So, there really is just one breath between this world and the next, between life and death…
I was holding one hand, my Auntie was holding the other, with just the sound of Mum’s breathing filling the room… (a sound I couldn’t get out of my head for weeks, but which I cannot now remember, and that makes me sad…) It wasn’t the death rattle – I suppose she was too dehydrated for that. It was distinctive though, this breathing and it’s rhythm meant that I nodded off for a few minutes… it’s hard to describe, but I felt so peaceful and relaxed, despite the circumstances… Mum’s faith had been constant. Her strength gave me the strength I needed to get through that night. You’d never meet a smaller, stronger woman. Totally without fear of death. Ready to take that last step. She had absolutely no doubt that my father and her own parents and sisters were there, on the other side, waiting for her, beckoning.
Then my Auntie quietly woke me, to tell me she thought that was it…. That Mum was dying – in the process of dying right then. My poor Auntie is experienced in death; I wasn’t. She said “Listen”…Mum was holding her breath. Then she breathed out… She held onto the next breath, and then she breathed out. I looked intently at Mum, watching her thin body rise and fall with each breath. Faster now. Shallower. I held my own breath, and that was it, she just….stopped…breathing… I truly believe that she felt she could go because my Auntie and Uncle were with me; that I wasn’t alone. I removed her wedding ring almost as that last breath of life left her frail body…. For a while I worried that I’d taken it off too quickly, disrespectfully, but I had been terrified of forgetting to remove it, and I’d promised her to do so. Now, though, I gain strength from the fact that I removed it literally as her breath left her body. I feel her life in it, her breath on my skin. I’m wearing it now; it’s a little tight for me, but I like feeling it on my right hand, knowing she wore it for 59 years 3 months and 2 weeks (21,656 days!) give or take a few Leap Years…
Her sister fetched the nurse who confirmed Mum was dead. The room was so silent. I went with the nurse to sign the paperwork and just made it down the long corridor before I started sobbing like never before. For Dad, for Mum, for myself if I’m honest… I somehow pulled myself together quickly though, worried about other patients, other relatives hearing me, and we (my Auntie, my Uncle and myself) cleared the room in silence. You have to sign a form which lists what she brought with her into the hospital and what you’re taking out. I brought my Mum in with me, but was only taking out her glasses, her glasses case and her wedding ring. Is there anything more poignant than a pair of glasses – fingerprints still on the lenses – without their owner? Mum just lay there, and I asked if I could have a few minutes on my own with her. I took a photo, like I had with Dad, because I knew I needed proof she was truly gone. She looks so different in that photo, even, than the last one I have of my parents together, taken just over a week earlier. Her skin now so very taut… You think someone can’t lose any more weight, and then they do. For a while afterwards, I looked back and wished I’d had longer with her body… Wondered if I’d rushed this stage…if I should have stayed talking to her like I had with my father 8 days – yes, just 8 days – earlier. However, I now realise what I did was right… I’d had 8 beautiful days with her, and didn’t need to sit by her empty body once she was gone…
If I could have one ounce of my Mother’s strength of character, I’d be worthy of her name… The name I carry as my middle name… Dad had always been my hero, my Mum is now my strength and inspiration.
We left and, feeling utterly alone, desolate, I drove along the empty roads to their flat. Now it was just me; no brothers, no sisters, no children, no parents… It was 3am by then – not an hour since she died. Their flat felt different, somehow… Even emptier now they were both dead than it had done for those long three weeks. Like Mum’s body after she had died; truly empty… I briefly considered sleeping there, but immediately dismissed the idea, and I hurriedly and silently packed the car – no tears – and drove home. I did not want to spend another night in their flat; I was exhausted, but didn’t want to wake up there. That thought was too awful to contemplate. Still, the two hour journey was not one I’d like to repeat. I had thought that at that time in the morning the usually busy motorway would be quiet, but it was so, so busy, with huge articulated lorries moving along slowly and steadily in the slow lane, a wall of commerce and continuity. I therefore almost had a lane to myself, and the concentration needed – and the adrenalin no doubt – kept me going… I didn’t let my mind think of anything except getting home safely. Home to John and my beloved cat… When I arrived it was still dark… I let myself into the house, crept upstairs, and climbed, shivering with cold and shock, into bed alongside my fiancé at 5.30am and felt I could finally cry…
Once he had left for work a couple of hours later, I thought I’d sleep, but of course I couldn’t. I took a cup of tea and my cat to bed, and just sat there with my thoughts. Everything felt different. Everything was different… I was numb, for a while, but knew there was much to be done. Organising is, thanks to my Dad, something I’m good at, and there was so much to organise, just at the point when I wanted to – needed to – just absorb and hold onto the events of the death itself…
I started by emailing my colleagues, who had been so supportive over the last few weeks; when I planned my lessons in the summer, I’d had no idea that the 12th of December had far more significance for me than being the last day of the term with reports due and holiday homework to set…
Hello… I just wanted to share my sad news with you. You’ve probably heard why I’ve been off. Dad died in hospital last Thursday and Mum died at 2.10am today, having spent a week in a hospice surviving on just love, faith and fresh air… I thought I would feel some relief when she died but I just feel shocked to my core; I wasn’t expecting to lose her, too, until about 10 days ago. I’m organising a joint funeral, which is what they wanted, but have come back home for the weekend to sleep and to grieve.
I then made those difficult telephone calls, and arranged the necessary appointments for Monday… Registering the death, visiting the undertaker, the solicitor. Knowing I still had a long way to go before I could relax, and needed to sleep, I took a sleeping pill; I’d not been sleeping well for a while, and had them handy. While it took effect, I wrote to my cousin, the one whose Mum had been with me when my Mum died:
I feel completely and utter lost. My whole world is caving in and nothing’s ever going to be the same again. I knew Dad wasn’t going to recover and although it was incredibly hard, I’d prepared myself for his death so it was sort of ok. I hadn’t really expected Mum to follow so soon after, not until recently. I knew you could only go into hospice if you’ve less than 2 weeks left, so just over a week ago when hospice was suggested for Mum, I was stunned. However, this week I was getting anxious. I so wanted my Mum to die peacefully but the cough had come back and was getting worse, and I thought she would either choke or cough so much she would haemorrhage… All day yesterday I was willing her to die, simply because I was so scared that a prolonged lead up to death might increase the chances of these things happening. Then, when she stopped breathing, it was so final… I feel it is a good end to their story – they wanted to go together and both were peaceful at the end – but now I want to go back to my real life where I can text them and call them every day… And I cannot believe they have both completely disappeared from my life forever.
Below is the poem Mum that wanted at her funeral. It’s a popular one, for obvious reasons, and I took comfort in it. There was a beautiful Rennie Mackintosh style card in their Funeral Box, with these verses printed on the front. In Mum’s handwriting it said inside: “To be read at my funeral”.
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.All is well.