‘Will I lose them forever?’

Rhiannon Goulding reflects on the various transitions her family has gone through as their children have grown up, and how she has had to adapt

It was Mothering Sunday. I sat up in bed with a cup of tea, and realised that this year was different. I thought back over past celebrations – when the children were very small, and the door would bang open and they would run in and jump on the bed, glitter falling all over the sheets from the cards they’d made, with the cutest spidery writing saying “To Mum”. 

Later on it would be cards made at school, with a poem they’d written in their English lesson, or a cartoon-style portrait they’d done in the Art class. The years rolled on and they got too big to jump in with me, but they’d bring in chairs and sit with their feet on the bed, and give me a candle and a card they’d bought with their first pay packet. We’d sit and chat and drink tea together.