When everything falls apart…
What better way to end a year with a recap of what has happened in the last twelve months. However sometimes a recap is not really what we want because it reminds us of painful things. 2014 started better than any year could have. The previous year I had finally decided on following my dreams and goals (some of them) and it had led me to a nice but cold one bedroom flat in Ireland. I was home for Christmas where my grandparents on my mother’s side came to my parent’s house to celebrate Christmas with us. What we didn’t know back then was that it would be the last year we would all be able to celebrate Christmas together. We did not know about the tragedy lying ahead of us. For New Year’s Eve me, my brother and his wife went to my parent’s house to spend the last day of 2013 together and celebrate the beginning of a new year together as well. A new year that would end totally different from how it started.
In May my mother began to feel different. She got dizzy and her sight was sometimes slurry. She went to the doctor for a check where they discovered some disturbing news. She was diagnosed with cancer and it was spread all over her body like Nutella on a piece of bread. I don’t think I have ever believed in people when they say their knees goes weak. But I discovered it the day my father told me it was cancer. I don’t think I felt my legs at all and somehow everything around me became distant. I was at work when he told me (sometimes I work at the same place as my parents) and I don’t know how I continued through the day. Whenever I thought about it I would burst into tears and when I would be lying in my bed I wouldn’t fall asleep without crying. However things got better as I got used to the thought and when I started having a bit of hope. I went with my mother to radiation treatment and I was taught about the whole process. She had radiation treatment four times, which caused her to lose her hair. But it was just hair, right?
In between the whole thing I had to find a place to do my internship which had to start in August. I was lucky to find a spot in a company that travelled around in Europe. Both my parents knew that this was what I wanted and my mother was so happy because she thought the opportunity was so great and I think she already had visions about me working. I told them that I wouldn’t go if she would have less than three months left, where they assured me she had more than three months left. Maybe she would even live for years – no one could say anything for sure. They told me that they wanted me to go and in some way I think my mother was much more excited about this internship than I was; so off I went.
After a few weeks my dad called me while I was in Stockholm and told me to come home as soon as possible because my mother had been hospitalised and that he was afraid that she wouldn’t have much time left. At that time she had started puking and couldn’t hold anything down. So in the end she had felt so bad that my dad had arranged for her to be hospitalised. A few days after the phone call I came back to Aalborg where my brother picked me up at the airport and took me to the hospital to visit my mother. And to be honest as I am writing this right now I don’t remember how I felt when I saw her or how I felt before I saw her. Maybe in some way I didn’t think her time had come just yet. Of course I cried when I went to bed because a life without my mother was a life that I could never imagine going through. I was only home for a few days before I had to go to Copenhagen and upon my departure my dad told me that I shouldn’t expect to see my mother again. I knew it was tearing at him but I hadn’t expected that statement and especially not because my mother had left the hospital the same day as when I had to leave, because she was feeling much better. I refused to believe it and even though it should be wrong I was so happy to be leaving for Copenhagen.
While I was happy about seeing my mother again being home was miserable. No matter where I went and who I visited they were all affected by my mother’s sickness and it felt like it was everything they could talk about. And to be honest I felt bad enough about not being there for my mother that it made me feel even guiltier listening to everyone talking about how they couldn’t sleep at night, when I was in a new town every week having fun and smiling. It made me want to escape from all of them and just go back to the tour where I could be myself. I hate that I wanted to run away and I hate that what I did was in fact running away when I should probably have been more supportive.
Six weeks later when I was in Manchester my dad called again. This time he told me that my mother had started talking about weird things and seeing things that weren’t there. From when I left for Copenhagen and till he called me in Manchester my mother had been feeling well. But one night everything had changed in just three hours. She had gone from feeling good to being delirious and hardly being able to move in just three hours. When I received that phone call I knew I had to get home and that it had to be quick. I was supposed to take the train to Newcastle where I would be picked up in a car and take the ferry to Amsterdam, where we would drive to Denmark. That was a long trip and even though I knew I had to get home as soon as possible I wanted to go with the rest on the long trip back to Denmark, because the longer I stayed away the longer I could pretend everything was fine back home. I could create my own world where my mother wasn’t sick. However my brother booked me a flight ticket for the next morning and off I went on the longest flight in my life.
My flight was going from Manchester to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Aalborg. When I was sitting on the plane from Manchester to Amsterdam I had a hard time trying not to cry. It seemed that no matter what I was thinking about it would lead to my mother and at that moment reality had kicked in and I just wanted to get home as quick as possible. In Amsterdam I boarded the next plane and when we were 15 minutes away from landing at Aalborg Airport the plane got cancelled and had to fly back to Amsterdam because of an indication failure. Never have I ever felt the time stand still the way it did back to Amsterdam. I was silently crying while trying to make sure that no one else noticed. When we arrived in Amsterdam I learnt through my brother that I had been booked on a new plane the following morning; I just couldn’t wait till morning. I found the nearest toilet where I locked myself in and just sat there crying till I could contain myself again. I went to the KLM help disk where my brother had instructed me to go and tell them about my situation. His wife had called to KLM and they had assured her that they would get me on a flight the same evening, but I had to explain my situation to the people at the help disk. When I came to the help disk I was not able to say anything. My tears were literally streaming down my face and I was sniffing uncontrollable. All I ever got to tell them was that I had to get home and it had to be the same day. Luckily the woman understood that I had a difficult situation at home and someone actually had to be “kicked off” the plane in order for me to get a seat.
I came home and the day after my mother was transferred to a hospice. It was so good to see her again even though she was not herself at all. She had trouble speaking and she was sleeping most of the time. I was supposed to go to Italy on the 9th of November and all the time I had it in the back of my mind. I kept telling myself that I would see if she got worse and if she didn’t I kept telling people that I would still go to Italy. Even though I was home and I knew how everything was going to end I still wanted to run away. I just wanted to escape and forget everything. However on the 6th of November I knew that no matter what I would never be able to leave her like that. On November the 8th my mother died in the morning. I don’t quite remember how I felt that morning either. I wasn’t crying much, only a little. A part of me was relieved that she had finally got peace.
… we still have to keep on going
