lostbrainwrangler-blog

[lostbrainwrangler-blog]

Mortality and Death of a Parent

A few years ago, my Mum died: It wasn’t sudden, it was drawn out. Cancer is a bit of an ass that way (when it wants to be). I got to watch one of the strongest most determined women I knew have her mental and physical strength eroded from her over the course of a year. As much as I may have clashed with her, watching a parent; a person who was a rock for most of my life, start to lose all sense of purpose and just get this… amazing anger towards the universe was horrifying. I couldn’t help her, stage 4 cancer was riddled through her body was a death sentence. The treatments did nothing. It just delayed the horrible inevitable.

Mum had always been that odd little linchpin to the rest of my family for my brother and I. She kept up with people, she knew who was doing what, when, where. If something went wrong for anyone, she was there to offer help. Granted, it usually came with some hefty whinging and “People only ever ask me for things” but she was there. Regardless of the problem she’d either fix it herself (something I’d always try to avoid letting her do) or work with you on the problem (the preferred method).

For nearly 12 months her life was visits to the urologist, oncologist, nurses, treatment wards, transition to palliative care and then after life matters. Her emotions were a roller-coaster of dry humour and wit to blind rage at the unfairness of the hand she was dealt. Honestly, I’m surprised she wasn’t angry all the time. Maybe she was too exhausted to be that way.

In the last few months of her life, she was focused on her death: funeral arrangements, solicitors, and the best one, what happened after death. She was always a bit of a guilty-lapsed-Catholic, and so it came as a surprise that she asked me a few questions by the light of Masterchef on the telly about my views of what happens after we die. She was aware that I’m an atheist, but seeing as she was so focused on what’s next (a trait that I’ve inherited) she decided to throw a curveball my way: Mum: M, what do you think happens when we die?

(I was a little stunned at the sudden topic change, but rolled with it) Me: I have my opinions, but I thought you were Catholic?

Mum: I don’t know anymore.

Me: Okay… well. I think it all just stops. Nothing happens. Or everything happens. I never really give it much thought because it’s not relevant to right now, you know?

She was quiet for a bit, watching Matt Preston comment on some dish or another.

Mum: That sounds peaceful.

Me: Yeah. I think. In my way of looking at it you just go to sleep and don’t dream. There’s no consciousness. It’s just an ending. (I looked over at her) Not a happy thought for a lot of people, but it helps me focus on doing good things now for right here.

I remember seeing her staring at the TV and not really watching it after I said that. We never revisited that conversation before her passing. And I’m fairly certain I wasn’t the only person she asked about the afterlife, but I’m fairly certain that I was the only one that gave her that particular answer.

And so, a few short months later at the house she was living in my family are seated around the bed she’s been unconscious in for the last few days. We know she’s going to go soon, the rattling shallow breaths getting shorter and shorter as her lungs keep filling with the fluid the doctors can no longer drain from her. It was like something from a horror movie listening to her breathe: a rattling gasp where you can hear how painful it would have been to simply exist. A woman drowning in her own lungs, her own body. A few days before she was awake, but so loopy from the pain meds that I had mentally assumed that the final time I had truly talked to my mother was a week before her passing.

My brother and I are sitting on either side, holding her lukewarm hands and watching her face for any sign of change. That little spark of hope that suddenly the colour will flush back into her cheeks, she’ll take a deep wonderful breath, break into a smile and open her eyes that would have the light that was present a few months before.

Even as she took that last breath my brother and I had that irrational hope regardless of how ridiculous it was.

The first thing I noticed was her facial muscles relax not very long after her last breath. The little colour she had in her face and hands slowly faded and even odder was the colour in her lips seemed to disappear completely. I think I focused on this for a little while because Mum always went to such effort in life to make sure she had lipstick on.

My brother and I just broke down. We had our respective partners there with us by our sides (which I will be forever grateful for) who just sat by while we let go our grief. And then the jokes. And the crying. And the gallows humour.

The funeral home people came by later (I think?) to pick up her body. I’ll be honest, I could have done with a while longer just accepting that it had finally happened. But preparations needed to be made, and the body needed to be made ‘presentable’ for the funeral I guess as I’d later find that it was to be an open casket (a fact I would have liked to have known before the day).

And so, within the space of a year a tempest of a woman was quieted down to a squall, then to a breeze and to finally be snuffed out.

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I guess the point of this being a first post is that my mother was a giant in my life, regardless of whether or not I was talking to her. Her life and death still affect me to this very day, and I’m guessing I’ll be needing to make references back to this period of my life; the last most painful part of hers.