THE SADDEST DAY
This post has one sad purpose. It is to let you know that Mum died on Sunday, 8th January, aged 68, following her nine-year struggle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The funeral - attended by more than 500 people - was the following Saturday, 14th January.
When I was applying for my U.S. visa in June of last year, Mum was recovering from a course of aggressive chemotherapy. Her hair was returning and the scan showed that all tumours had shrunk significantly. I came to the States confident that a long period of respite from treatment lay ahead for her. However, it now appears that, before I stepped onto the NY-bound plane in early August she had already detected the presence of new tumours in her mouth and upper neck. Of course, she didn't tell me, as she worried that it might affect my decision to go. Furthermore, she didn't tell my sister or the rest of the family at home until after she had fulfilled her commitment to look after my sister's children while she and her husband were away on holiday.
The radiotherapy she received in September left her with severe ulceration, severely compromised salivary gland function (resulting in a very dry mouth), and chronic oral thrush. Her appetite, which had never been huge, began to wither as eating became more and more difficult: all food turned into a glue-like paste in her mouth which was almost impossible to swallow. She felt tired and exhausted much of the time, but told me that she was managing to remain independent and even play a little golf. Problem over. Or so I thought.
However, within weeks of the completion of this treatment, she detected a group of fast-growing tumours on her shoulders. More radiotherapy followed at the end of October, when the tour had reached Alaska. Shortly after, we spoke on the 'phone and, once again, I was delighted to hear that the treatment had been successful. Once again, she told me that she was managing to get back to something like normal, but was feeling very weak. "Please, no more," I said to myself. Or to a passing angel. "Surely, she has suffered enough."
Alarm bells started to ring during another 'phone conversation, shortly after we returned to Florida, in the aftermath of hurricane Wilma. Mum told me of yet more fast-growing tumours, this time in her groin, saying that the cancer had clearly become more aggressive. I can remember feeling chilled to the bone when she said this. Over nine years we've picked up a lot of information on the progression of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Aggressive, widespread tumours together with the weakness Mum had mentioned in passing indicated that the disease has entered the fourth stage, referred to on some web sites as the "end phase". My fears for Mum's life were further exacerbated when I offered up the possibility of staying in the UK after the Christmas break. "Yes," she said, "that might be a good idea." So out of character was this for my mother - who had never ceased to encourage me to come to the U.S. - that my alarm only increased. It was at this point, in November, just before we started on the home straight up the east coast, that I made the decision not to return for the spring tour.
Nothing prepared me for the sight that greeted me when, a few days after touching down in London, I made it out to the country to see Mum. She'd lost more than 30 pounds in weight and seemed to be having difficulty walking. "I'm fine," she insisted, "I'm just so weak!" Just how weak she had become became clear when she climbed the stairs of the old farmhouse which was my home for most of my childhood. She could only manage one painful step at a time. "Darling, what has happened?!" I managed to say, my panic only constrained by shock. "It's just this blessed weakness," she repeated.
The weakness was, in fact, the clearest indication that mum had started to lose her long struggle with the disease. At the time of my return we associated the weakness only with her loss of appetite. However, as she became more and more weak, as her appetite dwindled and then disappeared, as she began the inexorable slide into the unconscious half-dream state from which she would she would only rarely re-emerge, I, my sister, my brother and finally my father all stared in horror at the blank insurmountable wave of grief which was about to engulf us. Our only solace was the constant cycle of care in which we all participated as we accompanied her to the end.
She had never complained. In fact, on first entering the hospice, she would tell us to go home, not to waste our time with her, to get on with our lives. She approached death with a serenity and acceptance that made me feel at once inspired and utterly desperate. I and my mother had become very close in recent years and words cannot accurately describe how much I loved her and was loved in return. Her death has left me utterly bereft: heartbroken and terribly, terribly lonely. For me, she represented 'home' and with her passing, I feel lost in a ghastly, suffocating vacuum, from which I get relief only when the echo of her presence - that familiarity which leads you to feel, unconsciously, that you might at any moment hear her footfall on the landing and see her push open the door wearing that most tender of all smiles - when that echo momentarily resounds in the void.
When I was applying for my U.S. visa in June of last year, Mum was recovering from a course of aggressive chemotherapy. Her hair was returning and the scan showed that all tumours had shrunk significantly. I came to the States confident that a long period of respite from treatment lay ahead for her. However, it now appears that, before I stepped onto the NY-bound plane in early August she had already detected the presence of new tumours in her mouth and upper neck. Of course, she didn't tell me, as she worried that it might affect my decision to go. Furthermore, she didn't tell my sister or the rest of the family at home until after she had fulfilled her commitment to look after my sister's children while she and her husband were away on holiday.
The radiotherapy she received in September left her with severe ulceration, severely compromised salivary gland function (resulting in a very dry mouth), and chronic oral thrush. Her appetite, which had never been huge, began to wither as eating became more and more difficult: all food turned into a glue-like paste in her mouth which was almost impossible to swallow. She felt tired and exhausted much of the time, but told me that she was managing to remain independent and even play a little golf. Problem over. Or so I thought.
However, within weeks of the completion of this treatment, she detected a group of fast-growing tumours on her shoulders. More radiotherapy followed at the end of October, when the tour had reached Alaska. Shortly after, we spoke on the 'phone and, once again, I was delighted to hear that the treatment had been successful. Once again, she told me that she was managing to get back to something like normal, but was feeling very weak. "Please, no more," I said to myself. Or to a passing angel. "Surely, she has suffered enough."
Alarm bells started to ring during another 'phone conversation, shortly after we returned to Florida, in the aftermath of hurricane Wilma. Mum told me of yet more fast-growing tumours, this time in her groin, saying that the cancer had clearly become more aggressive. I can remember feeling chilled to the bone when she said this. Over nine years we've picked up a lot of information on the progression of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Aggressive, widespread tumours together with the weakness Mum had mentioned in passing indicated that the disease has entered the fourth stage, referred to on some web sites as the "end phase". My fears for Mum's life were further exacerbated when I offered up the possibility of staying in the UK after the Christmas break. "Yes," she said, "that might be a good idea." So out of character was this for my mother - who had never ceased to encourage me to come to the U.S. - that my alarm only increased. It was at this point, in November, just before we started on the home straight up the east coast, that I made the decision not to return for the spring tour.
Nothing prepared me for the sight that greeted me when, a few days after touching down in London, I made it out to the country to see Mum. She'd lost more than 30 pounds in weight and seemed to be having difficulty walking. "I'm fine," she insisted, "I'm just so weak!" Just how weak she had become became clear when she climbed the stairs of the old farmhouse which was my home for most of my childhood. She could only manage one painful step at a time. "Darling, what has happened?!" I managed to say, my panic only constrained by shock. "It's just this blessed weakness," she repeated.
The weakness was, in fact, the clearest indication that mum had started to lose her long struggle with the disease. At the time of my return we associated the weakness only with her loss of appetite. However, as she became more and more weak, as her appetite dwindled and then disappeared, as she began the inexorable slide into the unconscious half-dream state from which she would she would only rarely re-emerge, I, my sister, my brother and finally my father all stared in horror at the blank insurmountable wave of grief which was about to engulf us. Our only solace was the constant cycle of care in which we all participated as we accompanied her to the end.
She had never complained. In fact, on first entering the hospice, she would tell us to go home, not to waste our time with her, to get on with our lives. She approached death with a serenity and acceptance that made me feel at once inspired and utterly desperate. I and my mother had become very close in recent years and words cannot accurately describe how much I loved her and was loved in return. Her death has left me utterly bereft: heartbroken and terribly, terribly lonely. For me, she represented 'home' and with her passing, I feel lost in a ghastly, suffocating vacuum, from which I get relief only when the echo of her presence - that familiarity which leads you to feel, unconsciously, that you might at any moment hear her footfall on the landing and see her push open the door wearing that most tender of all smiles - when that echo momentarily resounds in the void.
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