She has a brain tumour, this is where I will begin…. it’s the only way I know how to start.
Staring at this page there are so many things I need to write, and yet my mind is blank. My head is full of pictures, music, moments – all of which I have shared because of her, and yet I still can’t find the words to describe how I feel. She is my beginning – the first page of my book – my guide, my best friend, my inspiration. The most courageous woman I have ever met, the gentlest soul I have ever known …
She is my mother.
I sat on her bed, and we talked for eight hours every day I visited. She looked so small, her skin softened by the hospital lights, her hair loose like a child’s. I couldn’t remember her looking so young. She was beautiful, even now at her most fragile, and it was ripping me apart. They said the cancer came from her breast – a nine-year-long battle she had fought and won. We never expected this; we thought she was clear.
The drugs slow her down, and the tumour affects her sight. We laughed about sharing her pills. I needed something to take the reality away, to make this bad dream blur, and to hold myself together so she wouldn’t see my fear.
I washed her that Wednesday, as gently as I could. The body that bore me.
The hands that held me.
The arms that carried me as a child.
My clothes were soaked, we used six towels … and we laughed again. I dried her hair and put her earrings in, it’s funny – she looked so well. I need to take this from her – I need to make it stop. If I could take the force of this blow I would.
Let me protect her.
Let me hold her hands, and take the pain on.
But I can’t … I can’t. I can only sit, wait, and hope.