Death Pending
A finished story!! Pretty lame but you know I had the idea and in my head it was heaps different, but you know the wheel turns and returns and you get stuff like that. Oh well read!! I guess its pointless to say 'leave comments in my guestbook to make me feel special' because no one ever does. (But do anyway pleeeese! :D)
I’m rather uneasy about this whole thing, as I firmly told Grace not two minutes ago. I am not an author; I am not good with words. But my nurse is very insistent. I just asked her how I should start, and she said ‘Start from the beginning.’ Funnily enough, this made perfect sense. I suppose I would thank her one-day, or my children would thank her. Ok here goes…
I was my son Connor’s third birthday party when I first realised something was wrong. I guess I had known before that, but it had been easy to ignore in the first stages. If I had heeded the sings, if I had listened to my sister, maybe the outcome would have been different. But now is not the time to dwell on past mistakes and woes, as I cannot possibly learn from them now. It is far too late for that. Ah, Connor’s party. I wanted to give him something special, seeing as his last birthday wasn’t good, as his father and I were going through a separation at the time. My son was only 2 at the time, although they say children are extremely perceptive. They understand things you would have trouble comprehending, because they see things adults are too preoccupied to see. I feel that my small daughter Jessica who is two years older than my son felt the need to protect him, and I feel sad that I couldn’t have done a better job, that I couldn’t have sheltered them both, and lightened the burden on both their young shoulders.
I pottered around the kitchen as the children slept, preparing fairy bread and chocolate crackles, just your average kiddie party food. My sister Helena was coming over with her children and husband, and a few of Connor’s friends from pre-school were coming. I opened the fridge and surveyed my handiwork in the form of a cake. It was shaped in a number three and had black food colouring for a racing track, and some of Connor’s toy cars sinking into the chocolate icing.
The guests had arrived and I was talking with my sister in the kitchen while I put the party-pies and sausage rolls in the oven. I felt tired and dizzy but I dismissed it as hard work and the voices of the children playing in the backyard.
“They need a father figure in their lives,” my sister was telling me. I sucked in a breath as I burnt my finger on the tray of pies. Irritated, I snapped,
“Well if their father wanted to have anything to do with them, he could. He prefers to…” I stopped myself. I felt a hot prickling behind my eyes and before I knew it I was on the floor sobbing. Alarmed, my sister came and put an arm around me.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“Its not you,” I said between sobs. “I have been really depressed lately, its probably just PMS.” I pulled myself together with difficulty and stood up, wiping my face with my hand. I turned back to the oven.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
I shook my head at her and walked out to the table, putting the plate on the bench. A bunch of three-year-olds came running, yelling and screaming. Connor put his arm around me and I picked him up.
“Having a good birthday sweetie?” I asked. He smiled at me. A wave of dizziness swept over me and I put him down, sinking into a chair. My daughter must have noticed my pale face because she asked me if everything was ok. I remember thinking her perceptive for noticing me among the sugar-filled foods and friends and games. I smiled and assured her that I was ok. My sister walked out and I remember the dizziness before everything went black and I passed out on the concrete.
When I was released from hospital, my sister came to stay with me. I tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn’t hear it. I would rest, and she would look after my children. Not that they were much trouble, for all my faults and the trouble with their father I had raised them well so far. A week passed and I put my foot down and told my sister to go home to her family. She left reluctantly and extracted the promise that I would call her often, and if I felt bad. Life went on, my daughter started school, and I passed the next episode off as stress from worrying about her. I had begun to feel tired again. I rested as much as I could, I kept the house clean and watched TV and waited. I could do nothing with my life as far as a job went until Connor went to school. I did not want to be one of those mothers who fobbed their children off onto people while I pursued a career. Connor went to pre-school in the mornings and came home at 12:30 every day. I felt this was enough to prepare him for school, and enough time at home with me.
I woke with a start one day at the phone ringing. I groggily stood up, marvelling at the fact I had fallen asleep. A wave of panic washed over me as I saw that it was 1:00. I rushed to the phone.
“Mrs. Davey?”
“I am coming,” I said, recognising the preschool teachers voice. “Something came up at Jessie’s school I meant to ring.” I hung up and got in the car, racing to the pre-school. Connor was unperturbed, being unable to tell the time, and greeted me happily. The teacher gave me a disapproving look but I ignored her and took my son to the car. I went home and dosed myself up on painkillers to combat my splitting headache. I threw them back up in the bathroom.
This relieved me. I deduced that I had a virus and rang my sister, asking if she would take the children to stop them from catching the virus from me. She told me they would probably get the bug anyway, but she would take them so I could focus on looking after myself. She was such a dear, bringing me soup and cleaning the room that I stayed in. It was funny, I didn’t feel as sick as you do when you have a stomach virus, it came and went whereas a virus accompanied you everywhere until you had expelled it from your system. The headaches became more frequent but I became accustomed to them. The nausea became easier to cope with as I found methods, such as peppermint oil and nausea bracelets. The kids came back and life went on as normal.
I began to notice problems with my hearing. I suppose at the time I didn’t realise what was happening, and it wasn’t as obvious as I am portraying, but I don’t know how to say it any less blunt than I am. I don’t have long to write this account, but it is something I wish to do, if only for the sake of my children. The hearing problem became apparent as I interacted with people, at the supermarkets and shops in Sydney, walking down the street, talking to my children’s teachers. I watched them grow and became increasingly unhealthy. A year had passed since the first symptom, and my son turned four.
My sisters husband Gregory was in a car accident a few weeks after my son’s birthday. I sat by my sister as she watched him lie helpless in the hospital bed. I took care of their 2 children and supported Helena. I was there when the doctors told her Gregory was brain-dead, and I was there when the life-support was turned off and her husband slipped away into death. I remained there as she grieved, and I helped her with the funeral arrangements. We became closer through her grief, physically as well as emotionally, as she sold her old house and bought the smaller one next to mine, which had been for sale for as long as I had lived there. It was relatively cheap and renovations were not needed. I helped her set up house in there, and I think it distracted her from her grief. We were settled into our new, slightly modified lives.
The year Connor started school was the year it culminated. It was the year I had a seizure, and was admitted into hospital again. Tests were done, scans were completed but no one could tell me what was wrong. Normally a polite and meek person, I was surprised the day I lashed out at my sister, and ripped the drip out of my arm. I strode out of the room, demanding to be discharged. Helena followed me, as I was led back to my room, legs nearly buckling under me. I felt so weak, and my head was splitting again. I watched as my sister talked in a low voice with the doctor, who looked at me again, something dawning in her eyes. She quickly walked away. The next day I was sent into a little room to have a head CT scan. I worried and continually asked my sister what she had discussed with the doctor, but her eyes filled with tears and she looked away. I panicked when I went under the scanner, and started yelling and screaming. I bucked against the restraints and cried and wept. The nurses comforted me, and took me back to my room. I cried myself to sleep, and what makes the memory more painful now, looking back, is that somewhere deep inside me I knew. I knew as soon as they ordered the CT scan. And my suspicions were, in my mind, confirmed one day when my sister walked in, eyes red and bloodshot, and stared at me, with a fierce longing. I was scared, it took a lot to make my sister cry.
“The results?” I whispered. She looked at me, and at that moment I think she knew I knew. The shook her head and ran from the room.
I kept at them. The nurses and the doctors stopped coming after a while, only tending to me when it was absolutely necessary. They skirted past me, evaded my attempts at finding out the results of the test and avoided me altogether. One day I confronted my sister.
“If something is wrong, if there is something really wrong I would like to know. Tell me, Helena,” I pleaded. “For my children’s sake. For my sake. Please.” Tears wound their way down my face as Helena stubbornly turned her head.
“Look at me, curse you!” I shouted, crying.
“Annie, please, don’t make me do this. God I am so sorry. I don’t know how I can…”
She faltered, lip wobbling. “Anne you have a malignant brain tumour. It is inoperable. I am so sorry.”
I felt as though someone had thrown me into a brick wall at 100 km/h. I fell back against the pillow and went dead white. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This couldn’t be happening, not to me, God no, Jessica and Connor, what will they do? What about the cat? Who will look after the cat? It’s a mangy thing, I love him, who will take care of him?
All these thoughts whirled around my head until I could think no more. The thoughts were irrational; at one stage I was asking myself why it couldn’t be my sister. Why couldn’t it be my estranged husband, the good for nothing prick? What about one of those doctors, how about-
No. The thought that had been about to enter my head was so abhorrent I won’t mention it here. It still causes me to bow my head in shame at my selfishness.
And so followed the first stage of death – denial.
An inoperable tumour? That’s impossible. How about Mitch on All Saints huh? They operated on him didn’t they? Sure he died, but that’s only a TV show. I mean, I won’t die. I must have an operation. I refuse to die – I refuse to let this get the better of me.
Oh the time and resources I wasted trying to find a doctor to operate! They all assured me my tumour was completely inoperable, but I refused to believe them. They shook their heads, exchanging grim glances over my head. I rang, wrote letters, pleaded, begged but no one would operate. I would die on the table, one of them said. This shook me enough to quit. I accepted that no one would operate.
My children sensed something was wrong. I was upfront with them.
“Mummy has a disease, darlings. I have something wrong. I will be in hospital for a while, while the doctors make me better.” I smiled, knowing I would not get better. But knowing is not believing. I watched the faces of my children crumple, as they, being extremely perceptive as all children are, saw through my explanation. They knew something was wrong, and my daughter burst into tears and buried her head in the bed. Connor stood, stonily watching his sister’s distress. Nothing showed on his face.
In the weeks following my diagnosis, my denial turned into rage. I swore at the hospital staff, telling them how incompetent they were, for not being able to treat me, I hated my sister for being well, I hated the people I saw come and go through the hospital, because they were sick, yes, but they were well in the end. They had a chance. They had life, while I was sitting here wasting away, dying. I sat in the hospital bed, and I decided to turn on the TV. Maybe I could distract myself. I sound that the TV was one of the most harrowing experiences I had had to date. The children, the families, the women. They were alive; they were well. I stood up and smashed the TV on the floor, sitting in the glass and cutting my hands. I started to laugh. I laughed and laughed until a nurse saw me laughing hysterically, sitting in a pool of blood and glass. She crouched beside me and I stopped laughing abruptly, and stared at her. My hair was a tangled mass and my eyes were red from crying. I stared into her eyes and begged her. Begged her for hope, for compassion, for life itself. Why me? Why not you? Oh God please help me. God I’m going to die. Oh Jesus, I’m going to die! It sank in at that moment and tears came to the nurse’s eyes as she put her arms around me, and sobs wracked my chest. I am going to die.
How does one come to terms with their own death? Could you? Think about it. Imagine a world with no you. Sure, the world wouldn’t change. But of course it would! It is impossible to imagine your own demise, your own end. You simply cease to be. Your mind stops working, and the imagination that makes you a person, that makes you a conscious being aware of everything around you is gone. Your body, the body you hold your children with, the body you make love with, the body you have had all your life, will be eaten up by the worms, or by the flame. How can it be? These thoughts went through my head. I went into a state of numb shock after the television incident, just thinking. I didn’t eat, I didn’t talk, I just thought. It was impossible that my thought process could cease to be, and I finally, after all these years, understood how people could turn to ‘God’, why people were so desperate to believe that they would go on after they died. But that is impossible. Even in this great time of need, I would not turn to a ‘God’, something I had shunned all my life. My pride simply would not allow it. I have never believed in a life after death, and I never will. It is so damn unrealistic! Then I wept again, wept for the comfort I forwent during my lifetime. Imagine waiting for death. Imagine your own demise staring you in the face with the finality of a horse race or a football match. Being told you have mere months to live.
I thought back to the early days. I was born in 1960, younger sister to 5-year-old Helena. My mother was a simple country girl who married well and moved to the city. My father had been affected by the war, which in turn affected us. He died in 1967, of a drug overdose. His psychiatric problems weren’t recognised. We managed, our mother and us, and we muddled through life as simply as we could. Mother struggled to get a job and my sister and I made sure we payed attention in school so we could go on to get a job to help Mother. Helena went up to 4th form and then left school, seeking her fortune in the wide world. I went on to 6th form, as I was always bright, but we could not afford to send me to university. It was rare in those days for people to see school through so that got me an edge over other applicants for jobs and I soon found myself one. I lived with Mother and we both contributed to costs. I moved out of home when I was 25, oh I think that was about 1985 Life was simple, drab, until I met Harold Davey 4 years later. We married, and lived a blissful life, happily married. We didn’t have children until 5 years into our marriage, when I was 34. Jessica and Connor turned out to be beacons of light in a grey world and I gave up my job to be with them. Harold didn’t like this, no sir. My mother died of a stroke somewhere in between here, about 1996 we think. When Connor was two years old I found out off a mate of my husbands that he was having an affair with a younger woman. Despite his pleading and apologising I kicked him out, and I haven’t heard a hide nor a hair of him since, except for child support payments made out to me every week.
And that is my life up until the illness. Its quite depressing to see your whole life written out in a small paragraph, and realise how little you have done. Until you remember the little things you do. Holding a child you have brought into the world. Being in love. Watching first one baby and another grow up and go into school. It’s the little things that really matter. In hospital I have had ample time to think and reflect upon life. What is life’s point? When death is pending, you must think of these things. Is it merely to accumulate memories? If so, I have a big tub of them in my head. Perhaps we are a freak of nature, and got a little to smart for our own good, and are so jumped up we think we are so above everything else. All the complex organisms in the universe. Why do we believe that our ‘purpose’ is any more than a fox’s? A dog’s? A kangaroo’s? To procreate, and to die. Well I have contributed, so have I fulfilled my purpose? Or is there some higher reason for being, a plan hatched out by the powers-that-be? In which we are all mere pawns, at their mercy, to be eliminated at any time? Or, and this is the ‘or’ that gave me purpose again, maybe my task hasn’t been completed yet. Maybe I am to set an example for my children, for the people around me. Maybe I am to make them unafraid of death. A daunting task, when I myself have not come to terms with it.
I will die, I told myself. I will die, and there is nothing I can do about it, so I must make the best of the time I have left. Every second is precious now. Feeble as though it may sound to your ears, this statement became like my bible. I said it to myself over and over until I began to believe it. Until I began to come to terms with it, to accept. I began to build my metaphoric brick wall. One brick at a time, I built this wall around myself, and inside myself. I attempted to protect myself from my unguarded mind, sending out painful thoughts that would shatter the wall and bring it crashing down. Now, I was well guarded against conscious attacks from myself. I forgot entirely about the subconscious, and its cunning, a cunning I would become well acquainted with before the end .
As the weeks progressed I felt the need to detach myself from first my sister, then my children, to a certain extent. I made arrangements for them, my death would place them in the care of Helena, and the government would give her a substantial amount of money for taking care of them, as well as the child support payments my husband was paying. I urged Helena to sell my house and buy a larger one for her and the four kids. She did so and I heard accounts of it from Jessica, while Connor stood stonily silent by the bed, as he always did. I asked Connor to stay behind for a bit after visiting hours were over.
“Why do you have to go away?” he asked.
“Who told you I was going away, Connor?”
“Aunty Helena said you were going to a better place. Why can’t I come with you mummy?”
This was too much. I am afraid that at this point I covered my face with my hands and wept.
“Honey,” I said when I had composed myself. “I have a bad disease and the doctors can’t help me. I’m going to die, Connor. Do you know what that means?”
He shook his head, pale.
“Well sweetie, mummy’s spirit goes up into the heavens because my body can’t live anymore.” I thought this approach would be best for a young child, but who knows? Who ever knew?
“So you are going somewhere?”
“Only my spirit, my mind. You can’t come with me until you die yourself one day when you are a very old man. I want you to remember me, Connor. My body will look as though its sleeping and they will put me in a big box and let my poor body go underground so it can rest forever.”
“Won’t you be lonely?”
“No, Connor, because I won’t know I’m there. My mind is going to fly upwards remember? It will only be my body that goes underground. I know this is hard for you to understand, but remember this and you will understand some day.” I looked up and saw the nurse that had comforted me when I smashed the TV, and Helena. Connor went with my sister and the nurse came in.
“I thought you weren’t religious?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Most terminally ill people call for the chaplain, or read a bible, or something. You have done none of this yet I hear you tell your son you’re going to the heavens.”
“I am not religious. Bur how else to explain to a four year old that his mother’s not going to be there anymore?”
“I think you did a superb job,” she said, smiling. “Did it help you in any way?”
“Explaining it to Connor did kind of help me, it was like I was explaining it to myself as well. I think I have finally accepted it.”
She nodded and there was a silence.
“Have you been taking notice of the date? Do you know how long you’ve been in here?”
My face closed up. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve been in here for four months.”
Four months? How long did the doctor say I would live? A few months? I was truly living on borrowed time.
“Oh God,” I uttered. “I am going to die soon.”
“Prognosis’ aren’t always correct. You may live for years you know. But I don’t think you should go home.”
“I don’t have a home to go to. My children live with my sister now, there is no place for me there.”
She nodded. “You want to die in a hospital?”
“I’ve always liked them,” I joked. She shared the grin.
“I have to go now, Annie, I will come back and chat some other time ok?”
I smiled to myself as she left the room. I felt empowered, and almost happy for the first time in four months. As uplifted as one who was living on borrowed time could be. My time had nearly come, I felt. I was getting weaker and weaker by the day, the day before I had almost collapsed coming back from the toilet. This terrified me. I had always been able to function and to not do so now is like I am placing the second foot firmly down along the path of death, and there was no turning back. I realised I had not yet come to terms with death, and went about trying to do so. I talked to a psychiatrist and told her my story. She told me I should try to contact my ex-husband. I felt dubious towards this idea, but she insisted that it was what was called ‘unfinished business’, and would make me feel better. I shrugged and reluctantly agreed.
It proved to be harder than I thought. I rang his parents, only to be received with hostility. Apparently he had told them I said they could not see the children. I was outraged.
“Mrs Davey, I have never tried to prevent you from seeing the children! I would encourage this. I think it would be welcome, to have some influence from their fathers’ side, especially now.”
“Why now? What do you mean?”
“I am dying,” I said bluntly. “The children are living with my sister. I’m trying to find their father. I thought he may like to know the changed living arrangements of the children” My voice was hard. “Not that he has shown the slightest bit of interest in them before. I thought it was the right thing to do.”
“Oh, love I’m sorry, I had no idea. Where are the children living? They’ll need as many people as they can at this time.”
“Including their father.”
There was a pause. “Alright,” she said. She proceeded to tell me the address and phone number of Harold. I hung up, feeling more reluctant and dubious than before. If he had told his parents that I was preventing them from seeing the children, how hostile would he be? I dialled the number. A woman answered and I felt a pang. Obviously I hadn’t gotten over his desertion.
“Is Harold Davey around?”
“May I ask who is speaking?” the woman’s voice asked politely.
“Annie, his ex-wife.”
“Ah. I will get him for you.”
“Thankyou,” I said.
“Hello?” Harold’s voice said.
“Its Annie.”
There was silence. I sensed that he had his hand over the earpiece and was speaking to the woman because I could hear muffled voices.
“What do you want? I’m really rather pressed for time.”
“You told your parents I was preventing them from seeing the children.”
“The children?”
I was angry. “Yes, Harold, the children YOU sired? The ones you gave me then left after 2 years of your son’s life? Remember those ones?”
He sighed. “Why did you call?”
“I thought I should tell you that the children’s living arrangements have changed. Who you will be paying child support to.”
I smiled as I imagined I could see him flinch. He is the sort of man who would still have the first dollar he earned. Every cent he spent on the children was pushing the stake further into his heart. I grinned.
“What are you talking about, woman? You’re speaking in riddles.”
“I beg to differ. I told you quite plainly what I rang for. The children are living with my sister now.”
“Had enough of them, hey?”
My blood boiled. After all this time he could still get to me. “You bastard, how dare you say that, after what you did? I am dying. I have a brain tumour.”
Of all the reactions he could have shown, he chose the one that hurt me more than any other could. His laughter cut deep.
“You’re kidding, right?” he said.
I hung up.
The pain came soon after that. I started having splitting headaches that would leave me in tears. That, I could cope with, with the help of the painkillers, but the worst part was my change in personality. I started snapping at the nurses and doctors, who were all there just doing their job. It was peculiar, because I could step outside my body and see what I was saying and doing, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Another thing was, I found myself to be moody. For example, I read about a TV program in the TV week I wanted to watch and I had been looking forward to it all week, but the night came and it didn’t come. I looked at the guide again and found it to be last weeks. I had missed the program. The disappointment I felt was immense. A half of myself couldn’t believe I was acting so over a TV show, but the other half was uncontrollable. I threw a glass at the TV, and it missed, shattering on the floor. I started to cry, for the TV show, for the loss of control, and for my pending death. A kindly doctor came in and comforted me, and when I asked about it he told me that these were some symptoms of the brain tumour. I nodded glumly, he had confirmed by suspicion. My condition was worsening.
The greatest shock came last month when my ex-husband showed up at the hospital, with his new wife in tow. I sat up, and stared. Trying to compose myself, I sat up.
“Harold,” I greeted him. “How are you?” My words weren’t intended as sarcasm but that is the way it turned out. He narrowed his eyes, and returned the pleasantries.
“I am well, how are you?”
I smiled sweetly. “Just as bright and cheery as ever.” His face brought back so many memories, mostly good. The woman hovering behind me was blonde, and slender. She had a rather plain face but her body made up for it. I supposed Harold had preferred her because she was stupid. I’m still not quite sure how I made that judgement, I guess it’s just something you know. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes but I refused to let them out onto my face, for all to see. I would be strong through this. I would show Harold what a mistake he made. I stood up, and put a robe on. Grabbing hold of my drip I walked, with what I thought was dignity, over to Harold. I shook his hand and motioned to the chairs.
“Please, sit down.”
They sat, somewhat awkwardly, and I sat at the end of my bed, looking at them, keeping a deadpan face.
“What can I do for you?” I said, cheerily.
“I…” He glanced at the other woman. “I just came by to…to apologise for laughing the other day, I thought you were having a go at you.”
“Of course you did,” I said, struggling to keep myself in check. The nurse who talked to me sometimes came in and bustled about. She straightened the bed and I caught her eye. She winked, so slightly that if you blinked you would have missed it. As it was, my esteemed guests were feeling too awkward to notice.
“Well, you apology is accepted,” I said, feeling better now the nurse was in here. Harold eyed her, suspecting something. I drew his attention back to me.
“Anything else?”
Whatever his wife was expecting it certainly wasn’t this. I could tell by the way she shifted in her seat, as if wishing to jump up and run as fast as she could. I had read about how some people were uncomfortable with dying people, but imagine your husband’s ex-wife who was dying? I stifled a chuckle. I thought to myself that I would treat the entire visit as a joke.
“Well, I thought now that…well…I thought I’d like to see the children again.”
“Oh?” I queried. He hadn’t even kept in contact with them over the past 2 years. Why suddenly now? I shivered involuntarily, afraid of what this might be leading to.
“Could you tell me their address?”
“Well you’ll have to show me some ID, sir, because you could be anyone.”
His puzzled expression was priceless.
“Annie?” I turned and caught the nurse’s eye, pleading. She gave a small smile and put an arm around me. Looking Harold in the eye with a straight face, she said.
“You’ll have to excuse Annie, the tumour causes her to lose her memory momentarily. Lets see what I can do.”
I had never found it so hard to keep a straight face before. Harold’s horrified expression matched his wife’s perfectly and they glanced at each other.
“I’ll leave you to it then,” she said. “Coffee Harold?”
He nodded dumbly and she all but ran out of the door, Harold looking longingly after her as if he, too, wanted to run.
“Apparently dying people can’t have coffee,” I stated gravely to Harold. He didn’t know what to do.
“Its alright, honey,” the nurse said. “Lie back down.”
“But I want to tell this nice man something.”
She nodded. I stood up and sat in the chair that Harold’s wife had vacated, and took his hand in mine.
“One day, you will meet a lovely girl and live in a great big house and have lots of children to love and take care of.”
I said this totally neutrally, but accentuated slightly on the part about loving the children.
“Uh, yes, I…”
“Its ok, young man, you wont have to worry much longer. I see something.” I closed my eyes and convulsed, as if receiving a ‘vision’. My eyes opened wide suddenly. “Oh dear,” I said quietly. “Oh dear, oh dear!”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I see…oh dear, I see your passing! I see your doom! There is a lovely young woman…blonde…oh no!” I placed a hand over my mouth and stared at him in horror.
“She plunged a knife right through your heart!”
Harold jerked his hand out of mine, and stood up. “I better go check on Sal,” he mumbled before stumbling out of the room, shooting me a horrified look on his way out. Grace, the nurse, looked at me and we both fell about in peals of laughter. My sides were aching by the time we had finished.
“Did you see the look on his face?” Grace said through bursts of laughter, eyes alight with merriment.
“Priceless,” I agreed. “But wait! Grace, I see your doom!”
That set us off again and we both sat on the bed, hanging onto each other for support. Eventually she helped me back into bed and I sobered up as I remembered the cause of the entire performance.
“I don’t know what to do about the children. We’ve been separated for nigh on 3 years now, and he hasn’t even sent a birthday card to the children, now suddenly he wants to see them.”
She nodded. “He might be genuinely concerned, now that you wont be around he might be worried about our sister bringing them up.”
“Or he can see a way out of paying child support. I don’t want him to have custody of them, yet I don’t want to waste precious time and resources on a big court battle.”
She shrugged. “I really have no idea what you can do. You mentioned he was stingy?”
“Hell yes.” I paused. ‘Sal’ must have a job of her own.” I grinned to myself; I had my own suspicions about her. “Although I doubt it.”
“Well, just outline to him all the costs of rasing children and he may give up before the idea is even firmly lodged in his head.”
I nodded, deeming the advice valuable. They came back in, coffee in hand.
“Is she alright?” Harold said. I looked at Grace.
“Well, her face looks a bit green, but you can never be sure with these nurse types,” I said.
Harold stared and Grace could not suppress a giggle. Soon we were both laughing again, long enough for Harold to realise I was perfectly sane, and that he had been duped His eyes narrowed.
“I want to see the children.”
I sighed. “Harold, you have no showed the slightest interest in the children the entire time we’ve been separated. You couldn’t even be bothered to send them a birthday card or ring for their birthdays! All that time, through the buying expensive clothes…ah don’t even get me started on the clothes! Do you know how much it is to buy a child a decent outfit these days? Not including the shoes! And the school uniform, I swear, they must be trying to financially cripple us.”
“I don’t see how…”
“That’s just the basic things! What about Christmas presents? Do you know what its life to have to be Santa Claus as well as give them big things? Videos? Computer games? Sports equipment?”
“What are you on about, woman?” He had risen to his feet and was shouting.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, if you keep that up,” Grace told him. He sat down. Sal put a hand on his arm.
“Why do you want to see them?”
“I thought I might be able to help their Aunt out a bit. You know…”
“No, I don’t know. Your child support payments will be quite sufficient. They don’t know you, Harold. Their mother is dying, and they don’t need any more upheavals. Wait until quite a while after…” My voice trembled slightly. “After I’m gone.”
“There isn’t any malicious intent here Annie. I just want to see my children. Is that a crime?”
“You can understand where I’m coming from, though, can’t you? Connor is already badly affected by this whole mess.” I brushed off my impending death lightly, which contrasted with what I had implied earlier.
“Connor,” he said. “He was always the weak one.”
“How dare you?” I whispered hoarsely. “How dare you comment on my children? The children you abandoned to be with this hussy…”
“Excuse me…” Sal said.
“Shut up!” I shot at her. Turning back to Harold, I said, “How dare you say that? You left us, you left your son. He was 2 years old, and you dare to call him weak? You call him weak?” I was shouting. I cared not that the tears I had been suppressing fell, I just wanted him to know what I felt. Grace told me later that although I could have been calmer, I certainly got the message through.
“You are the weak one. You are the one who abandoned your children. Weak as piss,” I whispered weakly, falling back onto the pillow. Grace ushered them out and I wept into my hands. What would happen to my children once I was gone?
My condition worsened. Sometimes I really did momentarily lose my memory, mainly when I woke up in the morning. One afternoon a headache was so bad that I passed out. Grace was priceless. She would sit with me while I worried, hold my hand while I gritted my teeth with pain, and clean me up when I had an accident. These accidents were increasing and I was told that this was going to happen as I gradually lost more and more control of my body. I shuddered when he mentioned something about me being more likely to soil myself. I hated to be dirty, and I hated to be unable to function, and this is what the disease was doing to me.
I often wonder about this. I guess when you’re in a situation like I am, you turn to spiritual things. For some, it is religion, for others, like me, it is just harmless musing. I had a theory, which involved re-incarnation. I thought that perhaps in every life we were to learn a lesson. We would progress through each life from birth till death and learn 1 lesson per life, and this is your purpose. Then, at the end, you would be a totally enlightened being and would be able to help others. I pondered this, and I wondered what lesson I was to learn. I have a pathological fear of pain. It’s weird, because when I already have a pain, like these headaches, I can bear it, but I can’t bear the thought of inflicting pain. It’s hard to explain. I think it is the actual anticipation of the pain that is the worst for me. I always hated needles and did everything I could to avoid them as a child and an adult. I think this was one of the reasons I didn’t seek medical advice when the early symptoms set in. I had always associated the doctor with needles. I think this is because when I was a child I was a bit of a hypochondriac. I laugh wryly at this now, because I will die of a terminal illness. Anyway, I would always be complaining of one thing or another to my parents who would offer to take me to the doctor’s office. Of course, they knew I was over-exaggerating, and would tell me about the blood tests I would need to have, and miraculously, I was better by the next day. So I am thinking that this life I must learn to deal with pain. I shudder, and hope I am wrong. It would be strange to think of someone with a fear of heights falling to their death from a cliff, or someone with a fear of fire dying in a fire. It’s unjust. But I then had myself convinced that I was going to die a very painful death, and some of those seeds still remain, even after Grace talked me out of it. We had a long theological debate; with her telling me my theory was quite impossible, if romantic in the goriest sense of the word. I rebutted by saying that if my reincarnation theory was wrong, how could she justify God? She muttered that it was an entirely different matter and I was left wondering just how the church managed to brainwash so many people to the extent that they can’t see the flaws in their own argument. How can reincarnation be any more impossible than the existence of the Christian God? Ah well, these thoughts can’t exactly be good for me, so I will try and find my way back to the track and tell you the rest of the story.
After the visit from Harold and ‘Sal’, I saw my children and asked them directly if they would like to see their father. Jessica smiled at me and said if it would please you, mother, I will. Connor stood and said nothing.
“Connor dear?” His eyes came up slowly to meet mine. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “What do you think?”
I told them I would think about it and get back to them. We spent the rest of the visit talking about school and Jessica’s new teacher. When Helena came to pick them up, I asked her. She shrugged indifferently.
“Whatever you want, dear. Its your decision.”
I know, I thought.
After much consideration I decided to allow Harold visitation rights. I laugh now when I think that he could have had malicious intention, because once he got what he wanted, he stopped pestering us. I’m still not sure exactly what his motive was, for he didn’t visit the children again after the first time. Maybe he would move in once I am gone. I didn’t dwell on it.
Life can be cruel, and life can be kind. It is rare to find a balance of both, as far as the whole world went. Someone tried to tell me once that God created the balance in the world, for every person living it up, there was someone suffering for it. She told me that nothing comes without a price. For every happy child, there was another child somewhere being abused. She was trying to get me to see her opinion, see her view. I remember being outraged at the time, asking how, how could she possibly accept this? How could she just sit back and say ‘That’s the way it is?’ I agreed that there must be balance, but the balance should be within oneself. You had to be balanced, just as you must have a ‘balanced diet’. Some days you are happy, other days you are depressed. She didn’t see where I was coming from. I suppose this just strengthened my atheism, which was ironic because I think she was supposed to be converting me. The reason I am telling you this is because I want to stress that I have been thinking a lot. Perhaps, with this theory, I could be helping someone have a better life. For every dying person, perhaps there is a healthy, happy person. As much as I would like to believe it, it went against every grain of my being. It just can’t be. I spoke with Grace about it, and she told me she understood where my friend had been coming from, and also understood my refusal to accept the theory.
That afternoon it hit me that I had finally accepted my death. I had been referring to it quite easily and I was beginning to imagine the world without me in it. My children would grieve, but they would clamber over it. I would sink into the ground, in my little satin-covered box, as many, many people before me. This was nothing new, and nothing, absolutely nothing in the overall scheme of things. If I held on to that, maybe, just maybe, I could ease my passing for all involved.
I mentioned before that the subconscious was capable of terrible and cruel things, and my proof of this happened at the start of this month. One night, I dreamed. I was lying in the hospital bed watching TV when my doctor came in. She sat on my bed and took my hand.
“I have good news for you, Annie,” she said. “There is a cure. You don’t have to die!”
I felt absolutely crushed at first, and then the anger set in.
“No! It can’t be true! You’re lying!”
“No, Annie, I’m serious.”
“I have accepted that I am going to die! I have spent months in this hospital, waiting to die! You can’t turn around and do this too me!”
I remember the anger totally consuming me, and I plunged the knife that had appeared in my hand into the neck of the doctor. The blood spurted everywhere, and I was drenched in it. It kept coming and I screamed as the corpse stood up and walked out of the room, muttering about moody patients. Grace came in and I screamed as she started to pull tufts of her hair out. “Tsk tsk Annie,” she said. “Are you alright? You seem a bit agro.”
My eyes widened as she started to wipe the blood off me and draw a picture on her apron. The picture was a sun and a tree. She walked towards me, concerned.
“Annie?” she asked, and I screamed.
I woke up, to find that I had smashed a glass in my hand and there was blood everywhere. There was a doctor outside rubbing her neck, and looking at me. Grace was wiping my hands. I realised what had happened and I wept.
“Please,” I called out to the doctor. “What did you say?”
The doctor looked at me and came in. “What do you mean? I just asked you how you had been and you punched me in the neck!”
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, . “I thought it was a knife.”
“Well that makes it better,” she said dryly, and walked out.
Grace looked at me. “What did you hear her say?”
I looked at her and my eyes filled with tears. “She said she had a cure,” I whispered, barely audible.
That incident stuck with me. I don’t know why I didn’t accept the cure in the dream, for surely, had I truly been offered life I would have jumped at the chance. Wouldn’t I? I am no longer sure. I don’t know my mind anymore. The hallucinations have been coming back more forcefully and it was ironic that it followed the same pattern as when Grace and I fooled Harold. Ah, but it was worth it. A smile comes to my face when I think of it.
“Finished?” Grace’s voice cuts into my thoughts. I look at her.
“I guess,” I glance back down at my work. “I can’t really think of anything else to put, it’s pretty much up to date.”
It had taken me two weeks but I had indeed got this account up to date. I had been writing less and less every day, due to my worsening condition. I guessed my time was nearly up.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asks.
“You’re the one who told me to write this,” I say, incredulously. She nodded.
“But it was for you to decide what you should do with it. Has it made you feel any better?”
I thought about that. “I think it has. It has allowed me to accept, and it’s good to know that there will be something of me left.”
She nodded. I don’t really know what I will do with this, and how I will end it. For how can one write about the moment of their passing? Maybe Grace could finish it for me. Perhaps I should end it here, as I really do think that my time is coming to a close, and I need to take care of some things other than this damned account, which has had me both laughing and crying. My tears are imbedded into this paper now, my sorrow, my happiness, and my acceptance. I hope this can help another terminally ill patient. Oh dear, Grace has suggested that I end this with a piece of advice for another patient, but I am very fare from philosophical, or so I tell myself. I really don’t know what I could tell someone. Just go with the flow, I guess, and don’t make the mistake of pushing everyone too far away. Well I guess I will officially sign out, and I wish you all a long and fulfilling life.
But she did push everyone away, including Jess and I, at the end. We were there by her bedside that last night, and she asked us to go, probably not wanting us to be there when she died. But I held my ground, and would not budge. She pulled me close and planted a kiss on my brow, smiling at me and asking me to be strong.
“My little Connor. You are so steady, so sure, for one so young. Be stronger still for your sister.”
I nodded silently and put my arms around her frail body gently. She hadn’t been eating in the weeks preceding, and although I was very young, but 5 years old, I really did understand what was happening, especially after Mother had explained it to me.
Grace helped that night by telling my sister and I that it was just the way of dying patients that they must detach themselves from those they love best. She hadn’t seen my father since the day he and Sal came in, and I supposed she would never see him again. Which is pretty much what I can say for my father myself. We saw him once or twice after my mother died, and then he just gave up. He and Sal moved away to Queensland and I think they had a child. One day I suppose I might want to find him, but I can’t forgive him for what he did, both to my mother and to us. My mother has been dead for 17 years now, but her passing still cuts me deep. I do remember her, even though Aunt Helena tried to make me forget, probably for my own good. We grew up in her home with her children and I think she did a fine job of raising all four children without a husband. Eventually she did meet someone else, but I had moved out by then. I am at university now, studying medicine. I suppose my mother’s death has affected this choice, but I had always been good at maths and science, and I heard from my Aunt that my mother had wanted to do something along those lines but never did, because she wasn’t so good at the subjects needed. Jessica is an attorney, and I think we have both done pretty well for each other.
I don’t know why I decided to pick up this pen and finish this story. I was aware at the time of my mother writing something along these lines but it didn’t register until today when I was going through my mother’s belongings, just as a purpose of remembrance. Maybe Jessica will want to write something as well, but I doubt it. She has so little time these days. My mother had hinted that she may want someone to finish it for her, and I think she meant for one of us to recount the moment of her death.
“I don’t really know what I will do with this, and how I will end it. For how can one write about the moment of their passing? Maybe Grace could finish it for me.”
Well I shall abide by her wishes.
The night my mother died, it was rainy, and she told Grace that she figured it was proper so. She knew that she was to die that night, and made her farewells to each of us in turn. I have told you above what her words to me were. She fell in and out of conciousness and Jess and I slept a little. Grace shook us awake.
“I think you should wake up now. Your mother is about to leave.”
She had tears in her eyes and I wonder now how they got so close. You’d think Grace would have wanted to detach herself as much as possible from a dying woman.
We stood up groggily and went to our mother’s bedside. She smiled weakly and told Grace hoarsely that she wanted to be conscious for her passing. I held her hand and we waited. Grace placed her hand on my shoulders and I turned into her as our mother gave one last breath and fell back into the pillow. She was gone.
The funeral was held the following week. I stared into the coffin and remarked to myself that she looked far from asleep, like they say in the books. Her face was a mask of pain and her frail body belied the full life she had led. She was cut down most cruelly in her prime. Aunt Helena, who was religious unlike our atheist mother, told me that God had taken her to heaven, to serve him there. I frowned but said nothing. I guess that is what turned me away from religion myself, and I remember thinking Jessica weak because she turned to God for comfort. I turned my back on him, at the tender age of 5, and resented him. Funny, because my Aunt was trying to give me some comfort when really it caused more angst. The eulogy was read but I do not recall both who read it or what it contained, and the coffin was lowered into the ground. We threw flowers and handfuls of dirt into the hole and walked away. I did not attend the wake, instead requesting to return straight home. I could not understand how my mothers life could be celebrated with people drinking to excess and playing loud music. My mother would not have appreciated either. But I suppose I should put that behind me. I smile as I recall my 5 year old self and his moral ideals. Much has changed, but I don’t drink and I wonder if this could be the reason. I see no need for the stuff.
I suppose I should finish up. But how do I end the story of my mother’s death? I suddenly feel unworthy and wonder if I should rip the pages that I wrote out. And what do I do with this? Put it back into my box and leave it there to get it out as an old man and reflect upon my mother? Perhaps I should get it published. In any case, I will always remember my mother and love her, and I hope that when my own time comes, I can be as brave and steady as she was.
