Mums deserve a day to remember

IT'S not often I find tears in my eyes on the walk down the Canongate from Waverley to Holyrood. Serves me right for pinching my husband's iPod I suppose, but yesterday I was suddenly sideswiped by the lyrics of Kanye West's Hey Mama.

I'm also not much in the habit of crying to American rap, yet such classic lines as "you work late nights just to keep on the lights/Mommy got me training wheels so I could keep on my bike" suddenly had me filling up.

It's the time of year of course. This Sunday thousands of bouquets, cards and boxes of chocolates will be given to mums everywhere. Yet for thousands of mums there's a bittersweetness to Mother's Day. For years I couldn't go into a gift shop in February to be faced with soppy cards containing the words that many can't express themselves. If they were impossible to avoid, well there were times when the tears would really flow.

My mum died in 1997 after a five-year battle with breast cancer. Ten years on and I normally manage to keep a grip of myself, but there are moments when the grief still catches me out. Thank goodness for large sunglasses.

I could write a eulogy to her here, but I doubt she would appreciate it. Not the sort given to public displays of emotion. Indeed, even when diagnosed with cancer at the age of 50, I never saw her shed a tear, never heard her complain – she even allowed us all to try her wig on for a laugh.

She continued to work while she wore a chemo bag which pumped the chemicals into her, and even when the cancer moved to her brain and left her bedridden at home, drugged to the eyeballs on morphine and being cared for by my incredibly stoic father, she still managed to smile.

The hardest thing by then, though, was that she had little idea who she was smiling at or what she was smiling about. Yet it is her smile that stays with me and I'm still thankful for her lack of tears. There's no way Kanye West would have made her cry.

The first time Mother's Day crops up after losing your mum hits you hard. This Sunday, then, will be incredibly difficult for all those who have lost their mothers in the past year.

It will be a tough day for 23-year-old Lance Corporal Peter Paterson, who lost his mum Sharon to leukaemia last November. She was only 42. And who knows how Livingston teenagers Kayleigh and Shannon Knight will cope. Their mum Angi died in January after a sudden coughing fit at the age of 35.

It will also be hard for the mums who won't be receiving a card because their child has passed away. Like June Smith of Moredun, whose 28-year-old daughter Angela died in police custody in January, and Wendy Barlow, who lost her son Alexander Thomson at the age of 20 after he was attacked in Morningside.

And maybe no-one will feel it more acutely than Kenneth Gillespie and his family. He lost his 69-year-old mum Elizabeth to a heart attack just two weeks after his elder brother James died when he fell into the North Sea at Hogmanay. These are just a few of the tragic stories the Evening News has carried in the last three months alone. So when you give your flowers or cards or chocolates this Sunday, don't let them do your talking for you.

Tell your mum in your own words what you feel about her. It will be the best Mother's Day present she'll ever get.

Girls' slim chance
EXERCISE was something my mum was very keen on. She ran for Edinburgh Harriers in her youth and used to walk our dog over the Braid Hills every day.

I was encouraged by her to get involved in sport, which is why I've always thought it strange that many young girls, desperate to be as slim as the celebrities they idolise, focus only on what not to eat rather than how to work off the calories.

Exercise just hasn't had a look in because it gets you sweaty and red faced – and that is so not cool. What these girls seem to forget is that female celebs also exercise. They've got yoga gurus, pole dancing experts or personal trainers who put them through their paces.

While a new £530,000 drive to get them involved in physical activity is welcome, these girls also need new role models. I recently met Scottish basketball star and former TV Gladiator Ali Paton. She's tall, slim, attractive . . . and she likes to get muddy in the park keeping fit. Who better to show that you can do both and still be cool?

Get Elsie set in stone
ON the subject of inspirational women, this May Holyrood will host an exhibition celebrating one of Edinburgh's most famous daughters, Dr Elsie Inglis. It is the latest move by Ian McFarlane to get the incredible work of this social and medical pioneer recognised in her own city.

The chairman of the Scottish Women's Hospital (SWH) Committee believes she is held in higher regard in France and Serbia than in her home town – which is perhaps why only £1500 has been raised towards a £150,000 statue in her honour.

Surely there could be no better person to commemorate in granite than Inglis? Without her there would have been no maternity hospital in Abbeyhill, where thousands of Edinburgh mothers gave birth safely.

Maybe this Sunday the money which will be spent on chocolates could have a more lasting effect by being donated to this tribute to Inglis and motherhood.