A Conversation With My Mum… What She Still Teaches Me About Love, Loss, and Becoming

Charlotte shares an unplanned, deeply personal episode of Pickleball and Partnership reflecting on her mother, who died in 1996 nearly 30 years ago, and the lasting feeling she associates with her—“soft, warm, and brown.” 

She leads a quiet, connected conversation with her Mum about what she misunderstood when younger, including the complexity of love and her mother staying after betrayal, and explores how Charlotte still “hides in strength” instead of showing vulnerability in relationships. The conversation addresses the fear of outgrowing others, growth through discomfort, and making space for grief as “love that still has somewhere to go.” 

Charlotte connects these lessons to pickleball—playing with joy rather than perfection—shares a treasured cross stitch and note from her Mum, reads “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” by Mary Elizabeth Fry, and invites listeners to reach out and have the conversations they’ve been longing for.

00:00 Unexpected Episode Shift

01:34 Remembering Mum’s Presence

02:58 Breath and Begin the Dialogue

03:16 Strength Softness and Staying

05:31 Hiding Behind Capability

07:56 Outgrowing and Becoming

09:50 Walk Through Discomfort

10:52 Play Joy and Pickleball Lessons

11:58 Making Space for Grief

13:46 You Are Doing More Than Okay

14:47 Cross Stitch and Lasting Love

15:55 Have the Conversation Now

17:02 Poem Do Not Stand at My Grave

18:07 Closing Thanks and Invitation

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Music: Purple Planet Music
Thanks to Purple Planet Music for Pickleball & Partnership Intro and Outro music Purple Planet Music is a collection of music written and performed by Chris Martyn and Geoff Harvey. 

Transcript

Charlotte J 0:00

Hello, it's Charlotte here, and welcome back to Pickleball and Partnership. Well, this isn't the episode I had planned. I was going to talk about relationships what happens when we grow, when we change, when we start to want more, and how that shifts the people around us. And I will talk about that. But today, something else is here. If my Mum could see me now, I don't actually know what she would say, and that feels both comforting and confronting at the same time, because there are things I never got to ask her, things I didn't understand back then, things I wish I could go back and say. My Mum passed away almost 30 years ago at the end of this year, and this week I felt, well, quieter, a little depleted, and a little more aware of the spaces that all of us, often, we don't sit in. And in that space, I felt this pull. Not to teach, not to explain, but to simply listen. And so today, I'm going to have a conversation with my Mum, and I'm going to trust what comes through. And maybe as you listen, there's someone who comes to mind for you, too. When I think of my Mum, I don't first think of words. I think of a feeling, and as a small child, this is the feeling that I had about her, soft, warm, and brown. And those were words that I repeated to her, and I could not explain, but she used to laugh when I would say," Mum, you're soft, warm, and brown. Brown like her hair, brown like her skin when she had sat in the sun and it felt warm and comforting. There was this gentleness about her, a quiet presence that made you feel so safe without needing to say much at all. Her softness, her warmth. She wasn't loud, she wasn't forceful, but she had this way of being that just made me feel so held. And I saw other people feel that same way when she spoke to them, when she leaned in and listened, you could truly land in her presence. And I realize now that feeling, that softness, that warmth, that lives in me too. Oh, yes. What a beautiful gift she gave me. So before we begin, take a breath with me, because there's nothing to get right here. Just a willingness to feel and to be open. So let's breathe and pause, and I'll begin. Mum, what did I misunderstand about you when I was younger? Charlotte, you thought I had it all together. You saw strength in me, and certainty, and calm, but you didn't see the moments I doubted myself. The moments I wondered if I was doing it right. The moments I felt afraid and chose to keep going anyway. You didn't misunderstand me, Charlotte. You just didn't yet understand that strength and softness can exist together. And there's something else. You didn't understand why I stayed. You didn't understand how I could remain in a relationship after betrayal, you saw that and felt confusion. But what you didn't yet see was the complexity of love, that sometimes love isn't black and white. Sometimes it's messy, it's layered, deeply human. Staying wasn't about not knowing my worth. It was about making a choice in a moment with the tools and understanding that I had then. And one day, you would come to understand that relationships are not always as simple as they are seen from the outside. Yeah, that one lands for me. I definitely was confused when my dad betrayed my Mum. I didn't understand and I think at the age of 16, I didn't have the knowledge of the complexities of love. I thought, yes, Mum, you're right. I thought love is black and white, and now I can see that it's not. I can see that it's much deeper. And when we make choices, it doesn't necessarily mean that we don't see our own self-worth. So I understand that now. Mum, where am I still hiding in my life? Charlotte, you hide in your strength sometimes. You've learned how to be capable, how to hold everything together, how to be the one others rely on. And there are parts of you, the softer parts that still wonder if they're safe to be seen, and yet that's where your deepest connection lives. Not in what you do, but in what you allow others to feel with you. Mm. Yes. And I feel that because I can see it even now in my own relationships. There are moments where, yes, I do stay in my strength, where I hold it all together. Instead of allowing Neil to feel with me, to see the softer parts of me, the uncertain parts, the parts that don't have the answer, and that's vulnerable, But that's also where the deeper connection lives. I can see that. Yes. This is the work, because how can we not be who we are meant to be? How can we get to the end of our lives and know there was more in us, more expression, more truth, more expansion, and we didn't go there. I mean, I could have stayed in nursing. I could have stayed comfortable in a way. I could have stayed in the identity that was known, the safe, the understood. I could have retired alongside my peers, having never questioned my patterns, my triggers, my beliefs, but something in me woke up and I am so eternally grateful for that, although it's not easy. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. And that's what I see in my coaching now, women who know that there is more and feel the tension between what is familiar and what is calling them forward. Oh, thank you, Mum. Okay, back to the conversation. Mum, what am I afraid to admit right now? Charlotte, you are afraid that if you fully step into who you're becoming, not everyone will come with you. You are afraid of outgrowing, of being misunderstood, of standing in a space where not everyone recognizes you anymore, and you're right, and you're also ready. Mm. Yeah, just gonna let that one land for a minute. Okay. I am ready. Mum, did I have to go through this the hard way? Charlotte, there is no easy or hard in the way you think of it. What feels hard is often what's familiar. The coping strategies that you learned as a small child, those beliefs that you carried forward, the ways you protected yourself, they were never wrong, they were created in a different time for a different version of you, and now they don't fit you. So it feels hard, not because growth is meant to be hard, but because you're learning to live in a new way, and you didn't do it wrong, you did it honestly. You didn't bypass it. You didn't pretend, you felt it, you questioned it and moved through it, and that honesty is your power. Mm. That's gold, Mum. That really is. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, Mum, what would you tell me to stop doing? Charlotte, stop avoiding the very things that are here to help you grow. You think that if something feels uncomfortable, it means it's not right, and often it's the opposite. The conversation you don't want to have, the emotion you don't want to feel, the truth, you keep circling. That is the doorway. You don't grow by going around it. You grow by walking through it. Yes, yes, Mum. I know this. I know this on some level, and yet I feel as though your words have allowed that to integrate, to land at a much deeper level. I feel as though I can embody that than I ever had before. Oh my gosh, I love this. And you know, I have to share. My Mum loved Badminton. She understood play. She understood movement. She understood joy in the body. And I often think she's out there on the pickleball court with me, laughing, missing shots, trying again, and I know she's not watching for perfection. She's watching for the joy, the joy in my life, the joy in my play, and it's the same in the rest of my life. On the court, you can't play well if you're holding back, if you're gripping your paddle tightly, if you're overthinking every shot, if you're afraid to miss, you lose the flow. And in life, it's exactly the same. Growth doesn't come from playing it safe. It comes from showing up imperfectly again and again. Yes. Mum, okay. What do I do with the grief that still lives here in my heart? Oh, Charlotte, you make space for it. Grief is love that still has somewhere to go. okay, wow, let me sit with that Yes. When my Mum passed away almost 30 years ago in 1996, I didn't understand that. When she died, I didn't fully get that. I didn't handle grief well. I know I didn't. I pushed people away because I felt as though they didn't get it. How could they? I thought grief was something that I had to move through, to get to the other side of, to finish, complete, tie it in a bow, put it on a shelf, and not think about it again. But grief doesn't work like that. It's not linear. It moves. I know this now. One moment, I feel joy, and the next, I feel this huge wave of loss throughout my whole body that feels as though it's going to consume and drown me in it. But what I do know now is that both can exist at the same time, and grief isn't something to fix, it's actually something to honour. It shows the immense deep love that I had and still have for my Mum, and grief is allowed to be there at the same time as that love. Okay, Mum. Am I doing okay? Charlotte, you are doing more than okay. You are living. You are choosing growth even when it's uncomfortable. You are becoming, even when it feels uncertain, and that, my little one, is everything. Oh my gosh. There's something about saying these words out loud that softens something in me. And honestly, I feel honoured. I feel cherished to have had that conversation with all of you here today in the consciousness of me and Mum and everyone listening, and maybe something shifted in you too. It definitely did in me. I feel it in my heart on such a deeper level. This reminds me of a cross stitch my Mum made for me, a mother holding a bicycle, whispering to her daughter. And in the card that my Mum wrote for me, that she's secured to the back of this beautiful cross stitch, she wrote,"Charlotte shares a secret with her Mummy, and she always will be able to. Oh my gosh."I cannot describe to you how much those words touch my soul, how much they touch my heart to know how much I was loved, to know how much I am still loved, to know how much of my Mum is still within me. Oh my goodness. I treasure the cross stitch that my Mum did for me, and I treasure the card that she wrote to me. How beautiful it is in this life to be so loved. It is such an honour to feel so held by another person. Maybe there's someone you wish you could speak to or something within you that's been waiting to be heard. And here's what I want you to know. You don't have to wait. So if there's a conversation you've been longing to have, have it. Ask the question. Sit in the quiet and be open to the answer that doesn't just comfort you, it changes you because what I know to be true is connection doesn't disappear. Connection with another person doesn't start at some point and then stop. What it does is it changes form. It evolves. And the voice you're searching for may already be within you as my Mum is here in me. Every single moment, she is here. Her voice is here. Her presence is here. I would like to read a poem to you that my Mum gave to me on a postcard and it's something that I have in my view every day. I see it, I read it, I remember my Mum. this poem is called do not stand at My Grave and Weep, and it's by Mary Elizabeth Fry. Don't stand by my grave and weep, for I'm not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond's glint on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn's rain. When you awaken in morning's hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circle flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die. Thank you for being here with me today. This was a different kind of episode, a deeper one, a more personal one. And if it resonated, I would truly, truly love to hear from you. Please, send me a message, send me an email, DM me on Facebook or Instagram. Send me a text message. I would love to have a conversation with you if any of this resonated. So until next time, keep showing up, keep listening, and keep trusting that quiet voice within you. You are doing beautifully.