My Mother’s Voice

Alzheimer’s being the conniving thieving bitch that  it is, my mother wasn’t herself in the final years of her life. The  woman I visited in the Alzheimer’s special care unit was a stranger wearing my mother’s skin but not much else, like the invasion of the body snatchers had taken place, month after month beneath the surface, until one day we looked and the woman we knew was gone, replaced by some alien being. An imposter. Intruder alert. Intruder alert. She died back in 2012. Don’t worry; I won’t be getting maudlin on you.  My real mother–not that stranger in a wheel chair, head nodding on her shoulder–is who I want to think about today.  My real mother —Enid Maude Good nee Hayden, a prim, old-fashioned name, perhaps the only thing about her I didn’t love— was British-born and had a lovely London lilt to her voice her whole life even though she left England in the mid-1950’s. I suppose at thirty, her vocal patterns were already frozen in place.  Sounding like a cross between
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Victoria & Albert: How does it all end?

The V&A Chandelier by Dale Chihuly at the Victoria & Albert Museum*

Watching the new season of Victoria, the young queen played the beautiful Jenna Coleman and Prince Albert by the equally gorgeous Tom Hughes, I find myself wondering how it all ends. How does this tender young queen, seeking out her own voice, come to spend so much of her life in widow’s black? When does Jenna Coleman’s lovely Queen Victoria turn into Judi Dench’s aging powerhouse?

 Albert lives until 1861, at which point he dies at the age of 42, of what was probably stomach cancer. Victoria, who herself said she ‘moved not a finger, didn’t put on a gown or bonnet if he didn’t approve it,’ was devastated. 

 According to HistoryInAnHour.com the whole of England went into mourning, sharing the queen’s pain in an outpouring of grief that wouldn’t be seen again until the death of Princess Diana 136 years later.

 “The Blue Room in which Prince Albert died remained unaltered for the rest of Victoria’s life, a snapshot of the time when her life changed forever. The glass from which he had taken his last sip was kept on his bedside table, his blotting book and pen forever opened at its last entry, fresh flowers delivered every day.’’

Victoria would reign another forty years after Albert’s death. She never again wore anything but black.

 As far as the Victoria & Albert Museum goes—which we were lucky enough to visit last May when I took the photo of the eye-popping chandelier—the Queen officially opened the then-named South Kensington Museum in 1857. In 1899, in her last public outing, the Queen presided over the official renaming to the Victoria & Albert Museum. Queen Victoria died in 1901. She was eighty one years old.

  * Originally titled the Ice Blue and Spring Green Chandelier 

Comments

  1. Joy8:15 AM

    We were only in the V&A for about twenty minutes. My husband was much more entranced with the steam engines over in the Science Museum, but I got us in the V&A to see if the lunch options were any more interesting. We never got to the menu because the cafe was so big and noisy that we just went back to the Science Museum. Next time, I think I'll send him over to the Science Museum while I take more time at the V&A on my own.

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    1. Sim Carter8:59 AM

      I stuck my head into the cafe because it was designed by William Morris but you're right, it was mobbed. I think that was the day we went to a little cafe where they made me a fried egg sandwich even though it wasn't on the menu. Heaven.

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  2. Tina4:49 AM

    I’ve never been at all as the only trips we have taken to England were spent in the rural areas. We’d get a car from Gatwick and head west but the plan is, one day, to stay a week in London and take public transport to see the museums .

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    1. Sim Carter9:00 AM

      We flew into Gatwick as well! Funny, next time my husband and I want to hit the coast, and leave London for another trip. Dreams.

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