Just a mere lad of seven when I noticed the change
Your split personality and behavior so strange
One day the mum that I simply adored
Next day a stranger that struck a different chord
But I still loved you, for you were my mother

All those voices you’d hear going round in your mind
Turned a sweet little lady, so loving and kind
Into someone akin to a Jekyll and Hyde
God alone knows how you felt deep inside
For I couldn’t get through to my mother

Schizophrenia back then was just not understood
You spent months in the confines of old Middlewood
How often I’ve wished I could have turned back the clock
To save you the trauma of the electric shock
For that was no way to treat my dear mother

Most days like the devil, you put us through hell
Yet loving and lovable at the times you were well
But as you grew older, you slowly lost your resolve
Though your alien actions I could always absolve
For after all’s said and done, you’re my mother

The last time I saw you was ’98 Christmas day
To leave you was hard, I wanted so much to stay
When I stooped o’er to kiss you, you looked up and smiled
A spitting image of the mum I’d known as a child
You were one in a million, my mother

Now stood at your grave, I reflect on your life
Such a cocktail of misery, sadness and strife
But the memory I treasure is of your smiling face
And my eyes fill with tears as I kneel down to place
A single rose for a rose, my true mother