On this Mothering Sunday, it’s time for a little introspection

My godmother died a fortnight ago, at the grand age of 88.

She was a sturdy fenwoman, a farmer’s daughter and the niece of my grandmother, to whom she was close. When I was little, she used to send me a couple of quid at birthdays and Christmas; at some point it rose to five pounds, and eventually – in my late teens – to a tenner. I would write dutifully to thank her, and include some desultory remarks about what I was up to.

I saw her very rarely during my childhood. She lived in deepest Lincolnshire, a good two and a half hours’ drive away; and it wasn’t on the way to anywhere else. I knew from family chit-chat that she had had a challenging life: a short-lived and unhappy marriage had been followed by decades during which her primary occupation was caring for her mother. She loved writing poetry; it was often nostalgic, and always rhymed.

When my grandparents died in the early 2000s, I realised that my relationship with my godmother could no longer be conducted by proxy. I saw her of course at the funerals, and in the years that followed we became engaged in more regular correspondence – although I still dilly-dallied over replies. I became slightly better at visiting too. When I went, she would produce a vast tea of sandwiches, cakes, jam tarts and always a trifle – even if it was just the two of us.

Our views about the world were often rather different, yet despite her innate conservatism, my godmother was not a pessimist about change – at least not as a matter of principle. She loved to hear about our children, and enjoyed meeting them. She often said she would have liked to have had her own, though at least she had a nephew and niece nearby (and, indeed, great nephews and nieces).

Last year, a series of falls had her in and out of hospital; then in the autumn she moved into a nursing home as her mobility had become significantly restricted. I should have made more of an effort to see her last summer, between lockdowns. I should have called on the phone too, and perhaps sent photos with my letters.

It’s inevitable perhaps that the death of a loved one leads to those kinds of regrets. There are no doubt a great many people who have unexpectedly lost friends and family in the last twelve months and had that same sense of sorrow about missed opportunities or unsatisfactory goodbyes.

It is preferable, in such circumstances, to redouble our efforts to connect with those who are still with us – recognising that our failings in respect of the departed are almost certainly being repeated in other relationships.

Indeed, if I was not always an attentive godson, nor have I been a consistently good godfather. I even, I realised just the other day, missed my goddaughter’s 18th birthday last November (sorry, Jess, there’s a cheque in the post).

And if my godmother might occasionally have wondered why it took me three months to send a thank you letter, that’s as nothing compared to the failings I have displayed with regard to my actual mother over the years: the forgotten birthdays, the unmade phone calls, the infrequent visits. None of it malicious or deliberate – but absent-mindedness can breed the same outcome.

There was one infamous Mothering Sunday when I sent two cards – the second, sent belatedly, arriving two days after the first, which had been sent in good time but in a fug of such drunkenness that its dispatch had been forgotten. It might have been better than sending nothing, but only just – especially as the first card contained the message “Je suis très pissed”.

Mothering Sunday is a good moment to contemplate all this of course; not only to think about mothers, Godmothers and grandmothers, but also to consider motherhood in a much broader sense, beyond merely the biological. That, after all, reflects the origins of the festival in the Middle Ages.

What’s more, in those early times, people were encouraged to visit their “mother” church, the place where they had been baptised. Irrespective of whether it stems from any religious faith, that sense of renewal – of scrutinising then rectifying our own shortcomings – is surely no bad thing. So today, do be nice to your mum; but remember to take a long hard look in the mirror too. Just at the moment, the world needs a little introspection.