are.

If only those who have a mother placed in a home without ever going to see her know the good fortune they have. Mum, I honestly could not have asked for a better mother: exemplary, honest, kind, always wearing the costume of humility, loving etc.

I believe that when God created mothers, he created a huge sample of Himself, that is why on Sunday a great feast will be celebrated in heaven for all mothers. Have a happy mother’s day darling and please look over my sister and both our families.

We love you now and always.

Valerie Borg

Valletta