Even 20 years after she died, I still miss my mum

My mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1992. I was living in California then and had just had my second child. My dad rang up to tell us how bad Mum was and that she was close to death. He spoke to my husband first and them my husband gave me the bad news.

I was totally unhinged at this news. We had no money to travel, my youngest son was just 9 months old and I had to fly to Australia. I was also suffering with postpartum depression and did not recognise this malady at the time. A double whammy assaulted me.

I had to ask my mother-in-law to lend me money for the flight over and had to hear about why it’s always good to have savings and why didn’t we have enough money. I was so embarrassed to ask her for any money, it was insulting but I took the money.

My husband decided to stay at home with our foster son, and our oldest son, and we did not have enough money for all of us to go. I took the baby and flew back to Sydney and into a nightmare.

My brother was grieving for Mum. My sister did not know what was happening and was a basket case and Dad well, he was just devastated that his wife of 39 years was going to die.

The plane touched down at the airport at 6am and my brother and my dad were there waiting for me. We arrived home, Mum was visibly absent, and it hurt already. She was at the hospice at St. Vincent’s at Darlinghurst. My sister and I took the baby and ourselves, on to the bus and went to see her. None of us had a car and my brother had to work that day so hence, the bus.

When we arrived at the hospice, Mum was in a terrible state as the nurses had not yet done the rounds to clean up the patients. We were already anxious and upset but to see my mum in such a bad way put me over the edge!

I screamed and ranted, “Why is she like this she needs to be cleaned up! I just flew in from the States… Someone clean up my mother!” They did and in about 30 minutes we were allowed back in to see her. She had lost so much weight and was so frail I started crying, and my sister took the baby and left the room. I said all the things I needed to say to her and she worried if the baby was healthy.

The morphine was so strong, I had never seen my strong mother so weak and close to death. I kissed her hand and said goodbye as she drifted off into the morphine cloud and was asleep. That was the last time I saw her. She waited for me to fly over to say goodbye and the next day she was dead.

My grief was upon me like dragon’s breath, with the fiery pain of loss burning deep inside. My sister lost control and fainted, and my father walked around like a zombie. My brother could not believe she was gone. It fell to me, the eldest, to inform her mother, my grandmother, that her daughter had died. Oh my God could the day get worse? It did, as I told my poor Nan that her daughter had died, Nan wailed and wailed. She kept saying, “My Betty Blue, Betty Blue the pride of the ‘Loo.”

The nurses brought in a big glass of brandy for her and Nan settled a bit. Then she said, “That bloody John Meade should be in the ground not my daughter.” She was referring to my dad who had been an alcoholic all my parents’ married life, but had got himself sober.

To this day I miss my mother dearly. My sister misses her and so does my brother. Nan passed away two years later and then Dad passed away after that. My postpartum depression raged inside me until a good doctor discovered it and acted accordingly… by giving me anti-depressants. I wrote poems about Mum and wrote in my diary and spoke to a psychologist, but nothing can take her place.

What relationship did/do you have with your mother? How do you get through the grief of losing a loved one?

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