This is the second year running that I have missed Mother’s Day. Last year, I was in London en route to the HypoRESOLVE kickoff meeting, and this year, I’m in Florence for a DOCLab Advisory Group (DISCLOSURE: flight to Florence from Amsterdam covered by Lilly) meeting following on from the HypoRESOLVE AGM (DISCLOSURE: flight to Amsterdam from Melbourne covered by HypoRESOLVE). Both years, we’ve celebrated a week early to make sure that we mark the day. Because it is an important day. Our kid wants to spend the day spoiling me (which is just so gorgeous!), and I want to acknowledge just how essential my own mother has been throughout my forty-five years. 

So, here is something I wrote about my own Mum and just how she has shaped so much of how I live with diabetes. 

It’s Mother’s Day. In recent years, as I have found aspects of the day challenging, I’ve really channelled my energy on Mother’s Day into what my own mother has given me.

I am willing to admit my bias, but I think my mother is the best Mum in the world. She’s very cool, and when I was growing up all my friends thought she was awesome. She was in her early 20s when she had me, and has always been a young Mum. That’s not to say that she always knows what the cool kids are talking about. We have many stories of absolutely hysterical things she has said and done in the belief that she was being oh-so-hip. My sister and I never stop making fun of her, which she mostly takes with good grace. Mostly…

When I was growing up, there was nothing that I felt I couldn’t talk to Mum about. She was very open and no subject was taboo. I felt comfortable speaking with her about pretty much everything, and when I had my own daughter, I knew that I wanted to have the same sort of relationship with her.

Mum instilled in me a love of food and cooking – something for which I am so grateful. Yet as great as the cakes are that I pull out of the oven, or the plates I serve up for dinner, nothing is as good as her food.

She showed me that chicken soup is truly all it takes some days to lift my spirits and fortify me for what comes next. I’ve not managed to always have a stash in the freezer for quick thawing, but I am always welcome to let myself into my parents’ house and help myself to whatever is in my freezer. And when I am under the weather – physically or emotionally – a text message of ‘I’m sending dad over with some chicken soup for you’ is an inevitability.

When I was diagnosed with diabetes, she was there, alongside me: a pillar of strength on the outside when, I knew, she would have been falling apart inside.

She taught me how to live with a chronic health condition. I have watched Mum deal with her own health conditions for over thirty years. She has done so with incredible grace, determination and resolve. Every time something new has been thrown at her, she’s rolled up her sleeves and taken it on. A couple of years ago she had a double knee replacement and the speed and intensity of her recovery was a marvel. She pushed and pushed through rehab, recovering far sooner than expected.

There may not be an instruction book for diabetes, but thanks to watching Mum live with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and Sjögren’s syndrome meant I did sort of have a real-life manual for how to get on with life even with my new health challenge. I looked at her attitude and took it on as my own.

She’s shown me that even through the pain and fatigue and frustrations that seem to go hand-in-hand with life-long health conditions, laughing and carrying on in a silly way is absolutely okay.

But equally, she also taught me that it’s okay to cry and feel overwhelmed.

She helped me understand that even though there are times that the thought of another appointment with another doctor for another thing was just too much to deal with, it is okay to complain about it, but I just had to do it.

She taught me that self-care days that involved sitting on the couch under a quilt watching reruns of British cop shows is absolutely okay. But the next day, you get up and get back into it.

She taught me that even though there were times I didn’t want to, I had to show up – show up to my own care, to doctors’ appointments, to blood draws, to work. She might say ‘Diabetes is shit today,’ (she’s a trade unionist; my potty mouth came from her!), ‘But you have to keep going.’ She tells me all the time that life with chronic health issues is boring. And it is. It really is!

Every day, she’s made me see that even though something may look easy, living with a chronic health condition is simply not. She wears the invisibility of her health condition the way I do mine. We smile through the sadness of what could have been had we not had so many health challenges to manage.

She made me understand that not everyone is as fortunate as we are when it comes to health care accessibility and affordability. And that helping those less fortunate is a responsibility I must never shirk.

The unconditional love, support and pride she has demonstrated in spades is, of course, much appreciated. Having a prototype right there for the type of mother I want to be has been a blessing. But I appreciate so much more than that. Our health issues may be different, but it is my Mum who taught me how to thrive with diabetes. I would not be living the way I am now without her having gone ahead of me. Or without having her stand beside me, and hold me up when I’ve needed.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mum. Thanks for the chicken soup. And everything else.