A Quintet of Days

Seven Years Ago

Diary entries for week beginning 28th May 2018

Monday 28th - Bank holiday/Dad’s 70th

Tuesday 29th - Visited mum at home/ called ambulance.

Wednesday 30th - Mum had surgery.

Thursday 31st - Visited mum in hospital/emergency Surgery.

Friday 1st June - Mum died.

It has been seven years, and my diary entries are sparce, so I am struggling to recall the exact details of the days leading up to your death. Although I will always remember that on the Tuesday, I had an overwhelming urge to call my boss and tell him I had to visit you at home mum. What happened when I got to the house, I often reflect upon. The inner knowing that your life was is in danger and that I had to act, is something I have experienced twice more since then and both times my body has remembered and delivered me back to this day.

When I arrived, you were in obvious discomfort, muffling involuntary noises caused by the pain in your abdomen, each slight move, each breath of air a potential blow, and yet, you were doing your best to play it down. I looked at my stepdad, your husband, who in February you had mutually agreed to separate from after twenty years of marriage, and I said, “I am terrified, we need to call an ambulance now.” In that moment, I floated outside of my own body and accused myself of being dramatic, but it was more the shock that I had instinctively took control in a child: parent scenario and it felt completely alien.

Before the ambulance crew arrived, I gathered some supplies and helped you dress, gently releasing you from your pyjama top by taking the weight of your limbs and helping you on with your bra, careful that the seams and straps sat flush against your skin so they wouldn’t rub or pinch. I recall the two paramedics entering the bedroom upstairs and speaking to you in hushed tones but I have no memory of how they transferred you down the split staircase with the half landing, onto a gurney, through the garden and down the little lane to the waiting ambulance.

I was told to follow in my car behind and on autopilot I drove the familiar roads, arriving at the hospital to find that the only parking spaces available were at the bottom of the steep hill that swept up to the main building and the entrance to A&E, where your ambulance would arrive. I walked briskly, already clammy from adrenalin but now sweat was pooling at the base of my spine. I arrived just as the ambulance doors opened, not knowing then it would be the final journey you would be conscious of making. Despite the unbelievable pain you were in, your eyes met mine and you smiled in the instinct of a mum reassuring her child. You would not let go until I was out of eye sight and they had wheeled you to the other side of the accident and emergency waiting room. You would never know that I heard you scream.

Her Hands

Peeled pith from clementines

for the wee ones.

Fingers working

like a weaver at the loom.

Held three new-born's, fed, and creamed

rocked and swaddled.

Held close, let go

as mothers know they must.

Aged, scarred by kitchen accidents

wrote essays, learned two-finger typing

to make a better life. Ate meals

drank wine, always one hand on heart.

They were gone

before she had

cracked and curled tight

like their shift had ended.

The nurse, she took them

stretched each hand out

for their final hold.

They coiled back slowly.

Mum, I touched the tiny scar

on your left thumb

and couldn't face the world

without your hands to hold me.