This is part of My Mother’s Journey blog series about my mum’s terminal cancer diagnosis and death
Today Mum is still like statue. She’s here but she’s not. Her body isn’t reading any signals to move and her face shows peace.
I dress her in her pretty shirt that she picked out, help her into a chair, put her tiny tub of Bircher muesli and cup of tea next to her and we both sit. Still. Like statues.
I’m late to class. I needed to check on her before I left for uni, for a class in which I was to workshop a chapter. I’m anxious as the teacher has made it clear that if we don’t come, we go to the back of the line. The teacher doesn’t care that I’m juggling this nursing of Mum, work, three teens.
I find her in the bathroom, naked, cold. I ask how long she’d been there but words don’t come easily to her. I thought the cancer had gone to her brain, the short circuiting that took my dad rapidly from us.
I call the nurse, siblings. No one can come fast enough for me to allay my worries that she may only have twenty four hours to live. That’s all I know about how cancer can steal a parent from me.
I coax a tiny spoonful of breakfast into her mouth. She slowly moves her jaw to move it around in her mouth.
We sit still. Like statues. Wait.
I’m calmed by her peaceful face. She seems to awaken, slightly, from the fugue state as I furiously message the siblings, call them.
I’m worried she’s gone, I say. Someone is coming. Soon.
I don’t want to leave her, and as ridiculous as it seems now, I don’t think I can miss class.
I check her meds to see what she’s taken during the night, and there it is. She’s taken too many painkillers.
The relief is palpable, but not. She hates taking drugs, so her pain must be too much.
My teacher moves me to the end of the line. No mercy.
