KATHY LETTE “Life moves on and we must move with it”

This Mothers' Day, author Kathy Lette cries rivers of tears and finds joy in every minute with her mum, as she helps her settle into aged care.

- Kathy Lette

Only three things get better with time – cheese, George Clooney and vino. Wine really does improve with age; the older I get, the more I love it. Especially of late. Why? Because my beloved 95-year-old mother has just moved into an aged-care home and I’m finding the change incredibly emotional. It was a big decision. Mum’s lived in the same large, rambling house she built with my darling dad for over 70 years. My father’s name was Mervyn. He worked in optic fibre. We called him ‘Optic Merv’.

Dad played for the Canterbury Bulldogs, making Mum an original WAG. In the ’50s, he won a race at the Sydney Cricket Ground to find Australia’s fastest front-row forward. He used the £100 prize money to buy a block of wild bushland on Oyster Bay in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. Dad built a garage in which my sister and I lived when we were born.

Unusually for the time, Mum was a career woman – an infant-school teacher and then a well-loved principal. A double income meant they could bank Mum’s wage and live on Dad’s. As their savings grew, so did the house. Four daughters later, our family home had mushroomed into a big, blonde brick, higgledy-piggledy haven of love and laughter with a rumpus room, breakfast nook and kidney-shaped pool. And even after we four girls fledged (“out the door by 24” was the rule back then), this happy home remained the heartbeat of our large, loving family.