As the lift doors opened and they walked into the corridor, they passed a porter pushing a patient on a trolley, and Mark felt his heart rate increase. Was it too late to back out now?
As they entered the ward, that was silent apart from the exchanges of a couple of nurses at a workstation, Mark inhaled the distinctive odour of a ward full of old people, despite the efforts of cleaning staff and their disinfected mops.
They both applied some hand gel from a wall-mounted bottle, and one of the nurses turned and smiled at Lynn, before she approached her and Mark.
‘Your mum has deteriorated very quickly,’ said the nurse with a kindly tone. ‘It’s good that you are both here.’ She patted Lynn’s arm, glancing at Mark. ‘Please let me know if you need anything.’
As they entered the side ward, Mark took an intake of breath when he took in the sight of the old woman sleeping. She seemed shrunken somehow, almost like a child, lying there in a blue cotton gown, her grey hair pulled back in a band. How could this frail old woman have made him feel so bad?
‘Is she conscious?’ he asked a different nurse, who was about to leave the room having checked his mother’s vitals.
‘In and out,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t think she has long left. But talk to her. We believe the hearing is always the last thing to go in a person.’
Mark sat on a blue plastic chair beside his dying mother, his sister on the other side.
An hour or more went past, and Mark sat not really knowing what to do. He watched Lynn grasp his mother’s hand, and talk to her about this and that, but he never felt inclined to do the same. What on earth would he even talk about? Maybe he would tell her what a terrible mother she had been to him, and how she had made him feel, so perhaps he was right to stay silent.
She would utter a few clear words here and there, but she was mainly incoherent.
He felt a stab of regret that he had not had a conversation with his mother whilst she was still able to answer some of his questions. Would she have taken accountability? he wondered. Perhaps even given a reason why she had shut him out so coldly? Maybe it would have at least provided him with some understanding, but now it seemed fate had denied him that opportunity.
Mark decided to head off for coffee for himself and Lynn, and when he returned Lynn was dabbing at her face with a tissue.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked as he handed her a coffee.
‘I am.’ She nodded. ‘Maybe I just didn’t want to cry in front of you,’ she said, gratefully accepting her drink. At least the coffee chain in the entrance hall downstairs sold decent coffee, rather than the unpalatable stuff from the machine.
‘You never did, as I recall.’ He smiled.
Mark remembered a time she had fallen from her bike and later needed stitches in her knee, when she was around nine years old. He had been playing football with his friends nearby in the park, and she held in her tears until she had got home, racing to her bedroom with Mum in hot pursuit brandishing a strip of plaster, before she sobbed loudly.
Mark resumed his seat beside his mother, as her hand slowly slid towards him.
‘Mum?’ he asked, wondering if she could hear him. The nurse did say a person’s hearing was the last sense to go. If she answered him, what would he say next?
‘She was talking a little when you went for the coffee, but I couldn’t quite make out her words. I know she said your name,’ said Lynn, looking at her brother.
Mark slowly curled his hand around his mother’s, when she suddenly gripped it with the strength of someone much youngerand stronger. The action was so unexpected, he had to catch his breath.
No words were exchanged, but in that moment as she continued to grip his hand, he felt something. It was something that he had not felt from his mother for as long as he could remember, although he did recall moments of affection when he was very small, he supposed. He was about six years old when he was hospitalised with whooping cough, his mother torturing herself for missing his vaccination. She had been there every time he opened his eyes after sleeping, and there were hugs. He remembered the hugs.
He was suddenly blindsided by a surge of love. Maybe his mother was merely demonstrating a desperate attempt to cling to life, holding on to his hand like that, but he liked to think there was some remorse there. Or at least regret. Maybe even some love. If he believed that, then he could move forward.
‘You okay?’ asked Lynn softly, and he nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
They sat, hands entwined as her breathing became shallow and Lynn held on to her other hand.
When she finally slipped away, Mark felt something he could not quite explain, but at once he felt a little lighter. Was it forgiveness? Some sort of spiritual awakening maybe? Whatever it was, Mark suddenly felt at peace. He hadn’t even realised he was carrying anything inside of him, until the stress left his body like a river bursting its banks and flooding the nearby streets.
His mother had slipped away quietly on a bright Monday afternoon, whilst the world kept moving around them.
His final goodbye to his mother had not been as traumatic as he had feared. He hoped she would rest in peace.
He thought of a scripture then relating to death. He could not recite it exactly, but it was something about finding peace as we slip away. He was starting to think of Alice as family too,especially after this. He wanted to be there for her, his neighbour – also, his new friends, his sister and nephew.
So, later, when they had dealt with the formalities at the hospital, and Mark felt like losing himself out on the water in his boat, he thought better of it. His sister needed him now.
‘Fancy a drink?’ asked Mark as he gestured to a pub across the road.
