Gone Too Soon

The sun is shining on the blue sea, the sound of the wave crushing the sandy beach. Family and friends came to pay their respects. My two sisters responded in kind to their cares and grieve but I found no burning faith among the enkindled crowd. The box among the rose pedals held my mother’s ashes reflected the solitary light that seemed to dangle in mockery.

I knew she was going to die. I knew it the moment I got a text – “Mum need to see you.” I could feel it, death. No amount of good deeds or prayer-induced ravaged knees, bent on church aisles, would change the fact that death haunted this house. In that same house, my sister’s best friend’s mother also died in that home. I walked through the front door, I saw her there sitting at the table surrounded by my sisters and friends. Smoke smells lingered, a few of them smoking cigarettes. I saw her there eaten away by cancer and deep pain. “You should’ve listened to me, mum. You should have gone to the doctor when I told you to, but you are just too fuckin’ stubborn to think it was just common cold,” I told her angrily, “I know, and I am so sorry,” she said. I experienced her likeness each and every day for many years until she moved me not at all; but the heart, like those walls, retains the tale, telling tears of time, like a picture, like a spell. I decided to be the one to stay and look after her till the end. She wanted to die in her home. The cancers were spreading faster than we thought, it had spread from her lungs to her heart. She was getting weaker and weaker until I was spoon-feeding her. She had already left a good part of this world and could scarcely speak, but her sense of humour was still sharp. “I’ll have a nice cold Bundy rum,” she said. We could hear the TV and children laughing in the other room as we both struggled to find comforting words for one another. She had neither appetite nor taste for even her favourite things, and it was difficult for her to keep a bowl of Weet-Bix down without vomiting. I tried to make every day a positive day because I knew any time, any day was the last time I would ever see her alive again.

I was talking to her about Grandma while I was making her comfortable in bed and turning on the air conditioner. Bringing up memories of Grandma brings a small smile on her face, “I can’t wait to see mum again. And my man,” she said. I looked at her, and her smile was wider. “You mean stepdad, Gary?” I asked, and she nodded. “You loved dancing, and you always tell gram to watch you. Whenever she comes over, she takes you and Kim out to the veranda, put Kim in the bouncer and plays with you while I do the housework,” she smiled. “Remember the milky water?” Mum asked, memory came into my mind. My sisters Kim and Margaret and I swam in the white muddy pool while mum was caring for our baby sister. We called the muddy pool, Milky water, we were splashing at each other. The mud at my feet was boggy and soft. “Yes I remember. My favourite place was at Katherine hot spring, you had a hard time getting us kids out,” I laughed, she tried to laugh. She is in pain again. This time it was more intense than before. She managed to ask me if I have drawn any more pictures lately. I didn’t have the courage to tell her that I do not have the passion to continue drawing since the news of cancer, that my heart is heavy with sadness. She always thought of me as being creative. It was a facade I was trying to uphold for her sake, for her inner strength. I tell her I’ve become bored with drawing, it’s just not enough of a challenge anymore and I do not have the time. It was the last conversation we had. She was in so much pain, I could see the fear in her eyes. She had to be taken to hospital so they can give her the medications to make her comfortable. I regret agreeing with the nurse because mum made me promised that she would die in her home. I walked through the hygienic corridors of the hospital. I could smell a mixture of medications, disinfectants, alcohol, iodine, perfume, blood and food. Before they settled her onto the hospital bed, she looked at me with sadness and betrayal. She wasn’t happy and to this day, I felt so guilty and I couldn’t even forgive myself.

I went back to her house to shower, I walked around her home looking at the garden, sat in her old 1981 Toyota Corona for a while then went to her room and looking at her things. I felt the urge to cry but I couldn’t. There was a certain smell in her room that was never present before. It was the same smell that rose from my mother’s body right before she died. A musk smell of her perfume, against layers of dry, dying epidermis. I looked at the empty bed then there stood mum by her desk in ghostly form, her beautiful long black hair swaying and smiling at me. “Promise me you will look after your sisters, and keep drawing. Don’t lose your talent!” she said before disappearing. There was a faint breeze, a cool innerness that wedged itself into my very soul and I realized that she was gone.

Walking down the beach, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the view. A glittering sea and two dolphins swam past and I was reminded just how fragile it all can be. How much relationship means and how connected we all really are. I turned around and watched family and friends gathered around the BBQ, all chatting and laughing. There is so much love and it was all because of mum.

Blessed be,

Cynthia xo