Things to remember our mothers by.

I love Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury, it's one of my favourite streets in London. It's like a village high street but in the middle of the city.
I have often walked over an art installation embedded in the pavement on Marchmont Street, consisting of little tokens from the Foundling museum,..but I only recently stopped to look properly and photograph each one.
Here are some of them:

These tokens were given by mothers who through hardship, had to give their children away to be looked after by the Foundling Hospital. They were given in order for each mother to identify and collect her child in the future, if she was able, though this rarely happened. Most times, the tokens simply ended up as things for the children to remember their mothers by.  I have visited the museum which houses many more of these tokens, and I was so moved and struck by the simplicity of each item, probably something near and to hand. It felt like these tokens communicated love, a mother's love, even in the midst of unimaginable heartache.

Tokens, little things that represent love, are so important, even in the undramatic everyday living. What things can we use to communicate love? I don't mean grand gestures, I mean in the little things. Sometimes, (if I am organised and think ahead), I put a little 'love token' in my daughters' lunchboxes. A little heart shaped cookie with a little note attached with pretty ribbon, telling them how much I love them and how wonderful they are. I like to think that they have a moment in the middle of the school day to be reminded that they are loved and precious to someone.

Writing this made me think of my own mother and the things that remind me of her. Thankfully she is still very much with us and such a blessing and I am grateful for her everyday. But I write this also with the knowledge that some of my dear friends have lost their mothers and it is still so painful...They are left now with precious memories, love tokens that their mothers left them.
 My mum's cooking will be central in my memories of her, particularly her Jellof rice, which I have never been able to recreate in the same way, also her groundnut stew, which is still talked about by my hubby's family, for whom she cooked it. More recently, my mum comes over to mine once a week to teach my girls piano and we have lunch together before they get in from school. 
Simple meals.. the simple things that communicate love...

This meal of bread and vegetables brings to mind one of my favourite proverbs. 

"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred".