Hi all
I am posting this just as a bit of a feeler for my writing style at the moment. I suppose you could say it is the start of an autobiography up to the point where my life is now and I'd just really appreciate to hear how it reads from the view of some people who don't know me as well as others.
Chapter1 – Heartache
‘Just want you to know that if you ever want to pop round for a cuppa or anything,you always can. I’ve been spending the majority of my spare time with Mum andwe are getting there, I think. We talk sometimes, about Mamma, about thedifferent feelings and just some things we’ve found hardest. And sometimes, Ido just want to breakdown and be a bit more vulnerable than I am and sometimesI have, sometimes I’ve cried so hard with Lyndsey that I’ve given myself amigraine. But I kinda figured that I’ve spent so much of my life lost inmyself, in my thoughts of what other people want me to be, in the ways I am notas good or as pretty or as something. Losing Mamma has made me actuallyappreciate myself, to realise that actually, I’m alright. It has made me do thingsthat I wouldn’t – to just get in my car without thinking and just go, tobelieve that I can aim higher and do more and that I don’t have to take shitfrom anybody. Because I figured that life can hand you anything at any time. SoI have to be the best that I can be and stop holding myself back.
I miss her more than I really talk about, more than ever when we are alltogether. I miss being interrupted and having somewhere to be on a Saturdayafternoon, without fail. I miss raiding her biscuits and making her laugh. Andevery time Esmae does something new my heart aches because I know how muchMamma would have talked about it for weeks and told everybody.
But I just want you to know that I haven’t forgotten, I know there is a huge partof you that isn’t OK and that will never fully heal, just like my Mum has – andwill always have. But right now I am still fighting it too, because my life hasalways been fight or fall and I have always hit rock bottom before I’ve comeback from things. I’m using Mamma’s strength to drive me, rather than fallingapart completely.
I just want you to know that we are here if you need somewhere to just besomewhere different – and I am here for you as much as I am for my Mum. I loveyou xxx’
-
My life changed 12 weeks ago. It was a shift that no one could ever have preparedfor, or I doubt, will ever completely recover from. It came without warning,without preparation or premeditation and it shook the entire foundations of myworld. It made me cry harder and more desperately than I have done in years andhas, quite honestly, made me re-evaluate my purpose, what I want from life andwhy. It is a well-known and inescapable fact that we all die. Someday it comesto us all. And I am sure there are thousands of people out there who have hadsomeone they love torn from their grasp within the millisecond flutter of abutterfly wing or the scurry of a startled deer. I am certain that there arepeople who have sobbed uncontrollably on the cold floors of a tidy kitchen andburied their faces into clung-to clothing just for a single breath of the scentof that person’s being. They have asked the same questions, ‘why has thishappened?’, ‘could I have done more?’ and ‘how do I carry on as normal now?’with no real answer returned. This is for them.
And I am absolutely, unequivocally, unshakeably final that I wouldn’t wish thatpain on anyone.
I’ve waited for the ‘right point’ to start this from, for ages, believing that ‘theright time’ would come for me to sit down and tell my story properly. I never,not in a million years, thought that grief would drag it to the forefront ofthings that I feel as though I need to do. Out of love, respect and in someways, personal bravery.
18 weeks ago, I reached a milestone in my life that I never envisaged, merelyhoped for – I got married! It genuinely was one of the most incredible daysI’ve ever experienced in my entire life and I know that, the way I felt issomething that it will be impossible to ever replicate. It was what I imagine‘being on cloud nine’ would feel like! I felt more beautiful, more in love,more… Complete than I ever have. It was nothing short of magic! After a year ormore of planning and all that crazy stuff every couple goes through to createthe day they want, it came together seamlessly. OK, I’ll be honest – it took 2wedding dresses because I changed my mind, 2 different hairdressers because Iforgot to work out the timings until a couple of weeks before, avery-last-minute-dash to find another florist because mine let me down (a whole different story!) and lastly, 5… Yes5 pairs of shoes! The weather was also, I am quite sure, only a few degreesabove freezing so I’ve been quite pleased that I opted for a spray tan –otherwise I’d have been a funny shade of blue on our photographs. But, oh mylife, I would go back and do it all again in a heartbeat!
Though, I can’t help feeling a burning anger sometimes. A rage that I’m quite sure, ifI let it control me, would make me break things and scream out loud until myvoice was hoarse and my entire body shaking. I shared the best day of my lifewith my nearest and dearest, she was there, stood next to me, smiling, talking,laughing, breathing, being… And now she just isn’t. She was our… Pillar, ourfocal point, our lighthouse. I can’t get my head around the brutality of it;the surreal feeling of staring at those few priceless fractions of my day withher captured in them, as part of my family, a part of me, knowing that goingforward she will partly represent a person that we used to have and acollection of memories.
Crikey, do I miss being interrupted now! Every single time I told a story or hadsomething to say, it was practically guaranteed that I wouldn’t reach the endof what I was saying before she’d pipe up with something to add… Or morefrustratingly, would start talking about something COMPLETELY unrelated! Itriled me sometimes. Absolutely did. I moaned about her a lot, truthfully. Butit was common knowledge I think, that she moaned about me and the rest of thefamily just as much! It was what we were; it was how we worked, it was us.
Mamma was feisty! She was ‘ard as nails and if she had something to say, she’d sayit. She loved gossip and other people’s drama, liked to know who people were,when you met, where they lived, along with anything else you might know andgosh; she was a stickler for a bit of action! She was her little cul-de-sac’sanswer to Neighbourhood Watch, I assure you! And she would be the first in lineto give a piece of her mind to anyone who dared to hurt us. Though, on top ofthat, very occasionally she would talk about her past, her marriage to myGranddad, her family, her memories, with so much affection. She could be warm,full of pride and was loyal beyond any comparison – if you needed something,there was never a time when she wasn’t there. So, she might’ve been a pain inthe arse sometimes, but she was our pain in the arse! And my God, is my lifequiet without her. There is a Mamma-shaped void that has rippled through everyday, every weekend, every family gathering… Every single second since she left.
I miss her more than I ever thought possible.
I carry around this boulder of guilt; just in between my rib cage is where itweighs the heaviest. I feel it between my shoulder blades, pressing on my spinesometimes. I took her for granted, thought she would always be here – stillbadgering me until she was 90-something and tellin’ my future kids how much ofa little swine I was when I was young, at the very least living to see my 1year old niece in her first school play. At just 76, she loved being‘Great-Mamma’ to Esmae more than anything else in the world. She was still ableto walk into town, cook for herself, clean, smoke cigarettes and go to Bingoevery Wednesday!
I saw her once after my wedding before she was taken into hospital. She slippedin the shower on a Friday morning.
10 days later, she was dead.
It was that final.
Initially, it was thought that Mamma had cracked a couple of ribs and given a few days,she’d be allowed home. When I first visited her the day after, I joked andasked her why she’d been throwin’ herself ‘round the bathroom. By the Mondayafter a weekend on a ward, her pain wasn’t subsiding at all so they gave her anepidural. The result of this was a lot of confusion! She was talking aboutbabies from America who needing feeding and Nurses on the ward who weresupposedly filming her. She was scared, “she’s filmin’ me over there, she is!”and “they’ve taken all the numbers out mi’ phone”, but when asked if she knewwho we were, her response was a typically Mamma one: “of course I bloody do!”
No win the Intensive Care Unit, she was on so many different oxygen machines – withtwo different masks – one of which went over her whole head and made her looklike something out of a space film. She just couldn’t breathe; it was as thoughthere just wasn’t enough air. Even when eating and drinking, in between everyother mouthful the mask had to be put back over her face as she chewed orswallowed just so her SATs didn’t plummet. Still, despite all of this there wasnever any indication that she wouldn’t be coming home – she just needed timeand rest.
After that point, on the Monday evening, there was no real improvement. The doctorschanged her medication as they suspected it was something in the epidural thatwas making her so confused, but this had little, if any effect. There aren’t wordsto describe how heart-breaking it was to watch her so intently trying toremember how to put on her glasses; it was as if she had no recollection of howthey worked, or her complete unawareness that she was holding her word searchbook upside down, still staring at the square of letters and doing her best toappear as though she knew what she was doing.
Throughout the week there were a couple of “she might not make it through this” warnings.I can’t lie. None of us believed them. At home I’d get scared sometimes, buttry and carry on with everything as normal with the nagging voice in the backof my head just saying “Mamma might die this week”. It was enough to driveanyone crazy. But we didn’t believe it. She wasn’t going to die, because therewas no real urgency about those words from the doctors and anyway… She wasMamma!
On the Friday, a week after she fell, a CT scan revealed that she had actuallybroken four ribs and had a slight hole in her lung, but the doctors said thatit wasn’t anything to be hugely concerned about, though they warned us at thisstage, that should she have a heart attack or her heart stop, they wouldn’t beable to resuscitate – but she was one of the healthiest there, in their words, atleast.
That all changed on the Sunday night.
I remember the Saturday before that as the clearest day, the rest all seem a bitof a blur. I sat beside her bed for the entire day with my Mum, taking it inturns to relay whenever anyone else visited because only 2 people could be atthe bedside at any time “just in case”. It took me a couple of days to realisethat “just in case” meant “in case we need to rush in when someone nearlydies”. I tried to make small-talk every time Mamma opened her eyes for a briefmoment but I felt really awkward so just ended up letting her sleep. When youdid actually ask her a question though, she knew what you were asking. Youcould say “y’alright Mamma?” and she’d reply with her usual “aaaahhh… I’mall’rate!” (meaning “yes I’m fine, thanks”).
Though, occasionally she’d scare me half to death (s’cuse the pun!) because my Mum andI would talk between ourselves about anything we could think of, really and outof nowhere, Mamma would open her eyes wide as though she was surprised to havefallen asleep and belt out “what?” or just “I need the toilet” and make anattempt to get out of bed. By this point the doctors had inserted a catheter,which she kept forgetting, and you’d tell her and she’d just reply with “Oh,alright then.” Her hair was flat, from getting wet in the shower and thendrying as it was left and even now that image of her just makes me fill up withan overwhelming need to protect her. I’d never seen her look vulnerable, notlike this. Her confusion was so… Dainty. It made her warmth radiate. I wantedto just wrap her up and take care of her. Forever.
I then remember the noise. Later on in the afternoon, between the beeps ofMamma’s machines which would occasionally increase their volume and the lightwould change from green to red to indicate that her oxygen or blood pressurewas too low; between the quiet grunting, raspy breaths from her throat and the doctors millingaround outside, I heard something that I’ll never forget. Crying. A desperate,uncontrollable, “my life has just fallen apart right before my eyes and myheart is breaking but I can’t do anything to stop it!” cry of a young woman,coming from behind the blue curtain opposite Mamma’s cubicle in the far endcorner of the ward. I remember saying to my Mum that I couldn’t imagine whatthat must be like. I found it so difficult to sit there, thinking that Mammawas on the mend, whilst knowing that a man had just died a few feet away fromme. He was someone’s someone.
My wife, Lyndsey, met me at the hospital that evening and saw Mamma for the firsttime – we joked about the fact that Mamma had been allowed to have ice creamfor breakfast that morning and when it came to saying goodbye, it was so“normal”. I hope more than anything that I told her that I loved her, but Ican’t remember now, and we said “see ya later, Mamma!”… Just like that. Plainas day.
I wish I’d known then, that that day would be the last time I’d ever hear hervoice.
We popped in the morning after on our way to a friend’s leaving BBQ (she wasmoving to the States for 6 months) and when we arrived, Mamma had been moved.She was now in her own room after having a stomach bug during the night. Shewas laid flatter with her head propped up by pillows, on a different machine and unresponsive to any of us beingthere. We didn’t stay long. I thought she was sleeping.
During a meeting with one of the doctors that evening my step-dad asked what kind ofcare Mamma would need in the coming weeks after she went back to her bungalow,so that they could prepare and enquire about a care package or shift thingsaround in their house so they could take care of her. We’d expected that shewould be reliant on oxygen and her life probably wouldn’t be as independent asit had been before – perhaps completely different even, but we could deal withthat – together – we would make her life as good as it could be.
The doctor’s response changed everything.
“We aren’t talking weeks, we’re talking hours.”
The next morning was the May Bank Holiday. An unfortunate Bank Holiday consideringLyndsey had to work and most of her colleagues were unable to cover, the other,although fully aware of the circumstances when she’d contacted him the nightbefore, simply made up some excuse about not having phone signal at hisgirlfriend’s house so wouldn’t get the message if Lyndsey needed to leave tocome and be with me. Of course there were ways around it, but an excuse is anexcuse, right? I heard my phone ring. It was early and I remember that sickfeeling that swilled in my stomach as I put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.” My Mum sounded tired after being at the hospital all night, “I justwanted to let you know that the doctors have said Mamma probably won’t make itto the end of the day.” Her voice was calm, steady, factual.
“Er… OK. I’ll get ready and be at the hospital as soon as I can.”
“OK. There’s no rush, take your time. They’ve said that we will probably havethe day, so just come when you can.”
The next hour was odd. I ran round the house getting ready as though I was goingsomewhere normal. I asked Lyndsey what was the right thing to say to Mamma, howto accept that this would be the last time I was ever going to see her againand we talked about it as though it was an entirely “normal” conversation: howto be when someone you love is probably going to die today. The onlyconsolation that I could find was that Lyndsey has said she would drive me tothe hospital instead of me having to drive myself.
The journey in the car was almost silent for the entire twenty-minutes. I focusedon her hand on my leg as she drove, feeling my heart seemingly flutter in mychest and thump in my head at the same time. I knew I was desperate to cry, butdidn’t want to because I could already see the guilt etched into my wife’s faceover the fact that when we arrived at the hospital she would simply “drop meoff” as you would for a general appointment or a visit to someone who’d becoming home next week.