My Mummy
I’ve got a strange compulsion to type this to anyone who will listen/read, mostly because I don’t think this is real and actually happening.
My mum died today. At about 10.05am. It’s her birthday today, she’s 60. And it’s a tiny bit under 9 years since she had a stroke which should have killed her. Instead, as a result of a fall on Saturday night, she broke a hip and ended up in hospital. This morning I got a phone call from the staff nurse on duty on the ward saying was acutely ill. Her heart rate was racing and her breathing was laboured. When we all got there at about 7.30am, she was an oxygen mask but looking reasonable. She was alert and responding to us. Then at 9.30am her breathing become worse. She kept saying “please, please. please, please, please.” I’ll never know what it is she wanted, because she couldn’t say. At about 10am, some nurses came in and turned her onto her side, after which is died. Quietly. Without apparently pain.
I’ve said many times over the years that I actually lost my mum the day the stroke took over. But it not quite the same as knowing you’ll never see or hear from or talk to or touch or laugh with or get angry with or feel frustrated at/with or anything ever again.
I’ve lost my mum. And I’ve lost who am I, because I’ve been defined for so long by her.
I rang my sister within minutes of her death, just to say sorry that she wasn’t here to be with her. My sister, who I’ve resented on so many levels for too long, is now making a rather difficult and problematic car journey all the way from Essex to see her one last time. But she won’t get to she her mum. It’ll be a shell of a person she’ll say goodbye to.
I really, really, really want to disappear off the face of the planet right now.
I feel so alone and lost, despite my brother and father being here. I can’t be there for them though. I am in some ways, but in others I can’t.
I hate this time of year.
I’ll quietly walk away for a bit now.
