My Mother at 21

Browsing through my Instagram a few months ago, I saw a message from a young woman saying she had found some photos of my mother, taken by her father in the 60’s. I knew about these pictures as her father, the photographer Paul Dinnage, had sent some prints to my mother. I had made some copies but managed to lose them all except one image of me aged 2 with pigtails and wearing a grubby pale blue jumper, unintentionally Marc Jacobs grunge style.
Sophy, Paul Dinneage’s incredibly thoughtful daughter sent me the little book of photographs and out fell portraits of my mother aged 21 as I had never seen her. She was so incredibly beautiful, but in a way that I had never seen: accessible, approachable, like a friend. I could imagine wanting to be close to her, talk about shared feelings and experiences. We had not been like that in life, even though we did have shared experiences and feelings. But those very things seemed to have made my mother distant from me and keep me at an arm’s length. She could show anger but showing her love was fraught with lack of trust. Talking to my therapist last week I was remembering being in hospital with mum when she was suddenly, out of the blue, given a week to live. Formalities didn’t count anymore. One of the things she said was ‘I wish I could have shown you more love.’ ‘I did feel like I was loved...’ I said to my shrink. ‘You must have been or you wouldn’t be the way you are,’ he replied. ‘But she wasn’t able to show it.’ Maybe this isn’t ideal, but it is good.

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