My mother died on December 30th, 2018.  It was 4.15 or 4.16pm.  I don’t remember exactly.  I was holding her hand.  It was warm but lifeless and her breathing had gotten progressively more ragged as the minutes ticked by until it just stopped.  I was telling her that he was on his way.  ‘He’ being my brother, flying home from Ireland.  I was like a broken record.  “He’s coming Mama Bear.  He’s on his way.  He’s almost here.”  I said that even though he wasn’t almost there.  I didn’t want him to miss her, I didn’t want her to miss him.

But in the end, they did miss each other.  The wheels of his plane touched down the minute her breathing stopped for good.  I know this because my poor husband was sitting in the cell phone lot at the airport, waiting for Dave, waiting to bring him to us.  And he got my text message (yeah, I regret that but at the time, I don’t think I was aware of anything) and Dave’s message that the plane was on the ground at the exact same time.

No one and nothing can prepare you for that moment.  I promise you that.  I like being prepared and I was not unaware of what was happening.  But simultaneously, it’s so much more than your brain can even comprehend or process.  It’s the dichotomy of something irrevocable having occurred but also nothing changing at all.  The rest of the hospital kept on about its day.  Their lives hadn’t ended.  Not like my mother’s.  Not like ours.

I waited at the door for Dave and John because I wanted to be there for my brother as soon as I could be, but also because I wanted to prepare him.  And my Dad & Aunt … they were in the same bizarre limbo I was, just more raw, I think.

Dave is my little brother, but he isn’t little.  He’s over six feet and he’s a mountain-climber, among other things, so he’s strong and solid.  When he came in the hospital doors he looked unnervingly calm.  He was quiet.  Later, I found out that he’d comforted John as John, burdened with the task of telling him that she wasn’t alive anymore, began to cry.  I worry about him.  His stoicism and his distance.  I wonder if he knows how much he means to us, how loved he is.  He’s always so far away.  Literally and figuratively.

Everything changes and nothing changes at the same time.  Lucy still needs to go out for walks and get her breakfast and lunch and dinner.  Her medicine.  I still have MS. I go to yoga.  I do Peloton classes on the bike.  Dave still lives in Texas and tours the country in his Starwagon, living adventures most people dream about – hiking and skiing and camping and rafting….  But she isn’t there anymore.  She isn’t sending me messages or soothing me when I’m frustrated or sad.  She isn’t helping me be thoughtful and strong when I need reminding that life is a gift.

You take things for granted that you didn’t even realize were things.  The comfort of knowing that my mother loved me unconditionally – that she was always worried about me and cared about my life – that she understood and accepted my struggles because she had her own and knew that other people couldn’t understand.  That she never pressured me or made me feel less than – that she supported me and only wanted the best for me.  That she smiled and cradled my face and called me ‘Mousekin’ and that’s all I needed to know that I made her proud.

She gave me recipes in the last six and half years of her life – recipes she used for food that I loved … yorkshire pudding, raspberry fool, Scotch eggs … and delivered them to me casually in plastic, hole-punched sheets (so I could add them to a binder she also gave me) with handwritten notes on them.  “I use this recipe but I use Harvey’s Bristol Cream, not Dry Sherry.  You *can* use either.” “This measurement is in Imperial measurement so you have to adjust the milk portion.”

She was everything perfect and wonderful and she was my ultimate hero.  I feel lost without her.  I feel lost every day.  And some days are better than others, but that feeling of drifting aimlessly has yet to lessen or go away.

Sometimes I’m angry with her.  Why didn’t she have the screenings that would have detected her cancer years before it was discovered, already progressed to stage IV? But I know the answer.  That wasn’t her thing.  Doing tests and staying up on her health.  She lived well, she ate well, she excercised and didn’t smoke.  Discovering she had cancer was a betrayal of having lived a good life.  She felt betrayed.  We all felt betrayed.  It was maddening and unfair.  But it was still true.

Here are some facts.  My Mama Bear survived longer than most people diagnosed with stage IV cancer.  She had a good six years.  She travelled, she laughed, she spent time with people she loved.  She took impromptu road trips.  She never let anyone be morbid about it.  That wasn’t her style.  She told us all, many times, how much she loved us.  She demonstrated more than told us, that she was a fighter.

The end was horrific.  It felt fast but it also dragged out unendingly over weeks.  It felt untrue to her, but how can you ask people who love someone more than life itself to make the smart, level-headed decision?  Isn’t that what doctors are for?  Isn’t it? 

I have bad memories of those days.  I question if I did the right thing or the wrong thing.  Did I leave the hospital too soon?  Should I have stayed longer every day?  Did I say the things I needed to say to her — did she hear me?  There were two or three days when we all had hope, when she opened her eyes and was trying to talk. When physical therapy came in and gave her excercises to strengthen her arms.  I can still see her doing them, fighting to the end.  It brings me to my knees every time.  We took those days for granted.  We thought it would get better.  But it didn’t.  And Dave flew to Ireland and then he had to fly home.  I had to ask him to come home in a text message after hearing that Mama Bear was going to be moved to hospice.  I failed as a sister.  I really did.

I try to remind myself that I am her daughter and nothing can change that or take it away from me.  But something feels like it shifted.  Things that felt close feel further away.  Her Britishness and in turn my inherited Britishness feels false now, as though I lost that when she died.  I lost that part of who I am, I lost that part of my life.  It feels like so many things were lost that day, that moment.  When life with her ended, and life without her began.

I’ve been told it gets less immediate as time goes by, but it never really changes.  It just feels less raw, less exposed.  I feel like the more time goes by, the more I ache, the  more I miss her and need her.  I feel angry that I lost her and broken that she is gone.  There is a darkness and a silence that will never change.  Not ever.

I think about that last day, those last few hours, as we all watched the clock and stroked her hands and talked to her as though she could hear us.  I *should* have just told her I loved her.  I should have told her it was okay, that we all loved her and that if she was too tired, it was okay.  But I didn’t say those things.  I just kept saying that Dave would be there.  I think I thought if I kept saying it, she would keep fighting.  And in a way, I think she did.  But then it just got to be too much.  And I know she was tired.  But selfishly, I just want my Mama Bear.  That’s all.  I”m not really sure how to do this whole life thing without her.