Tag: mother

Her piano-playing fingers are swollen. Blue. It is not the hand I know. The one that has done so much touching, grasping, stroking, holding is in there somewhere, beneath the oedema. Today the memory of her bones are gone. The paper of her skin has turned to something like flesh. I think of Hansel and Gretel tricking the witch with their chicken bones instead of fingers. Too skinny,  the wicked witch would say. Not yet ripe for the cooking pot. What horror it made you feel as a child. Now I hold her hand, searching for the memory of it. Where have my mother’s hands gone? The image of them remains concrete. It cannot be changed. I hold it in my mind.

People who love her visit. They are shocked to find her non-contactable. June is there still, I say. The nurses said she could hear you if you spoke to her. I don’t know if this is true. To me she is asleep. And what do you hear when you are asleep? Your dreams. But this comforts those who visit. They sit and hold the puffy-not-her-hand and tell June how much she meant to them. They cry and say they love her. I give them some space to be beside her because they have only a visit and I have? How long have I to go?

Part of me feels as if she is on display. Some kind of exhibit. I am the museum guard. Making sure they don’t touch the artwork. Don’t nick anything. This is absurd. But there it is.

Maybe not having had the experience of being close to death makes us awkward. Our mind chooses other things to liken it to. I think of those red plaited ropes they set up in movie cinemas to make you form a queue for the box office. I think of those retractable barriers in airports that corral you into a zig zag line, heaving your unwieldy bag behind you. Even death has a form, a way of being. Form a neat queue behind the yellow line people.

There is sludge in the urinary catheter tube that leaves her body and fills a bag by the bed. It is not what is supposed to be in urine. The antibiotics are still not working.

Her lips are cracking. With a cotton-tipped bud I apply the lanolin. It is white and smeary. I like these tasks. I wish for more of them. I straighten the blankets. I smooth the sheets. I stroke her hairline. There is an inch or so of white hair now. Her hair is growing despite everything. She missed her last hairdressing appointment because of feeling unwell. She would hate the state of her hair.

Her tongue has some red blotches on it. It lies in her half-open mouth, flipped on its side, like a slug without its shell. Her breathing is slow and monotonous. It does not seem to be weakening. My sister will arrive tonight at 6pm. It’s not far off. Five hours.

At 1pm the nurse visits and they reposition her. We decide not to give June more morphine. She has been unchanged since her first dose and the nurse thinks that if she is dosed again she will not be alive for my sister.

I sit and watch her. I film her on my phone. I have captured her.

I write.

She would hate that I am doing all this. Recording such melancholia. She used to say, why can’t you write about happy things? She pushed away the deep and dark. She wanted lightness, frivolity, entertainment. She wanted Kate and Will’s wedding on the TV. She wanted a Silver Jubilee parade. She wanted baby pictures of the Danish Royals and for Molly Meldrum to pull through.

The silver chain nurse comes and examines her and gives her more intravenous antibiotics. We chat. When it comes time for him to leave he says, I won’t see you tomorrow. I answer, Oh.

I go through my mother’s address book for familiar names of people I should tell. I see a name Dossie. It is a name I know. Dossie this, Dossie that. But I have never met a Dossie. The number is a Sydney number. I ring it and tell the woman who answers that I am calling to tell Dossie some news. This is Dossie’s daughter, the woman says. Dossie died a couple of months ago and I wanted to tell June but hadn’t managed it yet. She is glad I called. Our mothers were close childhood friends. They played in each other’s yards. They put ribbons in one another’s hair. They had the same knee-high socks. They whispered through the pickets about boys. They stayed in touch for eighty years.

I am writing when I realise I have not heard her breathing and I look up from my notebook and spend a still moment watching the bed clothes. There is no rise or fall. I know instantly she is gone. I go closer. I go to the side she faces and look at her motionless face and watch it for a breath, for a sound. Oh. My first thought is that I was not paying attention. I should have been holding her hand. My second thought is of my sister. She has missed her. She is about an hour from landing.

Any moment now Graham and Jasper will be here to swap cars and go to the airport to collect Lisa.

I touch her forehead. I hold her hand. I watch her. My phone rings. It is my brother-in-law. He will be the first person to hear the words she’s gone. He is not expecting this.

Graham and Jasper arrive minutes later. Her hands are bleaching. No longer blue, but a deathly beige. Waxen. I tell them I will just sit with her till they bring Lisa. I will not tell anyone she has died. I want to keep it a secret for as long as I can. I want her to be like this when Lisa arrives.

I manage about forty minutes, just my mother and me, before a carer comes in with a cup of tea for me. I have to tell her June’s passed away. It seems wrong to not say. Are you certain? she asks. Oh yes, I’m sure. She is a little panicked by the fact that no one but us knows this fact and she must tell someone she says, and off she runs. Soon the doctor and nurse are in the room. I stand back. The doctor even warms his stethoscope on his own chest before he checks her for a heart beat. I guess it is automatic. We sit and talk about June. The doctor is sad. His sadness feels real. She had such a love for life, he says. I bet she gave a good party, he says.

I try to remember her parties. It is hard at first with so much death in the room. She loved celebration. I think of a surprise party she told me about that she had arranged for my father. It was for his fortieth birthday. We were only toddlers. She had no way of hiding from him the beer bottles in the bath, so instead she told him he would have to pretend to be surprised. And he went along with it. Faking astonishment to all their friends. She would have made devils on horseback and asparagus rolls. She would have worn strappy gold sandals and orange lipstick. The house would have been filled with the scent of Sweet Pea.

 

 

 

 

 

I go to Myer to buy nighties. They are crisp and new. They are cotton with a delicate flower print. The woman serving me apologises for no one being in attendance at the counter while I was waiting to pay. I say the garments are for my mother. I think about adding – she is dying. But it is something that is just said in my head, to myself. It is a whisper under everything that I am doing. Like the rattle of the tracks under a train. Monotonous and keeping time. Outside the department store the arts market is going on in the square. The sky is ridiculously bright and blue. How dare it? I buy a takeaway coffee. In my head to the barrista; My mother is dying. The coffee machine has only just been turned on. It’ll take a few minutes; Is that okay? My mother is dying. Will she wait while I get takeaway coffee?

They already have her in a new nightie. It is pink, with flowers. I don’t think it is hers, but I don’t say. I put my two newly purchased ones, tags still attached, in the drawer. Tomorrow she can wear one of mine.

How are you Mum?

Better, she says. You don’t look better, I think, but do not say.

I am so thirsty. Still?

I check the fluids are working. Yes.

The tips of her fingers have changed colour. They have a blue hue. Think violet. Her feet too. In her outgoing breath there is a gurgling, fluid sound. On the inward breath too. She wants to cough but can’t seem to manage it. Her throat is like a frothy drain. What does it mean not to have the power to cough and clear your throat?

Visitors come. We sit around her. I give her globby water. I am careful to make sure she can swallow it. It isn’t much and does little to quench her relentless thirst.

She starts guessing her ailment. Appendicitis? Am I going to theatre?

Have you got pain June? the nurses ask. No.

Then she asks for Panamax. It has been her cure-all for many years, since the demise of Bex.

We conclude she must have pain.

The doctor has written her up for Hyoscine and Morphine. The drugs of the dying. At 3pm she has her first dose of Morphine.

Once she has had these drugs the gurgling stops and she closes her eyes. This is the first time she appears restful. It is a relief. It is like watching a baby sleep. It is peaceful. It is how it should be. I feel like someone who is waiting for a bus, but who isn’t in the slightest hurry to go anywhere. I feel like a person who is sitting in the sun, with my legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. I have nothing to read and nothing to occupy my hands. I might just watch the traffic go by. I might just let the bus be missed. I will simply sit in the sun. And wait.

It is not over and I don’t know how much time she has but it is different now. There is no struggle to cough. There is not thirst. There is just sleep. There is just waiting and watching. I guess this is a vigil.

Dust is beginning to gather by the wheels of the bed because we have shooed away the cleaner. There has been no Leonie with her turned down mouth dragging her noisy vacuum. There are no stray mandarin pips. No crumbs from biscuits had with tea. Just dust.

From the en suite bathroom comes the burping sound of drains being unblocked. I think of Rolf Harris and the noise he made with his Wobble board.

I look through her address book for names of people I should ring. I ring some of her very old friends. They too are old. Some are older. Some still drive. Some have recovered from worse, or so they say. But they know what I am saying without me having to say it. It is in the croak of my voice. The child like sorry. They say, Thank you dear for letting me know. Give her my love. They say it matter-of-factly. How else should they say it?

Do all the dying look the same? She looks like Dad did now. Gone is the originality of her face. It is a dying face now.

 

to be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I go ahead of the ambulance that is transporting my mother back to the nursing home. Silver Chain has been arranged to come out and deliver the iv antibiotics. In my head I hear the parting words of the physician, she should recover from this episode.

I have confidence in his knowledge. He knows if someone in front of him is dying.

I give a heads up to the nursing home staff. June is on her way. Her room is readied, the bed turned down. Her favourite 100% polyester blanket with the pink love hearts is smoothed over. Sun has flooded her room. Light appears to have burnt off the illness that had pervading it. Here she will do as the doctor said. Recover.

I warn them that she will want to use the toilet. More than anything.

Seeing her in the arms of two of the most capable nurses, one on either side, assisting her to her bathroom, I feel able to go. I leave confident that on my return the following day she will be recovered.

I go home. I take Jasper to footy training. I stand in the cool evening air and watch ten-year olds run and kick and sling tackle each other to the ground. Mothers are talking about house prices and renovating vs moving. Jasper stays after training officially finishes to keep on kicking for goal. As it turns to dusk and he comes towards me I see his green and black stained knees. Anointed by winter grass. I sleep.

In the morning I go to the nursing home expecting; sitting up in bed, conversing, television on. Instead I enter a room where the curtains are still drawn. She has not recovered. No dirty knees. She looks worse. How can this be?

I buzz for the nurse.

What’s happening? I ask. Remember learning to ride a bike. Whose idea was it to start you at the top of a hill?  You’ve never gone down it before but once you push-off at the top it’s too late to change your mind. Did someone give you an almighty shove? Flying down. Fast. You don’t want to go faster. Already you feel out of control so you take your feet off the pedals, but you need your feet on the pedals of a back-pedal-brake bike to slow down and stop. Why were you given no instruction? And now you realise you don’t know how to stop. You crash onto the grass. You just want to get off this thing.

My heart has sped up, down-hill-no-brakes-fast, and won’t go back to resting for some days now. It is reminding me I am alive. This is me with grass-stained knees. Feel it.

A nurse has my mother’s hand and is working her rings off her puffy wedding ring finger. There are three rings that live here, two of which have stayed put for fifty years; an emerald engagement ring and her silver wedding band. The nurse says I should keep them safe till her fingers come down. I slip them on my finger. Just for now, Mum. She has on her worst nightie. It is bedraggled and fraying at the shoulders. I am embarrassed for her, but it seems they didn’t want her in a long-sleeve and could find no others. I will buy more. It seems important.

No one will say she is dying, so I ask. Is this the start of dying? I think I have asked this question before with my Dad. I am feeling on familiar territory. They are not words you articulate often. They are unforgettable as they leave your mouth. Maybe if I don’t say it, it won’t happen? But that just isn’t me. I say everything. I write it too.

I ask Marie, What do I do?

You should tell important people to come and visit, she says. This is an admission.

What now?

Yes, she says.

Remember being in the ocean and facing wave after wave. My dad was there with my sister and I, teaching us to be safe in the big surf. But he didn’t hold our hands. You take a big breath and dive under. It is calm beneath the surface. There is a pull. Outwards away from the earth. Is this something like an astronaut might feel, walking on the moon? It takes your feet off the bottom. It pulls you further from the shore. Your head pops up and another wave is on its way. You belong to the ocean now. It can take you from your family if it really tries. The next wave is bigger. Harder. Bam. In the washing machine of the surf. Over and over. What is bottom? What is air?

My heart has sped up, dumper-after-dumper-fast, and won’t come back to resting for some days now.

 

Home is the bed. White linen. Sponge bath.

I leave the room for them to give her a wash and reposition her. They are worrying about bed sores. You should make some calls, they say. I am in the corridor of the nursing home. I go to the dead-end, where the exit door to the garden is permanently locked. I ring Graham and tell him to bring Jasper from school. I ring Lisa. I am incoherent. She is dying, I am blubbering. My sister doesn’t understand. After all I had told her she was recovering only the day before.

I have to say it again. I am saying it between choking, sobbing tears now. I don’t know if you will make it even if you come now. But you should come. Do your best to come.

I ring some relatives. Ones who count. Ones who have visited her. I ring the long time neighbour of June who has been here along every step of the way. She will come. I ring my best friend. She will come too.

I speak to June’s GP. He has heard she is worse. He wonders if going back to the hospital would be a better plan. We argy-bargy back and forth. Can’t she have IV fluids here? It appears the nursing home is not classified to give acute care. An IV can only be looked after by Silver Chain. Okay then we ask Silver Chain, I say. Because she is better here. This is her home. The staff love her here. No one loves her at Fremantle Hospital. Why am I suggesting love is what she needs? I know love does not heal sepsis. I don’t believe that love can stop the progression of illness and disease. But somehow it seems important to keep her here now, rather than send her back to the hospital, where they may muck about adding wires and fluids and taking more measurements. I don’t doubt the outcome either way now. The hill has been scaled, we are hurtling down the other side.

Opera plays in the room next door. Non-stop loud. From the dining room the sound of afternoon game shows on the television clashes with the arias.

Graham brings Jasper from school. He is worried at being absent while the class is choosing the Olympic sport they will each research. He doesn’t want to end up with something he thinks of as a girls’ sport. Of course he wants road cycling. On seeing the boys Mum says, that’s a bad sign. People are standing around the bed looking at her. Taking her hand. I feed her spoonfuls of thickened water. It is like clear jelly but tastes of water. She can swallow it easily. She can’t get enough of the thickened stuff. She is thirsty. I give her spoonfuls of the globby water. She is still thirsty. She huddles in the child-like pose of the sick. Her hands are clenched when they are not in mine. Will I heal? she asks me. Yes Mum, of course. Even though she does not look at me I say it smiling, with brightness in my voice. A you-can-do-it, Rah-Rah kind of voice.

I am giving her the thickened water, when I feel a presence behind me. It is a nurse I don’t know and she is rubbing June’s upper thigh through the blankets. She takes her hand out of mine and holds it. Oh June, she is saying over and over. Love you, June, love you. I turn to see big, fat, wet tears running down her coal-black skin.

Just as the carers come and hold her hand or stroke her face, my feeding her spoonfuls of water, is all I can do. This delivering of a few mls of liquid into her dry mouth feels more important than it is. It feels essential, and healing, and nurturing. It feels life-giving and capable of staving off death.

In the afternoon the Silver Chain comes. The nurse has a bag of tricks; pulse ox, blood glucose measurements, stethoscope. She makes her assessments and rings the doctor. It is decided she can have subcutaneous fluids to avoid being over-perfused and getting a moist chest.

I stay till the sun goes down.

I don’t stay with her at night. She could pass away while I am gone. I accept that. I can’t stay all night. I wonder how long the night must feel when you are creeping towards your death. Does it pass by quickly or else eke? What dreams does she have? Does she feel the edges of her world closing in on her?  Are the corners all blurry?  Is there a central thread, an essence of self, which is clarifying? As sweet as the nectar sucked from the centre of the honeysuckle? As I leave her that night I place a hand on her forehead, like I am her mother and she is my child, and wish her sweet dreams, Mum.

 

To be continued…

 

It is Sunday and my mother has been dead for just over a day. We, the bereaved, are in the supermarket getting things for dinner. Because even when someone dies there is food to cook and dishes to wash.

We have spread out in the supermarket to get it done quickly. Lisa is sent to find toilet rolls. Graham is getting the mince. Jasper is taking a moment to check out the toys. I am getting Salada crispbread since there is still school tomorrow.

In the biscuit aisle I see a woman, roughly my age, with an older woman. The elder has a walker that she pushes in front of her. The older woman has on comfortable slacks and Hush puppy shoes. The younger woman pushes the trolley and loads it up with their groceries. She looks a little tired – like perhaps she wishes she were doing something else with her Sunday afternoon. They have a large collection of sweet biscuits. Monte Carlos. Mint slice. I imagine the younger woman is the daughter, (I can see the resemblance) and the older woman her mother. They are everywhere these pairs. I see them in the chemist and the waiting rooms of doctor’s surgeries, in the emergency room of the hospital, in post office queues and filling out withdrawal slips in the bank.

When I accompanied my mother on such journeys to the Captain Stirling shopping centre she knew everyone – the pimple-faced, flour-dusted girls in Brumbies, the aging pharmacist, the grey-faced newsagent, the grocer called George. She knew them by name and then the names of their children and their boyfriends and their spouses. She knew how many marriages they had had and the diseases they had recovered from. She knew the degrees their children had studied for and their subsequent careers. She knew when and where they were going on holiday and for how long. She knew how much money the girl in Brumbies needed to save to go on vacationing on the Gold coast. She brought them small going away gifts and welcomed them on their return. She brought them in homemade choc slice for their birthdays and told them if their star sign was one she was compatible with. She invested time and energy in the lives of other people.

June had a way of endearing herself to others. She was memorable, indelible. She thrust herself into their worlds with her inquisitive nature. As her daughter it could be mortifyingly embarrassing to have your mother speak to everyone and not in a hushed tone. At restaurants she always wanted to, and often did, stride back into the kitchen to congratulate the chef.

I was her source to the outside world; the bearer of mandarins, in winter, and grapes in summer, the deliverer of the Woman’s Day and Hello. She loved me and didn’t want to be separated from me in a way that is almost impossible to bear. Sometimes I felt like I was, for her, a reason to be alive. She fought her hardest to stay with us. I am thankful that I was able to be with her when she passed away and to know first hand she did not suffer, but simply seemed to seep effortlessly from this life to what is beyond. As those who have already lost their mothers must know, it is the strangest feeling to know that suddenly your mother, the woman who bore you and who indeed has been the one most intent on your happiness, is no longer watching over you. Now you are grown.

In the days leading up to her death the carers at Hilton Park would come in to speak of their fondness and appreciation for her. They did this because she had developed a relationship with each and everyone of them. It was immensely moving to watch them come in, one by one, and take her hand in theirs and thank her for her kindness and love. They told me how she didn’t complain, how she helped the other residents, how she complimented the cooking and how interested she was in everyone. I will be forever grateful and indebted to her carers and nurses and all the wonderful support they gave Junee from Room 25. That she was able to pass away in the home, she had quickly come to love and be loved, was indeed very special to us, as a family.