My mother died on the 26th. At the time I had no idea how it would change my life. In fact it’s through writing, therapy and a lot of reflection that I have realized just how profound the change has been.
My mother died, as she had lived, trying to force the world to her will. She wanted to be at home, and was waiting for the ambulance to arrive to take her there.
I think mum had a good life, she was only 63 years old when she passed and for over 40 of them married to dad. She had been diagnosed with cancer three years earlier and had been in and out of hospital only for the last month or so.
I’d made three visits to England during that last month and during those visits she had generally been restless and somewhat disturbed by what was going on. I last saw her three days before she died on my way to Heathrow. It was different; she was calmer, more relaxed and peaceful.
At the time I did not realize what was going on, but looking back it was our good bye, and I think she knew that.
After her passing I chose not to view mum, I want to remember her as she was last time I saw her. Her closest friend Jen did, she said the pain was gone, the lines had disappeared and she looked so peaceful.
I no longer fear the moment when I will be no more. I accept my mortality and longer worry about this brief life. And I can trace that feeling back to Friday the 26th, I know that afternoon in the Royal Surrey her passing was both peaceful and while untimely, her death itself showed how natural it is to die.
That doesn’t mean I accept or welcome, I intend to fight against it. I’ve taken up tennis again; I’m getting niggling issues sorted, be a good patient and look forward to another 40 active years.
However this was only a part of what happened to me that day.
When I got the call from dad that my mother had died that Friday I knew I would never see her again. In that moment my day was full of practical things, dad, airplanes, suits and so on, but there was something I was sure of, total certainty that I would not see here again.
I could make many arguments against religion. Darwin may only be theory, but it’s the best explanation of how we came to be (which is the definition of a theory). I do believe that many of the world’s ills have been caused by religion, for example the Catholic opposition to any form of birth control is putting a huge strain on our planet’s resources. This is without getting into the appalling claims of abuse being aimed at various churches, along with allegations of cover-ups going all the way up to the Pope.
Don’t get me wrong here; the thing that happened to me in the emotional wake of my mothers passing wasn’t the strengthening of my feelings against religion. It was the strengthening of my atheism. I believe that there are as many people living “Christian virtues” among the faithless as the faithful. As part of this journey is seeing where I’ve gone wrong, and there are many places I’ve been very wrong and I need to change.
The loss of mum was so hard, much harder than I thought it would be.
In the last few weeks a couple of my mothers close friends have passed. Last month was Natalie, her youngest son was born on the same day as my brother. At that time we lived on the same street, that lasted untill I was 11 or 12. A few years ago she moved just a street or two from my parents once again and was a regular visitor. Her death did not come as a total shock, she’d had some health problems over the last year or two.
Last week another one of mums closest and oldest friends, Kay Bannister passed. Mum met Kay in 1959 when she used to baby-sit Kay’s eldest sons when mum was 13. I had no idea, I learned about it this week. Kay’s passing did come as a surprise, she had a heart problem no one knew about, including herself and always seemed in pretty good health.
Like Natalie, Kay has always been part of my life, when dad was away mum didn’t like being in the house by herself and we’d typically stay with Kay. Her youngest son Chris is the same age as I, we did a lot of growing up together. We went on vacation with both Kay and Natalie’s families at various times, I recall Scotland, Isle of Wight, Dorset and Cornwall. These were two people that were big parts of my life growing up and two of the people who promised mum they would help look after dad.
I have seen them both recently, Natalie came by dads house when I was here only a few weeks before she passed. Candidates for the tontine are starting to run out.