I turned to my friend Julie mid way through the afternoon, "Whatever is the time? It seems like today has been going forever." She half smiled, the saddness still telling in her eyes, "That's because today is Sunday afternoon now, but it started when we got out of bed on Friday."
Julie was right. Since those few hours of sleep, we had been awake for three days, waiting and watching in my Mother's hospital room. She had been barely with us since Wednesday night, unable to show any response, but still very much there.
The reality of her being there for those last few days was even more evident the moment she left.
Two weeks before was a very different Sunday. Mum came out for the afternoon, went to Church with my daughter Sarah and I, and came back for tea. She loved the evening services with the full band and singers, so much more alive than the morning's more formal worship. Even at 81 years of age, Valda was still as much a rebel as the young woman who rode a motorbike and wore slacks around her small country town. The sign above her kitchen sink when I was a young girl pretty well summed up her attitude to life and work, and male/female relations. "For a woman to be considered as good as a man she has to do everything twice as well. Fortunately this is not hard!" For all of that, though, Mum loved Dad with a passion. It was a relationship which seemed one sided on the surface, with Ted always giving and conceding and Val steering the course of their lives. But underneath there was a strength in the love and commitment they had for each other that made it all work. When Dad was suddenly taken from her after 47 years of together, Mum's world was so badly shaken that she never really recovered to be the confident and independent woman everyone had believed her to be.
Nine years on her own had left her with very little will to stay around any longer.
Over the next two weeks Mum succumbed to a serious infection, which gradually drained the light from her eyes. By Wednesday morning of the second week it was evident that the antibiotics were not having any effect on the infection which now ran rampant through her bloodstream. We sent out the call for the rest of the family to come.
Two of my brothers had arrived while their mother was still able to show recognition. My brother Rodney tenderly wiped her fevered brow. Craig talked to her with a voice so much like his father's. Only once did I see a look of alarm on her face when we mentioned that my brother Wayne was flying home and her two sisters were driving up. I believe in that moment she knew what was happenning. That look of alarm quickly melted away and she met each face with a new peace. The grandchildren who had arrived came to show their love, rewarded with a smile and even a wink before we all said goodnight. In the morning there was little evidence that she was still able to hear us.
My other brother had been in Japan when he got the news, but had to spend the next two days criss crossing flights across Asia to land in Melbourne on Saturday morning. Half an hour before he arrived in the hospital Mum began to slip away. Her breathing shallow and pulse very faint, I leaned in close and kept telling her that Wayne would be here soon. The moment he walked in the room and kissed her on the forehead her pulse became stronger.
We each took naps in hospital chairs as we waited out those final hours. Just before 3am I was holding Mum's hand, with Rod stroking her hair, when her breathing became irregular and very faint. Her pulse had also become irregular and I called the nurse. We were concerned that the others had only been asleep in the next room for about 30 minutes and I expressed my concern over waking them. At that moment Mum made a sound, stopped breathing, then started again. Rod immeadiatly went to wake our brother's Wayne and Craig, and Julie, our semi adopted sister since her own mother died when Julie was six.
While I waited for the others I lent in close to say goodbye. "It's OK Mum, we are all Ok, you can leave now if you need to. Dad is waiting for you, and Jesus is right here to welcome you home. I love you Mum. Thank you for being my Mum. Goodbye..."
ROD, Wayne, Craig and Julie each said their own goodbye. As soon as they were finished she simply stopped breathing, her body tightened, then let go. It was both a precious and sureal moment. We saw her leave.
