I've watched a lot of friends lose parents in the last decade. No two losses have been alike. There have been sudden deaths with no chance to say goodbye. Children gathering at the bedside to witness the end. I've seen shock and distress. Extreme anger and protracted grief. Families have fallen out and others have come closer together. Sons and daughters have bravely stood up at the funeral and delivered a eulogy. Others have sat in the front row, willing it to be over. So when mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer aged 95, I thought I'd seen it all. That I'd got the measure of death and its likely impact on me. But it wasn't what I was expecting at all.
Mum was as indestructible as they come. A fighter. Surviving two types of cancer before the days of chemo. Getting back on the tennis court 16 weeks after major heart surgery - aged 84. There's been rheumatic fever, arrhythmia, eye surgery, varicose veins and more. She was still driving when she was 94. Still living completely independently in our 3-bedroom family home until 8 months before she died. Still knocking the socks off scrabble competitors 20 years her junior. Still going to exercise classes and entertaining friends in the weeks leading up to her death. Still getting dressed and moving cautiously to the bathroom without help, two days before she died.
"Difficult" is a fair description of my relationship with mum over the last 5 decades. When I was a child things were happy enough. Though in truth, I wanted dad to myself and mum got in the way. I was 13 when we had our big bust-up. It left me feeling accused, distrusted and misunderstood. Over the following 7 years, she seemed hell-bent on preventing me from doing the things teenagers do. But she probably feared greatly for my safety. Dad played go-between, trying to negotiate agreeable terms with us both. Even when mum and I lost the man we both adored (dad died of a heart attack in 1980), it didn't bring us any closer. My 20s and 30s passed in obligatory get-togethers as infrequent as my conscience would allow, and the dreaded Sunday evening phone call, during which we covered almost exactly the same ground every week. I frequently snapped at her. And was thrust into a state somewhere between guilt and anger afterwards.
During my 40s, with the help of my friend Natalie, I made some in-roads into improving my relationship with mum. Things were better but not good. She only had to say the "wrong" thing and I'd be filled with fury all over again. I now realise that my anger came not from her repeatedly offering me poached eggs when I'd told her I didn't want them. Or from her constantly talking about the weather. But from my hurt of her distrust of me (as I saw it). And her inability to have the type of relationship I craved - one where we could speak openly about the things that matter in life. But Mum felt safer sticking with small talk. She was frightened of expressing her feelings, of saying "the wrong thing", of upsetting someone. It was something she had taken from her relationship with her own mother.
Mum was admitted to hospital with a broken shoulder in February 2018. By March, she was all set to return to her life of scrabble clubs and pub lunches when she developed swallowing problems. Tests were carried out which held a significant risk. I sat with my old schoolfriend, Emma, in the garden centre coffee shop across the road from Winchester Hospital. Terrified that I would return to find an empty bed. That she would have died during the procedure. But mum was there (still sedated). And so was the consultant. He said they'd discovered an inoperable tumour in her oesophagus.
The next morning, petrified that they hadn't told her (or that they had) I returned to the hospital. "Whatever you're imagining, it won't be the conversation you'll have," said Emma as she drove me there. It wasn't. "It's cancer isn't it?" mum said, after asking me how I was. "Yes," I said. "I knew as soon as I woke up. It was too painful to be anything else. How's Emma?" A clear signal that we weren't to discuss it any further.
During her last months, I found that I understood her a lot better than I'd imagined. I knew beyond doubt, when I found the right nursing home. A place with a beautiful room overlooking the garden, in need of a lick of paint but very homely. I understood that I was only nominally in charge of her bank account. And that she was checking that I'd paid the gardener and the window cleaner, not because she didn't trust me, but because she didn't want to relinquish control.
Mum was dying. But determined to enjoy her last few months. The care and emotional support - delivered mainly by a staff of cheery, competent Nepalese nurses and nursing assistants - were exceptional. Mum knew all their stories. What their life had been like in Nepal. Why they'd come to the UK. Whether they were married or had children. She had many friends of all ages. People popped in for scrabble or conversation every day.
At the end of July, to everyone's amazement, mum was still hanging on in there, even though she was eating and drinking the bare minimum. The past few months had probably been - weirdly - some of the best times for our relationship. But I wanted things to end well for both our sakes. A few years earlier, I'd met Julia Chi Taylor at a dinner with my cousin, Gill. It's difficult to define what she does for a living. The simplest way to put it is counsellor. But it's very different from how most of us imagine conventional counselling. The night I met her, I thought, "If I ever need professional help [which I absolutely believed I never would], I will go to her."
Julia helped me find a way to have conversations with mum that, without being intrusive, helped her open up. She told me stories from her past - including one hilarious one about an admirer called Bertie Dagger who'd chased her from London to Ledbury to offer tennis and dinner. He was renamed Dirty Bugger by mum's brother who had been tasked with shutting the door in his face.
My cousin Jan and I arrived at the care home one Thursday lunchtime at the end of August. An hour or so earlier, mum had asked one of the nurses to help her to bed. She was lying there, eyes wide open but unconscious. "Is this it?" I asked the nurse. "I think so. But there is no knowing how long she will be like this. Talk to her. She may be able to hear you." We sat there all afternoon, panicking every time her breathing changed. But she didn't wake up. We checked into a hotel overnight. And went back the following morning. Still no change. It seemed unlikely that she would regain consciousness.
The nurses asked us to leave the room while they washed her. We were waiting in the lounge next door when one of them came racing in. "She's awake. And she's talking." We ran in. Speech had become difficult over previous days. She pointed to her eyes. "Do you want your glasses, Margaret?" asked Jan. She nodded. Then pointed to her ears. "The hearing aids?" another nod. Jan passed her the box. The previous day I'd taken her engagement ring out of the hearing aid box for safe keeping (it had become way too loose for her finger). "She wants the ring," Jan muttered to me. I managed to slip it off the chain round my neck and into her hand. "Thank you," she said. "Will you wear this?" "Yes mum." "Forever?" "Yes, of course." I helped her put it on my finger. She held my hand and squeezed. "I'm happy now." she said. Almost her last words.
I can't describe mum's death as a "loss". Because at the end, I gained something I'd been yearning for all my life. A closeness in our relationship. Her funeral felt like a true celebration. The 18 months that followed have allowed me to truly appreciate how amazing it was having this strong, caring, woman as a mother. The anger is gone. And I have finally come to love her deeply for who she was.