The White Cardigan

                                  

The photo above is my mum, Winifred Rose Peace. It is thirty five years ago today that she died having been in a hurry to join her beloved Billy, who had died eighteen months early. I think of them both every day and thank them for my tough, very strict upbringing, through war time and beyond. They are together and at peace now.

The poem below is one of my early ones since my mum and dad are always in my thoughts. It is not great but it is heartfelt. Mum always wore a nice bright, hand knitted White Cardigan. I have the one she is wearing in this picture, in a cupboard at home. Love never dies.

 

A white cardigan before my eyes takes a place

above it there’s an image of my mother’s face.

Then, even then, the memory can be harsh,

she won’t go away now for a little while

and thinking that thought will make me smile.

 

It was a big thing with her, I remember it well

ingrained deep in her past, you could tell,

a bright white ‘must have’ was what people saw

a brand-new white cardigan for every year

her clothes worn thin, but one must not sneer.

 

Listening to the radio, knitting on a winter night

plain for herself, and mine a much prettier sight.

Mum’s sometimes a ‘V’ neck and mine

buttoned to the neck with a pattern or cable

worn only for best, when we were able.

 

There I am cardi on, in photos somewhere

squatting in the chicken run with frizzy hair

but wrapped in long sleeved white wool

unkempt halo of dirty blonde locks

taken with the old family Brownie Box.

 

Far too quickly for Mum’s pocket I grew

the old one was passed on to a friend I knew.

One day had she switched to a new design

a fluffy angora bolero with bobbly edge

“Watch your cardi on that jagged ledge”.

 

Bolero years lasted those childhood ways

warming me in my junior school days.

Gathering admiration for her neat stitches

it looked like shop bought but for less cost

a slap round the head if my best one was lost.

 

The hug-me-tight then came into my young life

ballet class gave mum one more piece of strife;

Wrapped around the front and neatly crossed over

with two long tails that were neatly tied

slipping them through a little slot on the side.

 

“White goes with anything”, said Mum’s firm voice,

but for myself there was not any choice;

you would think I had said a really bad word

when I asked for a pink one or pretty green

horror on her face was for a moment seen.

 

So, you see now as the brochure page I turn

the white one pictured is not what I yearn.

Mum’s white cardi on the model gives pause.

There she is again, words I almost say

once more her dear face will not go away.

 

She still wore them into her old age where

nothing changed bar the shade of her hair.

Silky white permanently waved tresses

as she lay, small and still on her death bed

“Perfect match to my cardi”, she would have said.