I retreated from the world, allowing the avalanche of pain to wash over me. No brakes were applied, the flood gates opened and I drowned in sorrow. The vomited it all out in words at high volume, then silence again. I thought we had time, I thought time was an endless choice of opportunities.

What

The first message came through on my cell phone ” she’s in intensive care” “What, what, how, when, why” came tumbling out “she’s on oxygen life support” Oh God how did this happen. Suddenly I was five years old again “what must I do?” I asked over and over again. I needed someone to take my hand and just tell me what to do. The phone messages stopped for a short time, I messaged my daughter “what must I do?” I repeated. In shock.

A day later I was in the car and taking the three hour journey into town. A day later, you ask? Yes a whole day later. “Why?” I seem to hear you say. Because there were issues large massive chunks of unresolved issues that spanned over a period of years, that I had to swim through first.

I was about to see my mother for the first time in five years and it was hard. I’m praying God God spare her life until I can see her. Was I going to crumble into a heap at her bedside in front of a brother who I also hadn’t seen. How could I be worried about that stuff?, but we do. We worry over the stupidest things in life.

A friend gave me three little pills to numb the pain, on my journey. After a four hour car journey I sat parked away from all the other cars in the hospital grounds. I wept and wept as the little pill went down. My face a blotch of red. He was sitting next to her bed if watching her. If he was shocked to see me he held it together, her husband. She had tubes sticking out of her nose, needles in her arms. He proceeded to tell me everything he thought I needed to know, in a sort of academic way. I remember my mother, after the romance subsided, “he always has an answer for everything” she had complained. She’d put her hand up towards him palm facing him like a stop sign “enough information” she’d say. That day I was grateful for his academic babble that eased the tension in the room.

My estranged brother entered the room, barely glancing in my direction. The doctor arrived and asked me who I was. I explained I was her daughter, he looked puzzled “Oh, she told me she had two son’s no mention of a daughter” Another stab absorbed by the little pills. “I’m her prodigal daughter” I said lamely and stupidly. I was never going to be her prodigal daughter and there would never be a banquet for me.

I saw the nurses look at my brother affectionately sitting by his mother’s side since she had arrived in hospital. Touching his arm comfortingly while I stood like a frozen statue to one side.

“She’s awake” the doctor informed us, as I watched her lying there with her eyes shut. He prodded her chest gently to get her to open her eyes. She fought him, screwing up her face as I recall her own mother had done when faced with something unpleasant.

The doctor persisted and she opened her eyes. They flew straight to her son and husband standing on the one side of the bed. I stood watching the pain twisting in me light a knife. She wouldn’t look at me. I knew this wasn’t the time to think about myself. I tentatively reached down like an octopus reaching out with one tenticle. My skin touched hers and she pulled her hand away, mumbling something about it being cold.

I thanked God for those pills, emotions flooded through me that I was unable to hold. I left that hospital feeling not for the first time in my life rejected by my mother. Where do you take this stuff, who do you hand it to? I drove back to my brothers house. His toddlers at my feet laughing wanting to show me their toys, demanding little balls of energy oblivious to the dramas unfolding around them. I was so grateful for these little people who knew nothing of the pain inside me.

“I will go back to morrow and see her again” I told myself. “I will go back, I will just go back until this story has an ending”