She didn’t want to go

No one wants to die.

At least, I’m pretty sure that’s the case most of the time.

But my mum’s sheer determination to live is hard to forget, and I think it makes it even hard for me to comprehend her loss.

When her treatment became about prolonging her life, she grabbed every opportunity to keep going with both hands. She had 30 rounds of chemo. 30. For 3 days every few weeks, she would endure being connected 24/7 to a little water bottle that drip-fed her body with poisons that kept her tumor growth at bay - that was until it stopped working.

As well as not wanting to die, I think deep down she didn’t really believe it was happening. In the last few weeks of her life, when our family put our lives on hold to be with her and care for her 24/7, she would say ‘I’ll be better by the weekend, it’s just a bad day’. Even a few days before she left us she was still trying to get around. She could be so strong-willed when she wanted to, and no amount of begging would stop her from trying to stand up as she got weaker and weaker.

She had all these ideas she wanted to do before she went. She wanted to make us up boxes with all the things she kept from our childhood (I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with my first birthday cards), she wanted to write down recipes (I’m still not sure why this meant so much to her, she was a notoriously awful cook) and she wanted to share with us all instructions on how to do things she liked around the house and how to get my younger sister prepared for school.

We helped her get as much of it done as possible. But a lot of it is unfinished. Not because she couldn’t bear to do it, but because she thought she had more time.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow.

I once asked her ‘What’s it like to know you’re dying?’ and she replied ‘I’m taking it better than I thought I would, but don’t think I really understand it’.

Knowing this, one of the things I have realised is the importance of finding comfort in her death. She was so ill by the end, and I knew she hated the control she was losing each day. So to know she was no longer suffering gave me nothing but intense relief in the initial weeks after her death.

Mum truly believed she was going to be reunited with her Dad and her grandparents when she passed. I don’t know what I believe when it comes to that sort of thing, although having seen her dead body I did feel as though her soul had left her - so perhaps there is something about them moving on?

Anyway, knowing that she thought that they were waiting for her also gives me comfort. Hopefully that meant she wasn’t scared when the time came.