24. Aug, 2018

Hey Jude

As many of you know, my mum passed from this world less than a few weeks ago, and as the curtain falls on her memorials and family and friends return to their everyday lives, I can’t help feeling bereft and completely alone.

I assured my mum in the days and weeks before she died, and on her deathbed that she was not to worry because she would never leave us...she will always be held safe in our hearts. I hope those words, those assurances, provided her with some solace. Just as a vessel will hold her ashes, we will also hold her in every beat of our hearts and with every full-chested breath we take in the coming days, weeks and years of our lives.

But as I lie here, tears streaming down my cheeks and heart aching like it has been punched by Mohammad Ali I wonder...if what I promised was true, then why am I feeling nothing but her absence and a selfish grief at my loss?

Am I caught in a bad dream? Will, I wake and be able to phone her up and share with her all my fears and funny anecdotes?

It wasn’t until a few days before she passed did I really realize the impact my depression and health issues had on her. She shared with me that although not being a deeply religious woman, she would go to bed at night during the depths of my darkness and pray that I would make it through another day, so fearful was she that I would finally succumb to my illness.

I have walked a thousand miles with a black jackboot on my heart, but not one mile with a daughter battling the black dog for every last breath.

In turn, I have now walked many, watching a mum battle for every single breath literally, because she didn’t want to leave us behind.

Although our illnesses were very different, at times the physical symptoms were startling in their similarities.That shallow, panicky gasping and leaden chest is so familiar to those with anxiety and emphysema. At times, just watching her attempt to inhale and exhale caused my body to react in the same way. Mine, however, manifested physically prompted by mental anxiety and inner restlessness, and towards the end, hers too became both. A phenomenon not unusual to end-stage COPD sufferers.

 My illness stole so much time from us. I took for granted that she was the one person in my life who would always be there, that her love for me was unconditional, but depression…it is cruel and unforgiving because it pushes people away, both through other’s fears and lack of understanding and through physical distance due to the sufferer’s insatiable efforts to be alone.

I wrestled with my own mortality for years and now that I am coming to terms with who I am…she is gone.

How can my heart continue to beat when it is no longer whole?

I spoke at her funeral. I read a letter that I wrote and read to her a few days before her passing. I said that we as a family were never ordinary and that although we had our share of hard knocks, the core of our unit held fast and strong. She was that core.

But mum left a legacy…a legacy of ten and I said this…

“I don’t think we really thrive in life in a spiritual capacity if we don’t get tripped up from time to time. It allows us the opportunity to pause and reflect, to look within and draw from our life experience. In turn, we learn from the past…and can apply what we have learned to help make peace so that when we come to rest, we are at one with ourselves and those around us.”

In her final days and hours my mum made peace with her past, laid to rest any demons, found forgiveness and completed unfinished business, rest assured my Mum left this world at one with the universe, and I am so happy that she was able to do this.

So, even though at the moment I feel Mum has gone, I do believe she will return to me fully… how could she not? Mum touched many lives in her 82 years on this earth, but for now, I need to let her rest a little, she has completed her life’s work, and after all, she has earned it…but Mum you are not going to get off that lightly…until we meet again…hey Jude!