Game Over

It's not as if I didn't know this day was comming. You accept it to
some degree I guess right from the start. But however prepared I
believed my self to be. I wasn't. I really wasn't.

We got to the hospital about lunchtime. It's getting harder and harder
to sit with her. She sleeps pretty much all the time now, dozing in and
out, doped on drugs and the effort of trying to breathe.

Watching that is harder than I ever imagined it would be. Hours spent
waiting for that little bit of recognition, or a few words. Sometimes
she has very lucid moments , but they're getting shorter now...and
fewer.

Today is her sixtieth birthday. The hospital was very good really. We
brought in her presents and put a bright banner on the wall by her bed.
She had a floating balloon that I tied to the bottom of her bed where
she could see it.

My sister and I read her cards to her. I'm not sure how much she took
in. We pinned them up on the wall with the banner. It looked quite
cheerful in there.

As always I asked to speak to Staff Nurse. That's when I was told that
the Doctor would like to speak to me. My heart began to thump... this
was new. Usually I ask to speak to him. The tears I'd been holding back
all day threated to drown me, but I nodded and waited for the
meeting.

That's the worst part you know. The waiting. Waiting for results,
waiting for treatment, waiting for life to begin again. And waiting for
it to stop forever.

You never know the day or the hour. Never will. I guess we're not meant
to. Not built to withstand that kind of pressure. It's probably better
that way.

I clung to my sister's hand as we walked into that little room to meet
the doctor. I listened while we were told that nothing more could be
done for our mother. Words like 'comfortable' and 'relaxed' were
mentioned... and 'days'.

Not weeks or months but days. All we've got left is days.

The world swirled around me but I didn't cry. Couldn't look the Doctor
in the face, couldn't take the sympathy in his eyes...not then.

Afterwards I walked to the garden outside the hospital. Everything
seemed so far away, as if in slow motion. Even the cigarrette I was
attempting to light wasn't co-operating.

It's funny. I didn't cry when I watched my mother. I didn't cry when I
was told they couldn't heal her, or that she had only a little time
left. I didn't even cry when we made the decision not to resuscitate
her if her heart fails.

But that little cigarrete had me in floods of tears that I couldn't
stop.

We spent all day with her, will spend every minute of every day with
her if we can.

But it's not the last few moments that count. It's the years that went
before. If my mother dies tonight, I know that she loves me. Just as
she know's how much I adore her.

It's enough. In the end it really has to be enough.

Because in her own words today is " Game over" and we've just run out
of time.