deadmumdiary - Tumblr blog

[deadmumdiary]

The death of my dead mum lol

This story starts on Monday the 15th of October 2012 at 3.36pm

I was walking to the bus stop home from school like I usually did, dad called me and said that he was gonna come to pick me up so we could drive into the hospital to see mum. This wasn’t unusual because she had been in and out of hospital for the past 5 years, and this particular moment of my life, heading into Wellington Hospital was fucking annoying, I would have much rather gone home to skype my mates and talk about NCEA level 1. I remember complaining to my friend Celine that I didn’t want to go in, Dad said to me I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to but Celine convinced me It was the nice daughterly thing to do, also I know that these late avo trips into Welly hospital meant sushi or noodle canteen for dinner so I decided I would go. Got there and had a chat with mum, dad gave her a foot massage while i played with the photo app on the iPad, then I drew a picture of our 2 cats and 3 chickens on the whiteboard in mums room. She was always beautiful, everyone always said to me how she didn’t look sick. Seeing her in hospital was so normal for me now, so even though she was in compression socks and a gown I still thought she looked like a queen.

“When will you be out of here mum?”

“Probably in a couple of days, we have to do a check on my wrist vein thing for the blood dialysis machine”

Shit like this was absolutely normal too, I mean I used to pride myself on shaking up her blood test blood capsule things.

“See ya later, I love you mum”

I’m writing this now and it’s really odd thinking about it. It’s almost been 5 years but I haven’t tried remembering the story this much in depth, like ever I think.

That night I think, I can’t remember the time and I can’t remember what I was doing but Dad rushed into my room and said that he had to head into the hospital because something was wrong with mum, he said I shouldn’t worry, and that my Aunty Carmel was coming over, but I was really fucking worried because why would he have to go in late at night if something wasn’t wrong? I wish I was old enough to drink wine back then. Aunty came over and I remember cuddling her and crying on the couch. Dad didn’t come home that night but I remember that I ended up falling asleep on the couch and then Dad woke me up in the morning and said that we have to go into the hospital because over the night mum had gotten worse and she had started having seizures, something about her heart had messed up and wasn’t sending oxygen to her brain or something? I remember being really fucking confused by this because she had multiple myeloma cancer, and then also kidney failure, but why the fuck was her heart shitting out? I got to the hospital and there were so many people in the room, I pushed in and held mums hand. She was having seizures so she was opening and closing her mouth and eyes and moving her head around, they had to keep giving her medication to calm her body down, they said she couldn't hear or see me, but she kept reaching out her hand and looking at me right in the eye, I was certain she could. I was 15 so every 20 minutes someone would take me out of the room to sit in the waiting area when her seizures were getting too crazy, I remember thinking that I wasn’t a kid and I didn’t wanna leave and that I could handle it, but no one let me do what I wanted to, which was totally not their fault, I don’t think anyone knew what the “right” thing to do was, so I don’t blame them.

I didn’t cry at the hospital, I hadn’t cried since the night before when Dad said he had to head in. Dad had his guitar at the hospital, ⅔ of mums sisters, My Nana, My mums friend and her husband, my dad and me were all in the room. I think we sung Don’t Worry by Bob Marley but I can’t really remember now. I actually don’t remember what happened next, I don’t think the machine made a loud beep noise for ages or anything, I don’t think there was pain, I just remember her being dead. I remember looking at her face go from skin colour to a purple grey, I remember Dad shutting her eyes with his fingers like they do in movies, and I remember being so amazed at how cold and hard her body turned straight away. She died in my arms, I was holding her hand, and then there was just nothing. I remember being confused and concerned about how life could disappear from someone so quickly. We left quite soon after she died, if I could have changed something about that day (apart from her just not dying) I think I would have liked to stay and just be there with her for a bit. I remember holding my dads hand like I was 5, I was confused and it’s like I forgot how to be a functioning human for a bit, I had to be led around by dad to get anywhere because I couldn’t control my legs on my own, I couldn’t talk either, It was like everything in the whole world was really foreign. I remember feeling like i couldn’t remember how to do anything anymore. It was 10.40, i remember this because that’s when morning tea would be if I was at school. I called my friend Natalie to tell her and the rest of my friends that mum had died, they thought I was taking the piss because I wasn’t crying, I didn’t sound sad either I guess, I think I was numb. I remember her starting to cry on the phone, I remember being confused about that, I dont know why I was confused because thats a pretty normal reaction.  

Me and dad walked into the elevator and my mums last sister came out and asked how everything was going, she got stuck in traffic on the way to the hospital, I think she could tell what happened because she just started to scream, I remember feeling worse for her than I did for myself, I think dad was pretty upset because he just pointed to the room and got in the elevator. While we were driving home we had our usual playlist on but Yesterday by the Beatles played and me and Dad were both like ahhhh.

I can’t remember what happened for the rest of the day, like at all. We must have got home at maybe 1pm. I remember having my first full blown panic attack that night when I was in bed. It would have been 2am or 3am, nearly 17 hours after mum had actually died, It was the first time I had cried. I remember dad sitting on the bed with me crying, and i was screaming at the top of my lungs and kicking my legs and flailing my arms about, I couldn’t control anything that was happening to me, I can’t remember calming down, I think I must have exhausted my body and fallen asleep.

I can’t remember anything from the next day until about 5pm because we had a BBQ at my house, I remember me and all of my friends and cousins sitting up on the road, I remember chain smoking rollies with my cousins who didn’t know I smoked at that point, but they didn’t mind giving my ciggies. I remember talking about IUD’s and ingrown toe nails, and i remember that my friend Ben was wearing Nike shoes. It’s quite funny the things you remember in these situations.

I cant remember Thursday, The funeral was on Friday, I didn’t cry, I wrote something stupid on her coffin, I thought I was being a cool adult at the time, I wish I wrote something silly and honest. Dad didn’t want me to go to the place where the coffin gets cremated, I think he thought It would be too much for me, but I remember leaving the funeral as soon as it had finished so I could go to my friend Nick’s house to smoke cigarettes. I remember that my cousin bought me a box of smirnoff Ice at the after party of the funeral. I remember being kind of drunk, my whole family was there, It was a cool party.

I can’t really remember any of the days after that, I can’t really believe how much of this whole situation I can’t really remember, lots of it is really blank to me which i find quite interesting really, I think my brain is doing that on purpose. Weird lol. But yeah shit happens and that is my story.