And then… in The C Word

And then, she was gone.

Peacefully and quickly, with no pain or distress.

My dad and brother were chatting quietly at her bedside, checking her every few minutes. One time they checked she was breathing, the next she just wasn’t. If there’s such a thing as a ‘good’ death, which I believe there is having seen some distressing ones, this is the way to go. She closed her eyes on Christmas evening and simply didn’t open them again. No gasping for breath, no long, protracted sitting at the bedside watching the gaps between breaths get bigger and breathing get shallower, she just….. stopped.

I always thought I’d not only want to be there, but would be desperately upset if I wasn’t there. As it happens, I guess it doesn’t matter that much after all, I’m not glad to have missed it but also I’m not devastated to have missed it. I feel way more ambivalent about it than I thought. My sister and I arrived shortly afterwards anyway, my brother rang the minute they noticed she’d stopped breathing.

I think it feels like I’m in shock still which sounds silly to say because she’s been poorly for so long and we’ve known it was coming. She’s been unresponsive since tbr evenjng on Christmas Day so this isn’t a shock at all but it just doesn’t feel real at the moment. It doesn’t seem real that there will be no more going to the hospital, no more sitting at the bedside.

I keep thinking if silly little things I want to tell her, and it really is silly little things. Nothing they matters at all but thinks I know she would appreciate and enjoy.

I’m on my sister’s couch, when the phone call came I grabbed V out of bed and brought her here. She’s asleep on her makeshift bed that she sleeps on when she stays here while I’m working, and settled quickly back down. We must have looked quite the sight, me in my jogging bottoms and coat and V in pyjamas and dressing gown, with no shoes. I couldn’t get them on her while she was on my knee asleep so they’ve been abandoned, I just carried her to the car and into my sister’s.

We’ve tried to get some sleep, I think I’ve managed a couple of hours of broken sleep and my sister has had none yet, my nephew has just kicked off yesterday with his chest again - he had a night in hospital a few weeks ago. He’s been coughing and wheezing and short of breath, my BIL had several hospital stays as a baby with asthma related issues.

It seem that it never rains but it pours.