( With reference to my previous post ...and you might like to play this as some point )
Yesterday afternoon, the week's lack of sleep caught up. I woke in a strange room in a strange little bed. I tried to focus my eyes and remember where I was, dragging memory from the back of my head. I turned and saw the back of my sister and after a few more moments of struggle I said, 'Jane. I know I am supposed to be here but I can't think what this is. Where are we?'
Yesterday afternoon, the week's lack of sleep caught up. I woke in a strange room in a strange little bed. I tried to focus my eyes and remember where I was, dragging memory from the back of my head. I turned and saw the back of my sister and after a few more moments of struggle I said, 'Jane. I know I am supposed to be here but I can't think what this is. Where are we?'
She laughed. 'We're in the hospital with mum.'
Then I remembered.
For the past nine days, Dad Jane and myself, occasionally accompanied by other family members, had been in and out - mainly in - of the hospital, keeping watch by mum's bed. For the last four nights, it had been a bit of a roller coaster in that each night held a period of time when the room went quiet as her breathing changed and we awaited her last moments on earth. Then she would somehow make it through. Dad joked once that it was because the worship songs and hymns we would sing or play around her strengthened her. Whatever it was, she made it through to the next day. My film buff daughter, Katie, once announced that 'Nanny has more endings than The Lord of the Rings!' and we all laughed those healing laughs you get occasionally in times of grief.
I swung my legs off the fold-up bed I had woken on. Just then, an agency nurse entered the room and asked us, 'I know your mum is nil by mouth but could you please fill in a menu card for the room?' I replied that we hadn't had to fill one in for days now but she said that she had been asked to leave it. Hmmm! OK! Then, I had one of those 'moments of revelation' within the indignation and said to my sister that perhaps this was something prophetic and maybe it was God giving us the heads-up that someone else would need this room tomorrow. So I filled in the card with the choices of meal that I thought mum would have picked.
As I rose and walked round the bed, Jane was doing something beautifying to mum and immediately I thought, a bit crossly 'What are you doing that for? Mum is dying!' but then I remembered that Jane had commented previously, when I questioned something she'd done, that we all have to deal with things in our own way. So I let her carry on. I imagined what Mum would be thinking and I smiled.
It had been a very difficult few days to now with Mum being so ill and yet so precious too. Dad had commented that it was sad that things had gone on so long and yet, Jane and I reminded him, we had such special times together as family; conversations of such intimacy and honesty we would never have experienced; support and love of one another; being able to look after Mum - to stroke her hands, arms and face which she would NEVER have let us do had she been well. For whatever reason, she didn't do touchy-feely stuff; spending time in each other's company and finding strength in all these things that we could never have imagined.
Around her bed some nights, we would pray over her; each of us bowing over her to give our permission for her to leave us - even Dad - though when she chose to continue her grip on life, we remembered her oft' repeated phrase, 'I will do it when I am ready!! We would strike up in holy songs, with Jane and I reviving a practice of our childhood in our shared bedroom, of singing all the catholic hymns we remembered from our schooldays when we went to church 2 or 3 times a week. Mum continued to look peaceful and calm, with only brief distress showing in the times of being turned or changed in her bed. We shared some of our funny stories about our times with her which again broke out in laughter and hilarity. One of my favourites was from our eldest daughter, Elizabeth who was found by Nanny one day in a cupboard playing 'Barbies' with Mum's statues of the Virgin Mary! I am sure that caused a chuckle around the Throne Room though I don't know if Mum was particularly impressed. I bet she went away with a secret smile though.
There were tense times too. It is bound to happen in the absence of good sleep, amidst worry over a loved one, and spending so much time together. But, determined that Mum's bedside was not to be a place of anger or tension, we learned how to be honest, make allowances for one another, deal with our feelings and say what's on our mind with the commitment to seek to understand and come out stronger together at the end. Offense makes us separate ourselves from one another. To recognise when we are offended and choose not to stay offended, means that love can grow.
When the final hour came, we were all there. My younger sister had arrived. My Dad turned up with one of my daughters. I was so glad to see him since by now, Mum had been looking very up and down. With her now-habit of seeing the day out, we had suggested to Dad earlier that he could take the daytime off with his old practice of attending a local football game by way of a relief of tension and to enjoy the glorious sunshine and fresh air of the day. He had been an absolute pillar of strength, grace and love throughout all of this time and was looking SO tired when he had left yet another all night vigil at 6am that morning. God is good because Dad said later that he was on his way when he felt he should not go to the match and come back instead. At his arrival, we sat around the bed and wittered on cheerily about stuff until it was obvious that Mum was really ready to leave.
The next ten minutes were free-flowing with tears, hugs and hand-holding and when her spirit had gone and her heart had drummed its final beat, we sat awhile. I thought, in one of those mega-short moments during which you somehow have time to think a million things, of such a lot that the last weeks had held and of memories from healthy times, dipping into what the future might hold for my lovely Dad, until I returned to the present.
I leaned over to brush Mum's hair a final time, suddenly mindful of another childhood memory of how, every time she left for her night shift at the hospital where she had worked, she used to ask me to check that the back of her hair looked right and was combed in place. I found myself thinking gladly about Jane's prissying-up of Mum earlier. Mum was always one to tell us to wear clean knickers before we went out in case we were ever taken to hospital from an accident. We tended to one or two final 'straightenings' for our lovely Mum. Then it was done. Just in this moment, as far as she could in the circumstances, she looked the Biz here on earth.
She is, by now, in her new body and wondering why she didn't do this earlier as she reunites with her own Mum and enjoys the new home that Jesus has been two thousand years in the preparing.
I found this lovely sentiment...
I suspect that those stars twinkling there for Mum will more likely be SOS signals from St Peter, asking us,
'Actually, how would you feel about taking her back?'
Today, the person who now occupies her old hospital room will have munched through two meals Mum would have enjoyed on earth.
To the angel on kitchen duty in the heavenlies, my Mum's menu choice for today is the one that begins with '20 Silk Cut!
I love you, Mum xx
ADDENDUM: I would also like to pay tribute to two other amazing men - my Hubby, Nod and brother-in-law, Paul who were totally giving in their running to and fro between home and hospital, bringing in daily top-ups of food and drink and allowing Jane and I space and absence from our beds. We love you guys too. What gifts you are.
As I rose and walked round the bed, Jane was doing something beautifying to mum and immediately I thought, a bit crossly 'What are you doing that for? Mum is dying!' but then I remembered that Jane had commented previously, when I questioned something she'd done, that we all have to deal with things in our own way. So I let her carry on. I imagined what Mum would be thinking and I smiled.
It had been a very difficult few days to now with Mum being so ill and yet so precious too. Dad had commented that it was sad that things had gone on so long and yet, Jane and I reminded him, we had such special times together as family; conversations of such intimacy and honesty we would never have experienced; support and love of one another; being able to look after Mum - to stroke her hands, arms and face which she would NEVER have let us do had she been well. For whatever reason, she didn't do touchy-feely stuff; spending time in each other's company and finding strength in all these things that we could never have imagined.
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| Photo by Katie |
There were tense times too. It is bound to happen in the absence of good sleep, amidst worry over a loved one, and spending so much time together. But, determined that Mum's bedside was not to be a place of anger or tension, we learned how to be honest, make allowances for one another, deal with our feelings and say what's on our mind with the commitment to seek to understand and come out stronger together at the end. Offense makes us separate ourselves from one another. To recognise when we are offended and choose not to stay offended, means that love can grow.
When the final hour came, we were all there. My younger sister had arrived. My Dad turned up with one of my daughters. I was so glad to see him since by now, Mum had been looking very up and down. With her now-habit of seeing the day out, we had suggested to Dad earlier that he could take the daytime off with his old practice of attending a local football game by way of a relief of tension and to enjoy the glorious sunshine and fresh air of the day. He had been an absolute pillar of strength, grace and love throughout all of this time and was looking SO tired when he had left yet another all night vigil at 6am that morning. God is good because Dad said later that he was on his way when he felt he should not go to the match and come back instead. At his arrival, we sat around the bed and wittered on cheerily about stuff until it was obvious that Mum was really ready to leave.
The next ten minutes were free-flowing with tears, hugs and hand-holding and when her spirit had gone and her heart had drummed its final beat, we sat awhile. I thought, in one of those mega-short moments during which you somehow have time to think a million things, of such a lot that the last weeks had held and of memories from healthy times, dipping into what the future might hold for my lovely Dad, until I returned to the present.
I leaned over to brush Mum's hair a final time, suddenly mindful of another childhood memory of how, every time she left for her night shift at the hospital where she had worked, she used to ask me to check that the back of her hair looked right and was combed in place. I found myself thinking gladly about Jane's prissying-up of Mum earlier. Mum was always one to tell us to wear clean knickers before we went out in case we were ever taken to hospital from an accident. We tended to one or two final 'straightenings' for our lovely Mum. Then it was done. Just in this moment, as far as she could in the circumstances, she looked the Biz here on earth.
She is, by now, in her new body and wondering why she didn't do this earlier as she reunites with her own Mum and enjoys the new home that Jesus has been two thousand years in the preparing.
I found this lovely sentiment...
I suspect that those stars twinkling there for Mum will more likely be SOS signals from St Peter, asking us,
'Actually, how would you feel about taking her back?'
Today, the person who now occupies her old hospital room will have munched through two meals Mum would have enjoyed on earth.
To the angel on kitchen duty in the heavenlies, my Mum's menu choice for today is the one that begins with '20 Silk Cut!
I love you, Mum xx
ADDENDUM: I would also like to pay tribute to two other amazing men - my Hubby, Nod and brother-in-law, Paul who were totally giving in their running to and fro between home and hospital, bringing in daily top-ups of food and drink and allowing Jane and I space and absence from our beds. We love you guys too. What gifts you are.
