TEXTS: 7 Dec 2014: 19.58
Mum: Good nlght god blessyou luve you lotsxxxx
Me: Good night and God Bless…Love you lots and lots, too xxxx
It was an incredibly special weekend… Beautiful winter weather, and Mum’s room was bright with sunshine… Mum, now she had stopped coughing, appeared a little better. In fact, the room seemed so unnaturally quiet, so peaceful without that constant hideous coughing… That made it all the more poignant, though, because she was dying, of course. How much of it was a brave face which she put on for me? Was she in pain, hiding it so well? Always brave and uncomplaining, I wouldn’t be surprised… Was she strong for me, because my father had just died? Of course she was…
On the Sunday the hospice chaplain came to see her, and asked if she wanted him to pray with her. Her sister and brother-in-law were visiting too, so we all sat there while the chaplain started to pray. In the tiniest possible voice, my mother said the Lord’s Prayer along with the chaplain… She had never been a large lady, but was now so, so small, so fragile looking, propped up on white pillows and wrapped in a white knitted shawl. Truly angelic – no artistic licence there; that is how my mother looked. She whispered the Lord’s Prayer, eyes closed, holding my hand, holding her sister’s hand. Towards the end, the chaplain stopped speaking, and my Mum continued to the end….and added her own prayers… Lots of them… Asking God to take care of all of her extended family… Naming people I’ve not seen for years… Asking for God’s blessings for all of them… We all leaned forward to hear.. No-one breathed, so that we could hear her voice, which was no more than a breath of air itself… She then prayed especially for her beloved sister, who had nursed and buried 3 other sisters, plus her mother, and would soon be at my mother’s funeral… The sister who was sitting there holding her hand. She then asked God to take care of me for her, once she had gone. She told God she was worried about how much I had to bear, because my Father had just died, too. She asked him to send me a Guardian Angel, to look after me for her… At that point, her voice so tiny, so strong, I literally couldn’t breathe, in case I started to sob… I will never forget that room, that prayer… I will never forget just how close to Death itself I felt… It was there in the room, tangible and unthreatening…
The day before, while Mum was resting, my fiancé and I went out for a couple of hours. Fresh air was definitely lacking in both the hospital and hospice… I went into a small gift shop, which was full of light-reflecting glass… Crystals, prisms… Casting rainbows onto the shop floor. I bought myself a tiny glass “Guardian Angel”, to hang in a bright window and to remind me of this very special weekend… And, not 24 hours later, here was my Mother, asking God to send me a Guardian Angel! I think He did far better than a glass prism, though…. But more of that in January…
Despite the peace, the beauty of the weekend… Always always, at the back of my mind was “When?”….. “When would she die?” She was starving to death, which was bad enough… Just those little moisturising “lollipops” to run around the inside of her mouth… No food, no water, just hot chocolate smeared on her lips a couple of times a day… Shrinking before my eyes… Yes, all that was bad enough, but my fear, still, was that she would start coughing again, and that she would die coughing violently, gasping for breath… My tiny, brave, wonderful mother did not deserve that, but I knew that plenty of people don’t get the death they deserve.
