Email to my cousin, 11th December 2015:
Hello…
This day last year was the last day I spent with my Mum. I know that as a nurse, you’ll be familiar with some of the things I say here, but you also know how much it means to me, to be able to share this memory with you…
I almost killed her in the morning – and it was completely terrifying. You see, she really wanted a sip of water. Usually she just swilled it round her mouth and spat it out. So, I handed her a cup of water – but this time, she swallowed it. Not all of it – just the barest hint of a drop. I’m assuming the cancer had caused a fistula or something, and it went into her lungs instead. Either way, the panic and horror in her eyes is something I will never forget. She was gasping, panicking… I called Tony, the nurse, and even he, usually calm, kind, professional, even he looked concerned. He had to haul her forward to change her position and called for someone to help him… Eventually, she could breathe again, but I just kept thinking – still keep thinking “What if I’d killed her?”
Apart from that huge panic, it was a lovely, lovely day… Mum wrote – the faintest hint of words scrawled on a scrap of paper – that it would be better to write today than to talk; she was so very weak. Later in the morning, I emailed her sister, to tell her to come into the hospice. I’d promised I would call for her if I thought it was nearing the end, but I daren’t leave Mum’s room to telephone. I had understood the initial writing and mouthing things, “I luv you” she had scrawled – no confusion there… I treasure that… Then, she seemed to get agitated, trying to mouth things, write things I didn’t understand. If only I could see/hear what she was trying to tell me… I still don’t know if it was important, or if she was confused herself at that point. Quite suddenly, she lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes, and fell asleep…
While she slept I thought back to earlier in the week, when my self-control had slipped. I can’t even remember what set me off, but suddenly the tears came thick and fast, and before I knew it, I was sobbing in her arms. She held me tightly, but only for a few seconds. She then looked me in the eye and whispered “Don’t you DARE cry… There’s nothing to cry about. I’ve had a wonderful life”. After a few minutes, when my sobs subsided, she added “Remember, you live YOUR life. Nobody else’s life”.
Her sister, brother-in-law and niece arrived, but she slept most of the day. I don’t know the difference between drifting in and out of consciousness and in and out of sleep, but it was one or the other… In the afternoon, it was more sleeping than waking… and we all just sat there, quietly. I was praying she’d die because until the very last few days she’d had the most hideous cough, spitting up saliva and getting through rolls and rolls of tissue… I was terrified, always, that she’d die in agony or fear, and not quietly and peacefully. She either hid it very well or was calm and not in pain, though I still have nightmares (not at night, I mean it figuratively) about this last day… That I should have wet her mouth and lips with water, but I didn’t… After the choking incident I was terrified. And, no-one came in to check on her for hours and hours so they didn’t either… They must have known she was dying and left us together. But I do worry that she was thirsty and couldn’t say, and it bothers me…
So, it was quiet and peaceful but I wanted her to die because I’d heard of throat cancer causing death by haemorrhaging, and couldn’t bear for that to happen… And she’d been without any sustenance at all for a week… She was surviving on fresh air and love… Love for me, love from me… In the evening her sister stayed while I went to the flat to collect night clothes, because I couldn’t leave her overnight, it was too clear she wasn’t going to survive much longer. I do wonder why I risked that short, quick drive, but I did… When her sister and brother-in-law left at around 10pm I was glad to have Mum to myself. I’d brought myself a glass of wine to sip while I talked to her, which is what I wanted to do… just relax and talk to my Mum, with no-one else around. Holding her hand, hearing her breathing. I was sitting in the chair, wrapped in a blanket, just looking at her and talking to her… Telling her I was ok… That it was ok to go to Dad… After about half an hour though, her sister rang the hospice to say she couldn’t bear to leave her… She’d sat with her other three sisters and her mother when they died and couldn’t leave my Mum. I DID want to be alone with Mum for a while, but I’d had some time at that point, and was so glad her sister and brother-in-law had returned to sit with us and knew it was the right thing. Such a lonely, lonely night to have been on my own… We sat round her bed and tried to get comfortable, with the sound of Mum’s strange breathing which 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 somehow reassuring…
My dearest cousin… Was this really 12 months ago? It feels like last month, and at the same time, a lifetime ago. So much has changed in my life since then, and I don’t believe I’d even recognise the person I used to be. Here I am, living in another country even! Know that although this is a one-sided email, it doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about you and how you are. I love you so very much. Your strength gives me strength and your love and kindness brings me so much happiness. Finding you was the good that came out of this sadness.
XXXXXXXXX
“Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love.”
Stevie Wonder