I’ve pondered how to write this for weeks now, wondering if I should or even could. Funny isn’t it, that I can sit and write thousands of words to tell a love story, but struggle to tie together the right words to explain the heartbreaking events of the last couple of years that tragically came to an end in November last year with the death of my Mum Lillian May O’Loan.
Mum had a couple of falls in 2023. What followed was the discovery of an infected hole in her heel, operations to remove skin and some bone, and treatment of a skin infection in her legs. It was painful but she pulled through, even after catching pneumonia in hospital. What also followed was her revealing some home truths of her life with my Dad and the admission that she would never go back living with him.
September 2023, Mum moved in with me, hubby and the 5 kids. It took some juggling and swift thinking but we made it work…and I made some lovely memories with my mum.
April 2024 came the phone call that after many doctor appointments I was dreading but expecting – Mum’s kidneys were failing rapidly. There were suggestions of perhaps dialysis but she would have to move over an hour away permanently, that’s if they decided she was an acceptable candidate. She was so scared to leave the little town that had been her home. I was so scared that I was going to have to watch my mum die. I still remember her decision so clearly though – she held my hand so hard it hurt and she looked at me with teary eyes and said “Now you listen to me, baby girl. I’m not going to leave the town that has been my home my whole life. If this is how I’m meant to go out of this world then so be it, but I’m going to fight it with everything I’ve got until God decides to call me home.”
And fight she did for seven and a half months.
I sat beside her hospital bed every day. We laughed, we cried, we disagreed, but always there was endless hugs and love and kisses. I helped her prep her funeral and made sure everything was exactly how she wanted it despite the amount she was certain it was going to upset my father and siblings. She told me she was scared to die alone and of what was waiting for her in death. Then she asked “Honey I need you to try and do something for me. I’ve come to terms with dying, I don’t like it, but I’ve come to terms with it. So when it is my time to go, I’d like you to hold me in your arms as I take my final breath. I’m sorry if that’s unfair to you, baby girl, and I understand if you can’t, but please promise me you’ll try.” I promised her I would – the woman who’d held me so many times as a child, assuring me I wasn’t a mistake; the woman who laughed with me so many times over the silliest of things; the woman who encouraged my dream of writing; the woman who rescued me and my older kids from a violent marriage; the woman who was my best friend and my everything. And then we waited for the inevitable to come.
As the months passed, my husband did everything to hold the family together and keep us all going. My eldest son was doing university and working, my eldest daughter was in her final year of school and trying to find her independence, my second daughter had started her first job while still at school, my youngest daughter was working towards school leadership rolls, and my youngest son was in his last year of primary school. I was still at every school event, but I wasn’t always home for dinner, and as the months continued, I couldn’t always do the school runs. Hubby kept working, kids helped out with house chores where they could.
November 2024 was when Mum started drastically declining. I was being called to her bedside at all hours, sleeping in hospital chairs and holding Mum as she trembled in fear and waited for the pain relief drugs to work. By this time, I knew every nurse by name, and most of the kitchen staff too. All of them held me while I cried, and some even cried with me. In a matter of days, she stopped waking up and her breathing became heavy and the worst sound I ever heard.
On the night of November 11, Remembrance Day here in Australia, I was called to the hospital after 10pm…and I kept the promise I made to her, holding her in my arms while she took her final breath.
Mum’s funeral was very small just as she’d requested, and my extended family reacted just as Mum had predicted too. Also by Mum’s request I wrote her a poem to be read at the service:
May flowers line the road you will now travel,
and let there always be light to show you the way.
A piece of our hearts will go with you today.
Your smile, your laughter, but above all else, the warmth of your hugs
will guide us through a life without you.
You held our hands through life
and we were there to hold yours through death.
Always we will love you more.
Watching Mum die was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but it also allowed me to share moments with her that I will never forget. One of the things we spoke about the most whilst she was in hospital was stories from her life she thought I could use in my books. She loved stories, and she always hoped someone would write hers but with a happy ending.
I’m not sure I’m the right person to do that, but I’d like to think Mum would see a bit of herself in the heroine of my book coming out soon (It was written back in 2023 and has just been sitting on the computer gathering mothballs). Either way, it is dedicated to her because I know she’d have loved it:
To my Mama (09/05/44 – 11/11/2024)
We kept our promise to each other and we never gave up.
So that’s been my year, or two. I haven’t written anything in so long, and I’m scared I won’t be able to again, but Mum told me never to give up or she’d come back and rouse on me…so here goes…
