Purple

You aren’t my mum.

It feels like four very ugly words to start this letter, but it’s the truth. You aren’t my mum, but you’re the only person who has my graduation picture displayed. It’s right on top of your fireplace, next to the pictures of your children and the photo of my baby that you printed out three days after she was born.

You aren’t my mum, but it’s you that used to make me ham and cheese sandwiches every morning (topped off with a pack of frazzles and a pain au chocolate to eat on the walk to school). I’ve never been a massive fan of ham to be honest but how could I tell you that? I remember you trying to cook Quorn mince for the first time when I went through my first vegetarian stage. The house smelt like the inside of a car and you seemed so disappointed. I never, ever, wanted to be a disappointment to you… I tried to eat it anyway and you couldn’t help but laugh at my face as I tried to swallow it. You smiled as you tipped the entire frying pan of mince in to the bin and gave me a pound to run round the chippy instead. You aren’t my mum, but that didn’t stop you trying to introduce me to vegetables that I’d actually eat. I still like baby corn you know and, thanks to you, I always want to put it in my spaghetti bolognese. It never tastes like yours though. I’ve never told you that. I told you that I failed to make your fish pie though, even though you gave me explicit instructions on the phone. I’m not much of a cook, but you’ve tried to eat what I’ve served you. Even when your daughter and I served you that lasagne that we’d dropped on the caravan floor. Did we ever actually tell you that we’d dropped it first? I don’t think we did.

You aren’t my mum, but I remember the two family holidays to Wales you took me on. You played Queen and Meat Loaf in the car… I felt like the coolest kid in the world with the windows down and that music playing. You weren’t even mad when I smashed my phone by slamming it in a car door by accident. You even got me a new one so I could call my mum and tell her I was safe. You took me on hikes and encouraged me to go into the ocean. You aren’t my mum, but I tell the story of how we rescued a sheep together when we were there. It’s one of the best stories I have. I was so scared to touch the fence in case it bit me, but you told me that it was scared and it was worth getting bit to help it. We stretched the fence, it got its head out and I felt like I’d taken on the world. I never told you how much that meant to me, or that it was the reason we played Meat Loaf to my daughter when I was pregnant. That was how we discovered that she loves anything with drums in it; the little chaos machine.

You aren’t my mum but you threw me a fourteenth birthday party at your house. You let me invite a few boys, including my crush, and I was so excited. You let us drink alcohol because you wanted us to do it where we were safe. You thought it was our first time trying it, we never told you that it wasn’t. You cooked us pizza and bought us eclairs, and you were disgusted when we ate them together as a dare. I remember us buying the alcohol from Bargain Booze and carrying it home. We got stopped by a man in a high-vis and I thought my heart was going to explode out of my ears. It turns out they were doing a survey to see if we wanted a skate park in the town and we rambled on about how there was nothing to do as teenagers here (and were begging the whole time that the backpack didn’t clink). You thought it was hilarious when we got in. You aren’t my mum, but I had my first kiss that night in your living room. Everyone had gone to bed – we got woken up by your husband popping his head around the door before heading to work at four am. I remember hearing the car pull away, and the bloody sound of the Sixth Sense DVD playing that title screen over and over again. That’s how it happened, listening to a horror film track, on the futon in your living room. I’ve never told you that – I don’t think I’d live down the embarrassment if I did.

You aren’t my mum, but you bought me a bed because I stayed over your house so much. I was just your daughter’s friend but you told me I was basically like your daughter. You said that I could come over any time I needed it. I remember your face the day I turned up in tears when my crush kissed one of my best friends. We hadn’t spoken in a year and you still opened your door to me like it had only been a day. You cooked me dinner and gave me a hug. I think we had chippy chips that day as well... You made me feel less alone. It was your house I ran away to when I was ten. I’d only packed an orange dress and a load of kit-kats (like a genius). I remember your son walking me back home again and the stern talking to you’d all given me. It’s funny that the orange dress stands out so vividly in my mind when I associate you so heavily with the colour purple. I loved your purple and black striped bag with the chains that hung down from it. I think that bag is still sat in your living room.

There are so many things that I’ve never told you. The weird colour stain on the living room carpet was me – I donkey-kicked my coke off of the side table by accident. It is such a weird colour because your daughter and I used window cleaner to try and get rid of it (it was the only thing we could find). I never told you that I couldn’t master learning the keyboard… you lent me yours when I was fourteen, I tried so hard. I couldn’t do it and I hid it in my cupboard at my mum’s house for ten years. I should have given it back to you sooner. I never told you that your support made me want to learn to sing. I never told you that your words made me want to have another child, but now you’ll never meet them. I never told you how much it’s crippling me that you’re lying in a hospice as I write this, and how much it hurts me that you may be gone before I get to finish it. I wish I’d have said these things and so many more before, when you could still recognise me as me; when I could still recognise you as you. Most of all, it kills me that I’ve never told you the most important thing…

You aren’t my mum, but you are (and always have been) a mum to me.