In Memoriam

In Memoriam, in a rush.  Guests for dinner.

Steak pie.  In honour of my mum and dad.

This was mum's signature dish for New Year's day and Boxing Day.  Dad liked to eat it.  I liked that we sat down to eat together as a family.  A rare event.  

Dad had undiagnosed PTSD, brought back by this great programme on telly last night.  Remembrance Sunday was so important to him.

Mum was, I think, depressed her whole life long.  She was born into an aura of death, her mother having had a still birth had been warned that if she got pregnant again either she or the child would die in childbirth.  They bought a winding sheet in preparation.  In the event, both survived and my mother was swaddled in that shroud.  

When you lay out our family constellation (as I have many times) you see this chain of stillbirths repeated throughout my mother's lineage.  It's a potent inheritance.

My parents legacy to me?  My life, a fascination with psychology, and a passion for emotional freedom and transcendence.

In previous years I have honoured the anniversary of my mother's death by cooking this meal.   Tonight whilst busy trying to blip it I burned the potatoes - something my mother did regularly.  Such an unmistakeable smell and so hard to get rid of.  

I fancy she's saying: enough, it's twenty years now.  You don't like meat, you can't bake and anyway that's a terrible looking pie.  

I shall raise a glass to both of them.  No more steak pies for me.  Thank goodness and blessed be.