Edinburgh Jeweller Sarah Hutchison on Mother’s Day: ‘I miss my own mother terribly and wish that she could be here to enjoy the family that I have now with me’

Edinburgh Jeweller Sarah Hutchison on the joy of being a mother on Mother’s Day, how she copes with the day after the loss of her own mum and the way jewellery can connect us to the people we love. 

Mother’s Day is a tricky one for me now.  On the one hand, I am, after so many years of thinking it might never happen to me, a mum, and spending the weekend with my four-year-old son is the greatest privilege I can imagine.  

On the other hand, I miss my own mother terribly and wish that she could be here to enjoy the family that I have now with me. It’s an emotional head spin, and one that I tend to feel my way through rather than think about too much.

My own mum was a firecracker – a brilliantly warm, funny, energetic woman who, along with my dad, gave my two siblings and me a truly wonderful childhood in beautiful East Lothian, where I still like to spend so much of my time now.  

We walk the dogs along the stunning stretches of sand we’re so lucky to have on our doorstep. I remember walks as a kid with mum, being dragged along come rain or shine, the dogs loving every minute and mum keeping sulky teens in high spirits, whatever the weather. I feel her when I walk those beaches now, and they constantly draw me back.

As a jeweller, I suppose I feel connections in the pieces I wear, just as deeply as in the places I visit and in the mannerisms I see in my siblings and me, and now in my own child.  

I wear pieces that belonged to my mum – an inconspicuous but precious silver necklace with a gold fish emblem, which she never took off, and a very special yellow gold and diamond ring that she had remodelled from her own parents’ wedding jewellery back in the 1990s.  

I recently spotted the tiny hallmark inside the ring band and it is for 1993, which would have made me 11. I recall so well going to those appointments with mum in central Edinburgh, so the ring brings back all those memories in such a visceral way.

But I also continue to create future heirlooms through the pieces I create and commission. I recently had some sand from Port Seton beach cast into gold by the supremely talented Justin Duance to create a signet ring that has already become part of me. When I feel it against my skin, it takes me back to those long dog walks with mum on windy beaches, and reminds me to treasure everything that I have now and can share with my own son as he grows up.

The end of my mother’s life was heartbreakingly brutal, she had Alzheimer’s and dementia and spent the last five years of her life in a local care home, often unable to recognise her own children, and a shadow of her former independent, fun-loving self. She died aged 73, having been tortured by such a cruel disease for so many years, long before official diagnoses came, I now realise.  

It’s sad and strange with dementia, the grief lasts years, and you get slowly weaned off the person as their illness progresses.  But I definitely experienced the loss of my mum more sharply this week, robbed of sharing my beautiful family with her on an East Lothian beach, building sandcastles, towelling down sodden dogs, shaking pebbles from wellies.  

So this weekend I will hold my own little boy extra tight, and I will wear my mum’s jewellery and remember and celebrate everything that I loved about her.  And as my son continues to grow, I’ll tell him about his one-in-a-million granny, too.

You can visit Sarah Hutchison at her Morningside gallery at 98 Morningside Road, Edinburgh, or find her at www.shjgallery.com.  Her exclusive Preloved Collection – handmade, contemporary, pre-owned pieces at excellent prices is also available on Instagram at @sh_chance_to_sparkle.

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