In celebration of hairy gonks, trinkets, talismans...and my wonderful mother

I imagine that at times of personal challenge a religious person prays.

I have to admit to feeling a little envious of the comfort that must bring. The relief of a burden shared. An always ready ear to hear even your darkest thoughts. The reassurance and hope offered by the belief in some higher all-knowing force.

But being of no faith and having long ago jettisoned the hairy gonks of my childhood, I find myself curiously placing some of my my proverbial trust, however lightly, in an eclectic collection of trinkets and talismans, pebbles and pieces of string.

Like a child curating her lucky pencil collection before an important exam, on the morning of my first chemo I caught myself frantically searching out a long-lost but treasured bear fetish. Once found, it sat by my side in the front pocket of my bulging bag throughout the day.

One of the most common symbols of many Native American tribes, the bear is believed to be a spiritual guide, the sacred and powerful 'great protector'. It represents healing, courage and inner strength for overcoming adversity, and is said to ease lonely periods of life. Bear wisdom is about taking time, like hibernating, for rest and patient thought processing.

Attracted, I suspect, largely by its colours - turquoise blue and coral was a favourite combination of hers - my mum bought the fetish on a memorable and laughter-filled bus trip we took through California and Arizona many years ago. She could never have known the resonance of its meaning for me all these years on.

Over the past weeks I have also often found myself cradling a gnarled piece of chalk, picked up at the gloriously named Hope Gap on the winter solstice just passed. In a moment of solitary reflection I felt compelled to collect a symbol of hope for the coming year after months spent in the lee of Covid. Still undiagnosed, I had no idea the drastic turn my life was to take just a few weeks later.

I selected this stone because it fitted snuggly in the palm of my hand – tangiable hope. But hewn from chalk, I also recognised that it is friable. Twisting and undulating, it can be hard to follow its contours, and can easily crumble under pressure. Shaped and weathered by the constant ebb and flow of tide and time, it calls for attentive handling. Full of tiny fissures and hollows, like hope it balances a manifest solidity with an essential fragility.

The night before my mastectomy I threaded the stone with a length of red and white frayed bakers twine. This fragment of string played a key role in my mum's burial ceremony just 19 months ago, part of a length which connected our family to her wicker coffin and each other. A symbol of the threads of love that joined us, and continue to join us, after her death. It has been tied around my left wrist ever since, a physical manifestation of my mum carried close to my heart. Required to finally remove it in advance of surgery, it felt fitting to intertwine it with my hope stone - a way for my mum to somehow stay present in my future.

The spirit of my mother, infused in both of these charms, feels palpable. My remarkable mother, who herself died of breast cancer and who I miss so deeply, more than even since my diagnosis.

For so many reasons I think of mum daily, and especially on days like today, Easter Sunday. In part, the surreal nature of having been diagnosed with the same illness that eventually killed her, less than two year ago. The bitter-sweet irony of now being under the same oncologist and familiar care team who looked after mum. The memory of some of the conversations that she and I had, and a new depth of understanding for some of the sentiments, hopes and fears she was trying to communicate. A strange lingering sense that somehow she perhaps knew before I did that all was not well with me. And the frequent need to remind myself that mum's story is not my story - as a wise friend recently counselled me when discussing the statistics related to my particular diagnosis "But no-one has written Bethan Brookes's story yet".

Truth be told, were mum here she’d probably be driving me quite nuts. Her boundless propensity to worry on my behalf and her endless questions about exactly how and what I was feeling at each moment would have perhaps felt like additional weights. Knowing the strength of the mutual connection she had with her (and now my) consultant, I feel sure that I would have never got a word in edgeways in my appointments (yes, she would have insisted in coming to each one, Covid or not).

But, far more fundamentally, I rue her absence. My mum would have been with me, right by my side, every step of the way - viscerally sharing my high and lows, offering me wise counsel and forgiving me my chemo-enhanced mood swings. As a feeder, she would have provided us with more quiches, cakes and random special treats than even our hungry family could possibly absorb. She would have unfailingly caught me and unconditionally nurtured me in her warm embrace at my time of absolute need, literally and metaphorically cradling me in her lap and stroking my hair - even as it fell out.

I desperately miss having her by my side on this most intense of life journeys...

And so, will my current day ‘hairy gonks’ heal me? No, of course not. I’m not daft.

But, are they for me strong symbolic representations of what I need to generate to get through this? Yes.

Do they centre me when my eye falls on them – generating in some inexplicable way a feeling of being held and protected and bringing a sense a hope and strength? Yes.

And most importantly, do they conjure the adoring spirit of my gentle warrior mother, helping me to feel her protective presence in this my hour of need? In some strange and subtle way, yes. And frankly, I’ll take that.