The Day We Lost Our Mum

 

I remember the day our mum passed in December of 2011 like it was yesterday.  Mum had always just been there and it was unfathomable that one day, she wouldn’t. 

Life wasn’t easy for mum and when I look back, there are so many things I wish I could have done differently to make her passing more peaceful.  I wish we had chosen different music for her funeral; I wish I had been by her bed right at the end; I wish we could have taken her outside one last time instead of being stuck in that awful ICU; so many things I wish I could have changed. And if only she’d had a few more years on this earth.  If only she could have seen our kids start school; if only she’d been here for the birth of our youngest, if only….

Everything seemed so unfair for the longest time; even now, it hardly seems fair that our kids have grown up without knowing their Nan.  That has been the biggest disadvantage of being the youngest child in my family!  All of my siblings’ kids grew up with mum around but my eldest wasn’t born until I was thirty-three.  With my closest sibling being fourteen years older than me, time was never going to be on my side when it came to mum being around for my kids.

Despite being up against it for most of her life, mum was one hundred percent devoted to her family.  She had so much love for us and even the ICU nurse commented on how devoted mum’s grandkids were when they all dropped everything to make it to her bedside in her last days. They literally did.  They left their jobs three hours away and came straight to the hospital.  My nieces and nephews mean the world to me.  We are closer in age than I am in age to my siblings!  I grew up around them and they were the closest thing to younger siblings that I experienced. To watch them all grow up now and have families of their own; I am just so proud of them and ever since they came into the world, I could never stop talking about them!  They are all like my brothers and sisters and I know mum would have also been so proud of the amazing adults they have all become. 

I don’t want to go into a lot of detail about mum’s death because we all know how it went down: she went into hospital for a bowel resection and never recovered.  I couldn’t bring myself to stay in that hospital room until her last breath; I just couldn’t do it.  My siblings stayed; my dad didn’t.  I hope mum forgives me for not having the strength.  I did, however, speak at her funeral and I hope that did her justice.  It was by far the most difficult day of my life and while I was certain I would burst into tears and not get through, somehow I did it.

Nothing prepares you for this, even if you suspect it’s coming.  I remember feeling like I was in a movie or a dream when we were in the funeral home choosing the coffin.  Although my eldest sister did manage to lighten the mood… Whilst we were looking at coffins and asking about a white one, we were told that the last one was sold the other day.  True to form, my eldest sister asked: “But has it been buried yet?”  My other sister, myself and my uncle burst out laughing whilst the staff looked at us like we were all crazy.  Which we no doubt are, but you just can’t keep crying and crying and crying.  There has to be some humour, otherwise you will never get up from that foetal position on the floor. In case you’re wondering, we chose a lilac/purple coloured coffin because we thought mum would appreciate some colour.

Mum was all about colour.  I remember having my bridesmaids in black at my first wedding (and at my second one for that matter!) and mum said you can only wear black at a funeral.  But I argued that the flowers were orange and yellow so would make the black look nice. I think mum was probably right.  I try to always add a splash of colour to my outfits now.

As I mentioned before, mum was devoted to her family.  She looked after her grandkids.  She always made sure there were chocolate biscuits in the cupboard and especially went out of her way to make sure her favourite grandson had mashed potato and tomato sauce! We all know she had a favourite and in the end, she stopped trying to hide it!

When my eldest son was born, mum was there and although she struggled to be able to pick him if he started to cry, she could hold his hand and settle him just by that simple gesture. He knew his nan for the first four years of his life at least and while he won’t remember the day of her funeral, hubby and I will always remember him running off down the cemetery (over all the gravestones) crying and hubby having to chase him, then scoop him up to calm him down.  While all of that was going on, my siblings and nieces and nephews were throwing flowers onto the coffin as it was being lowered.  One of my nieces was holding my daughter, who was only two at the time, and had recently suffered a minor fracture in her leg due to jumping off the couch! But her cousins were there to look after her as well as supporting my siblings and I.

It’s funny how we don’t realise the extent to which a parent holds the extended family together.  Our family pretty much scattered after mum’s funeral and I don’t think we’ve all really ever come back together since.  It doesn’t mean we love each other any less; I guess life gets in the way and we all need to focus on our own lives so we have just don’t make contact as much. 

But I know that mum would be proud of all of us; of our kids and of all our achievements.  She’d probably still shake her head a fair bit, but overall I know she’d be proud. We miss her every single day and some days are still harder than others.  She did an amazing job of making us all what we are today and in the great words of my best ever brother in the whole world: “YEEHAH!!”  Love ya ma!