Ordeal

Those who follow my blog will know what an ordeal the past 8 days have been, commencing with my grand niece’s convulsions and visit to emergency and followed by my mother’s fall just under a week ago.  I feel as thought I am living in a nightmare reality, as my Mum is now laying dying in hospital (according to my brother and the doctor).  When I visited her last night she was conscious and in a lot of pain, I sat with her from 20 minutes then she told me to go (more out of concern for me).  I just could not leave her after so short a time and this is what Mum always did, never asking much.  I stayed and then she started getting agitated and fidgetty.  “I need to get moving,” she said to me.  I called the nurse and struggled with the side handrail on the bed that kept her prisoner.  We had her up and standing several times and then back she was on the bed doubled in pain and crying.  I was stroking her back near where her hospital nappy was on, trying not to take the pain on but to be with her in the pain.   Eventually they gave her a pill and she seemed to settle, I feel selfish but I was so tired I finally left at 9.30 pm.  At 2 pm I awoke to the sound of knocking, I was deep in dream scape and getting up was so hard, I literally felt like I was going to fall down.  It was my brother, they had tried to call me and then my sister and not raised me.   He told me he didnt think she had long, but I just could not go to the hospital, I was so exhausted so he promised to ring me.  I got back into the safety of bed and after 2 or so hours managed to fall asleep, when I awoke at 7 am my body was uncoiling and coiling (its hard to describe here)  I remembered that 12 of December is the date my ancestors set sail from Cornwall to New Zealand 145 years ago.  I thought of my Mum saying to me last night “I’ve got to get moving.”  It may be all active imagination on my part but after reading about core sentences and core trauma in Mark Wolynns book on inter-generational healing I could not help but feel something was going on.  By the time I got to the hospital Mum was labouring to breathe and was no longer conscious, the woman of last night who could say those words had just disappeared.  It took every ounce of my strength to stay in that room for one and a half hours.   Both my sister and brother were there but no one was saying much.  My brother looked kind of happy that it would all soon be over (did I imagine that?).  One of my nephews who is really fond of Mum had rung wanting to come down and my brother had told him “it wasnt a good idea”.  I felt my chest burning and wanted to scream.   I didnt but I did ask my brother who had the right to decide that?  Any way between deep tears at seeing the conditon my Mum was in and brief sojourns out of the room I finally left a few hours later crying all the way to the foyer.  I felt I was in outer space, no one seemed to see me until I nearly got to the front doors of the hospital then two women appeared out of left field and embraced me, they let me verbalise and cry, the affirmed me, they got the pastoral care person who through some form of grace turned out to be from my year at school.  She was amazing to me.  She spent about 20 minutes with me in the chapel and I was able to get my pain and grief out with her.  Thanks be to God or higher power or Goddess.  She offered when I go back to sit with my Mum with me, I dont feel comfortable sitting in the room with my brother and sister. I know its my issue.   I know they are grieving too and cant see me.  At one point my brother called me Debbie and I picked him up on it, I havent been called that since I was 12.   I realised I was getting punchy with it and realised that was probably my own grief talking and I needed to pull it back.

Death is hard.  I have been talking to a good friend who lost both parents in her 30s.  When my father died when I was 23 I didnt get to grieve at all.  I never saw his body.  He died under an emergency procedure alone.   Now I am not finding it easy to be there with my Mum in the state she is in, I have to be honest.  I know there is no wrong or right.  I will go back up later for an hour or so but its all I can manage.  I would rather be here in the peace and stillness of my little cottage drawing close to her and to nature.  I found I was getting triggere……. the call came my Mum passed away today at 4.06 pm.