Tuesday 2 August 2011

Falling with style - a grieving wife's tuck and roll

This post is dedicated to Geoff, who would have found this story really, really amusing 

I was 21 and it was just after my Dad died. Mum and I both couldn't drive so I asked my boyfriend if he would take us both to the lake at the local park because I wanted to put some flowers under the monkey trees. When Dad was diagnosed with cancer and had a lot on his mind, that’s where he used to go and think. He had done since he was a child.

So we turn up, all three of us in my other half’s black boy-racer car, holding flowers and looking very sombre. The weather was dull and wet, but it did eventually stop raining. Not that we were worried because my Mum - as stylish as ever – looked the part in her long cream Mac. We headed for the trees on the other side of the lake.

To get there we all started walking down the grassy hill. Well, me and the boyfriend started walking.....unfortunately the newly wet grass got the better of Mum and she began to skid, rapidly picking up speed as she headed downhill. Flowers still in hand, a little lady-like screaming as she glided down the bank, the concrete path circling the lake was her final destination. She landed with a beautiful little tuck and roll. A posh lady walking her dog around the lake simply stepped over my Mum and carried on walking! Her dignity was kind-of intact, but the long cream mac? Ruined!

Dad would have been watching and I am sure wetting himself laughing, as I still am, ten years on. But sometimes I think to myself......did he push her??




Thanks to my hilarious cousin BW for this post.

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