This White Room

I’m sitting at the bedside of a woman whose life has been stolen. The thief has left the debris of a once fiery strong willed person. A mother a grandmother a great grandmother reduced to a small frail thing with skin shrivelled and clinging to bones that no longer move. I watch her face for signs of life. I wait in vain for those eyes to open beneath their sunken sockets. I can hear her breathing it’s irregular and occasionally seems to stop completely. Is this the moment? I ask a hundred times.

This tiny frame with bruises upon bruises resting upon a thin veil of hope. Morphine is a closer friend than me. I hold her hand and close my eyes I want to take us both back to happier times. I relate tales of childhood recalling the smiles she took from my antics. But it’s no use she is unmoved by a sleep so deep I think she’s just left a little oxygen behind to fool us all.

I sit at her bedside throughout the night occasionally joining her in sleep. I hear a slight groan and wake up. She looks in pain like she has done for the last 6 months. I press the bell for help a nurse arrives, she changes the sleeping position increases the dosage of morphine and leaves the room. Five minutes changing an Eighty year old life that won’t reach Eighty One.

I recite several of her favourite jokes the ones I used to repeat every day because her mind had forgotten them the day before. This meant I could hear her laugh and I could pretend she was still with us, but no, not tonight just sleep and breathing. I wonder again if this will be the night of her passing I hope I’m wrong I don’t want to be the one to make the calls.

I stroke her head though it feels like I’m caressing a shadow. She looks like a tiny doll in a large bed left in a cold room to scare herself. I can smell the lavender seeping in from outside of the window I’m told this is meant to create a sense of calming.  I remind her of her favourite songs, films, actors, food, holidays and friends. I tell of her of my joyous surprise when she admitted to liking my reggae collection. I imagine pouring words into her open mouth hoping she’ll spit some back.

I wonder if she has any regrets or any secrets she wants to release before she departs. I once asked her before she became ill about her childhood in Dr Barnardo’s during the War and she became defensive, panicky and quick to change subject.She moves slightly and winces maybe she knows I’m still curious so I change subject and return to tales where I know she was happy.

It’s daylight I’m trying to find a better way to describe how it’s exhausting watching someone sleep through the night. She is still here my shift was a success. My sisters will be arriving to take over. I whisper into deaf ears ‘I love you mum’.

I leave this White Room the one my Mother left four days later.

©JMcN2013