Gone... but not Forgotten

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"I think I'm dying..." Her breath was shallow, laboured. "The others all say it's not true. They say I'm better than I was; I'm being negative; must fight... never give up." The effort to gasp out the words was painful even to watch.

I hold her hand firmly, transferring all the love I'm capable of through our skin. And I let her talk. She needs this outpouring of her thoughts and 'knowings'. I feel it in her weakening hand, so small and lined now; and in her eyes I see her agitation and sadness. All must seem out of her control now, as those eyes constantly search the room as if those hospital walls have the answers after all their years of absorbing human pain and angst.

My heart hurts so much I would fear a heart attack... IF I was anywhere else than this place, this moment. My scalp prickles sharply and an alien thrumming fills my ears like I'm listening in to my own racing life-beat.

"Tell me the truth," she begs. Her voice is so much weaker now, the tone piteous, haunting even. "I trust you." I see her phony, drug-induced calm slip aside, and she flinches at my reply.

"Yes Mum. You're the one who's right. You ARE dying." These words are – and yet they're not – the ones she wanted to hear. Understanding fills those dear eyes as I continue, "We ALL are darling." I squeeze her hand – but ever so gently. "Can't remember who said it, but I've never forgotten the words – 'from the moment we're born, we start dying'."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Throughout those endless hours of bedside vigil my thoughts travelled vast distances through the decades we've shared. Often I've struggled to see and feel once again my earliest memory, but it's hazy, cloaked in the mists of too many years; of a full and lengthy living of my own.

My head and heart were filled to overflowing with baby and childhood scenes. But were they revivals from old photos? Snippets of overheard conversations, even oft-repeated family favourite tales? Maybe not a single actual memory amongst them. Maybe...

But no photographic record or supposed words could claim a greater responsibility for our love than having grown directly below her heart, dependent on her life for mine – every moment or every day – even after I bodily left her.

And now she was going to leave me forever. Or was she?

I thought of the great philosophical thoughts we had exchanged so many times, in the late evening hours when our main man - Old McLarsen - was fast asleep, often snoring. No mystical after-death get-togethers through wannabe mediums for us. No great dreams of heavenly clouds and angels and halos and the like, either. She was a bit religious and I was a whole heap spiritual, with feet firmly attached to our land, albeit in rubber boots more often than not.

We knew and accepted this about each other. It mattered little. Our hearts belong. Always have, always will. And we will always be somewhere in each other's lives. I don't believe she ever read these wonderful words by Richard Bach, but I'm sure she would have found them as moving, as true, as I do -

Don't be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.

Friends. My lips have a will of their own as twist in an ironic smile. Friendship is not what either of us would have called our relationship through the years of my 'terrible teens'. And the kind of friendship so many parents and children aim for and claim to share? Well, no. Ours was the kind of friendship that grew with the decades, through countless triumphs and painful downturns of Life. We shared and supported each other through whatever we faced. And even if we didn't always fully understand each other's attitude and responses, we walked alongside and listened. And loved.

Another beloved and much-used thought I've shared with many who have lost a deeply loved one -

To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever...

The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes...

This hole in your heart is the shape of the one you lost - no one else can fit it.

                                                                    - Jeanette Winterson

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The corners of her mouth lift. It's a trembly sort of an affair – but it IS a smile.

"Not you," she says, and her voice is tinily stronger. My imagination maybe? Perhaps one of those 'end of life' surges you hear about?

Bizarrely, the thought was making the subject amusing to her; as if she were actually enjoying her last conversation, no matter how difficult.

"Not you," she repeated, a strange firmness creeping into her tone. "You can't die. I couldn't live without you." Abruptly – shockingly, even – she laughed out loud. Hollow. Haunting. And yet a laugh nonetheless.

A final ragged breath, and her eyes closed for the last time.

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