msjessica's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Way Over Yonder When big things happen to me I generally handle it one of two ways. I either immediately process the event as almost creative, it swirls around me in prose and I write it out at the first opportunity. Or it..... stills me; vacates me.... and I go for days knowing I should commit it to pages so I can revisit it when I’m ready, but the words don’t come and I always thought you shouldn’t have to force yourself to write. But therein you run the risk of relying too much on memory, which shifts and shatters and cannot be trusted as much as plain text which in and of itself cannot tell a lie. So here we are and I have to say, my mum died on Saturday the ninth of June, 2018. I was next to her. She was beautiful and perfect. I wiped a tear from her eye, two nurses buzzed around us, my sister was there in motion. We knew she was breathing her last breaths and the nurse told me to talk to her so I told her what I’d been telling everyone else before then but the time hadn’t been right to say it to her yet, that she’d been so brave and GRACIOUS through her journey, just so wonderful. I think I said “it’s ok to go now” but I’m not sure. I wiped that tear, a nurse was in the room talking to my grandmother on the phone telling her the news as my sister had started to call her but we realised there wasn’t time for phone calls and we just needed to be there. And she passed, she let out a breath and didn’t take a new one - thankfully there was no real drama about it, there was no false starts or anything like that, she just slipped away and I was next to her holding her hand and letting her go. Another nurse joined us and put her arm around me, speaking words of comfort, all I wanted to do was read the days “Daily Word” verse with just my sister and I there, I had to ask the nurses to give us space. One was in tears. She was closer to mums age than ours. They left us and I read the verse and that is when I really cried, as they seemed fitting words about renewal and cells changing once they had done their job. It was really so peaceful which was such a gift as the night we’d spent by her side had not been peaceful, full of groaning from her and uncertainty from us, I was scared she was trying to tell us things (not life changing things, but things like “turn the fan on/off, give me a blanket, wet my lips, lift my legs, change my position”, or the worst possibility “I’m not ready, stop sedating me”..) and was stuck in a morphine dream where she couldn’t make her body do what her mind wanted. But she wasn’t scared of dying. And from what I can gather from how she’d been in the preceding days, and what I’ve read, she had gone into liver failure and we were lucky to get her to hospital before it got much worse, and so lucky that she passed quickly enough with still allowing family and some friends to visit and say goodbye. And dignity, she really did manage to keep so much dignity even in the extreme depths of illness and this was very important to her. She looked so beautiful and serene after she’d passed and they closed her mouth (even before really, just as she’d naturally fell, but I’m glad they closed her mouth and freshened her a bit for my grandparents and other family to come), even jaundice as she was, she still had beautiful hair that she was proud of and forever conscious of keeping neat (even when unmanageably unwell and waiting for an ambulance she would ask me how her hair was, and often ask for her brush) and there was no worry or fear on her face. Almost like she’d grown younger. She looked just like she was sleeping peacefully, and the hospital allowed us some hours to have family come and sit with her in that state. Thankfully the day before they’d advised she was in her final stages and would be medicated in a way that it was unlikely she’d wake up again, but that she could perhaps hear us at times and it gave close family a chance to come and share precious moments with her. I feel so fortunate to have been able to just be here these last few months. It gave us a chance to just spend miscellaneous time together. Yes there was lots of planning and serious talks to be had, lots of drama in different ways, but also lots of just plain living together. Goodnights and good mornings, what shall we do today’s, what’s on tv, scrolling through Netflix, gossiping about the royal To count my fortune in relation to this would take much too long, it’s enough to say I see and cherish all the blessings sent my way and am truly humbled by them. 12:09 a.m. - 2018-06-12 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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