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The Knackered Mothers Club

The Beginning

By Tascha RalphPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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So very recently my Dad died. He had a stupidly short fight with cancer and lost. Naturally I'm upset, I'm grieving. Everyone grieves in there own personal way, I get that. But, sometimes I feel like I'm doing it wrong! Dad died exactly 7 days ago at 11 PM, and this morning I rang work with a smile on my face and told them I will be back Monday, what's more... I'm looking forward to it.

Maybe you need some background to my life... I'm a 31-year-old married mother to twins, a boy and girl (and no they are not identical before anyone asks (and yes people have asked!)) I work in a supermarket, my husband is a firefighter. My kids are 3 and have just started mornings in a school that speaks a different language to us - homework is gunna be fun! We're normal, I'm normal - I think?

Like most I am a secrete sufferer of anxiety, and probably a tad of depression. I like being alone, which with twins that only go to school for 2 and a half hours a day, is difficult. However when I'm alone I crave company, so normally I go shopping!

This last week, 2 things have kept me sane; coffee, which is essential when you have one kid tapping you on the face at 4am saying "Mummy is it morning time?" - "No it is bloody well not, get your sticky hands off my face. Why are your hands sticky?!" (he'd found an old sweet in his room). The other thing is a group messenger chat with 4 other mums, where we rant and rage and call our kids and husbands dicks without reprisals or raised eyebrows.

None of these 4 amazing women have come out and said "sorry for you loss." They haven't given me a hug at the school gates or popped round for tea. This may seem insensitive, a little callous even, if they're supposed to be such good friends. But in all truthfulness, I don't need all that tea and sympathy. I need giggles, I need gin! And most of all I need people that think like me, around me, in a real/laughable way. They know this. So they have organised a 'Knackered Mothers Piss - up'.

Just the thought of this one night out, makes me smile enough to want my life to go back to how it was before misery hit my family. I know my dad won't be there for Christmas, my brothers 30th, the twins birthday or any other event that happens in my life - not physically anyway. I also know that he was not the mourning type and would be happy that I've found something that has kept me smiling this last week and will keep me smiling, especially with comments like "my husband is the biggest fucking muppet..." and "bribe the fuck out of them"!!!

I literally see these women for minutes outside the school gates every week day, but I speak to them more often than I can understand my babbling 3 year old son, who, by the way, seems to have skipped the speaking step and gone straight to screaming in my face!

When a couple get married, its a binding thing and you should be able to share almost anything with that person, I'm not like that. I wasn't before and I can't change just because I signed a piece of paper. I love my family, but talking about feelings and worries with them would feel awkward to me. In our Knackered Mothers Club, I don't talk about my Dad, I can't yet. I talk about what is happening in my life, right now - my crazy, unruly, sticky, kids! They annoy me, they make me laugh, cry, smile and giggle as well as thousands of other emotions. Mostly I just love the fact that there are other women, mums, daughters and wives that are going through the same feelings as me - or have been through them already. The loss I feel at this moment in my life is an extra emotion that not one person will experience the same way as I will, not even my brother.

I know my life has already physically resumed normality, but mentally and emotionally, I think I'm onto a good thing. Now to get back to the physical side as I walk past a full and particularly smelly potty as I go and get my lasagna for one out of the oven!

Hopefully the exploits of the Knackered Mothers Club will entertain you, and maybe even help a little, Just as they are helping me right now.

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About the Creator

Tascha Ralph

Mum of 3 year old twins, who have just started a in a welsh school - No I don't speak the language, that would be sensible!

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