Mum

In the afternoon of 16 August, I was seized by a bizarre sensation that Mum was going to die.  I tried to ignore the suffocating grip, like a coat of armour, of feeling, knowing, understanding Mum was going to die.

     I panicked.  I love my Mum.  She can’t die. What would I do without her?

     Over the next couple of hours I came to accept that, at almost 73, having had a major stroke and four mini-strokes, Mum, at some point, will die.  Whether it’s sooner or later, the natural order is she goes before me.  I told myself to get a grip and make the most of the remaining time I have with her.

     The following morning, I left Tony and the kids and slipped out to have breakfast with Mum.  The next day after school, the kids and I went round for a cup of tea.  Seffy and Kibby took the opportunity to watch TV.  We called in the next day and the next.  The knowledge that Mum was going to die hung over me like a monsoonal sky.

     After school on Thursday afternoon I was writing my report to the classroom teacher and Tony rang with the strangest of news.  Mum had had some shoulder pain and went for an ECG which had come back clear yesterday.  She then had a CT scan and Ann-Maree had just called Tony with the results.

     “Mum’s lungs are full of shadows,” he said.  “It’s cancer.  She’s full of it.”

     “What?”  I wasn’t following his words.  Mum was at home and we were about to visit her.

     “The pain she’s had in her shoulder for months isn’t her heart.  Her heart’s fine.  It’s cancer.  It’s in her lungs.”

     “Are we talking about your Mum?”

     Mum, Ina had cancer.  From Tony’s tone, it wasn’t good.  Obviously I have a limited understanding of cancer, but shadows in the lungs suggest secondaries.  That’s not good.  

     It had never occurred to me Ina would die.  She might be close to 87, but she has always been there for us. We lived with her for 20 years. She survived a triple bypass so she'd keep on living.  She is in Cairns.  We are close to Cairns.  She can't die.  She is the backbone of the Titasey family.  We are the ribs that only exist because of her.  These thoughts gusted through my mind.

     It wasn’t my mum I needed to worry about. I went straight home, my gut full of cold, wet rain, and told Tony my feeling about Mum.

    “It’s my mum you were thinking about," he said.

Grandmother and grandaughter