Mum was clearly very ill, and on 13th April we visited the doctors on Pyrles Lane for her second round of blood test results. It had been a challenge getting her to the doctors, her legs so swollen she couldn't bend them at the knee, so getting in and out of the taxi and walking to the surgery was a monumental effort.
While waiting for the taxi, Mum sat in the living room, having applied her pink lipstick. It was a heart stopping moment, seeing her pink lips against yellowing skin and, as happened repeatedly throughout each day, witnessing how dreadful she looked, how ill she was. Her routine and pride in her appearance existed throughout the last weeks of her life. In the doctors waiting room, I remained outwardly cheerful while my chest ached at her obvious decline. It was at this appointment that cancer was first mentioned and I wanted to shield her, protect her from THAT word. I wanted the doctor to whisper it to me, I would carry it.
Mum lived for 19 more days, dying at 5.45pm on Tuesday 2nd May 2017.
The last few weeks of our lives together were one of a before unknown level of physical intimacy. Each morning I soaked her swollen feet in a bowl of scented water. My sister and I had visited Brighton in April, Mum giving us £20 to treat ourselves to lunch. In a health food shop I'd bought her a sachet of lavender bath salts, thinking she would enjoy a foot soak. The smell was indeed lovely, and I washed her feet and swollen legs, gently exfoliating her dry and flaking skin, carefully drying then moisturising with E45. I remember looking up at her from my position on the floor one morning and seeing her resting with her eyes closed as her feet soaked in the warm water. I hope I was able to give her some comfort in her last days.
6 days before she died, I washed Mum's hair, my first time doing so. As she was chair bound, the process began with covering her in towels, wrapping one around her neck, draping one across her shoulders. She held a bowl of warm water on her lap, and I wet her fine grey hair, soaping it into a lather. She leaned her head towards the bowl and I poured clean water from a plastic jug over her head, watching as it ran over the contours of her face and dripped from her nose. That day I also washed her face and arms. Seeing her in her vest, much reduced from the round soft Mum I'd known, her shoulders small, arms thin with skin hanging was unspeakably painful, a shock to the child in me, her daughter.
I'd selected an outfit from her wardrobe and helped her dress. Her fine straight hair had never been to her liking, so Mum asked for her curlers and she twisted them into her hair for the last time. Automatic, no mirror needed. There was one strand of hair that misbehaved and I tucked it around a curler for her. This whole performance exhausted Mum. I think she was glad when I left her in peace.
