Hi - this piece was inspired by the death of my mum when I was 14

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She was lost and utterly alone.

Tears pricking behind her eyes. Her mind foggy with the pain of what was happening. She felt unsure of her footing as she left the hospital room and walked. She didn’t know where. She just knew she needed to leave. Leave the sights. The sounds. The smells. Somehow leave the sorrow of what she was witnessing behind, but knowing that wasn’t likely.

As Sarah walked along the endless hallway of the hospital that her mum was currently living out her last days in, the weight of everything that had happened lately hit her. It wasn’t a graceful light slap to the face, but rather a sharp, vomit inducing rage punch to the gut that nearly had her doubling over as she tried to make her way to a bench she could see just down the hall. Keeping that bench as her marker, she consciously put one foot in front of the other, hand on the railing, keeping herself somewhat vertical.

Her mum was dying. And not from what everyone had assumed, over the last years, would kill her. Not by her own hand. Not a ‘failure to thrive on meds.’ She was dying of a rare from of cancer that had only been detected just 30 short days ago.

Sarah was only 14 years old, and hadn‘t had nearly enough time with her. No time at all, really, given that, although she was 14, she hardly knew the mum that was staring at the wall vacantly ... she had been in and out of hospitals most of Sarah’s life - and then the ultimate insult of moving halfway across the country when Sarah was only 10. What she knew of this once beautiful, vivacious woman was mainly ascertained during hard-to-follow phone calls and summer trips that were always canceled halfway through, because her mum needed to go back into hospital. Even though she still had her dad, she often felt like an orphan, missing out on the bond of a mother and daughter.

How was it possible that her mum had made it through literal hell — being treated like a guinea pig with medications, electric shock therapy and controversial counselling — finally coming out on the other side stronger and more self assured than ever, only to be felled by a disease she can’t even begin to fight?

She knew it wasn’t her mum’s fault. It was nobody’s fault. Mental illness is a disease. Akin to a life sentence of hard time in a work prison. Her mum couldn’t help it anymore than she could help the freckles that were sprinkled all over her skin. This pervasive feeling of foreboding never left Sarah, though. She knew she wasn’t equipped to even understand a lot of what her mum suffered with, let alone try to offer some semblance of help. She always felt like she was standing just on the outside of the life she so longed for. She got snippets. She got teasers. She wanted the whole life. The whole story. She wanted to understand more if this incredible woman who always seemed to be racing against time. And now her time was almost up.

She made it, finally, to the bench and sat down with what must’ve have been the most startling and defeated sigh, as she was met with looks of concern from others in the area. She smiled sheepishly and opened her phone. Pretending to read – but in reality, she was fighting back the tears that threatened to overflow and overtake her. Swallowing hard she absently swiped along her friends’ Facebook posts and Twitter tweets – vaguely recalling a time of such carefree worries like ‘I’ll never pass this test’, ‘does this shirt look ok?’ and ‘oh, I hope he likes my hair this way!’ — when the biggest concern was your peers and your social status — and a feeling of jealousy flooded over her. Jealous she couldn’t take part in the frivolity of youth. Jealous she couldn’t worry about such banalities. No. She had to deal with death. She had to choose an outfit for her mum to be buried in. She had to choose the music, songs and poetry that would be her final goodbye to a woman she desperately just wanted to hold on to. To love. To understand.

She watched as people came and went throughout the hospital. Beaming smiles going to welcome new babies. Parents, concerned about their child’s illness, faces screwed into slightly worried masks. Lovers and caregivers bringing myriad ‘get well’ stuffed toys, cards and flowers. She furtively searched their eyes, looking for someone that may be going through the same agony as she was. How did everyone look so serene, even the nervous parents, when inside her head there were voices screaming at the unfairness of life? They glided along the corridors with ease, seemingly unaware of the wailing, screeching noise emanating from her mind -- a noise that Sarah was sure everyone could hear. Nurses and doctors smiled and nodded to one another, chattering away, not seeing the torture contorting Sarah’s face into a pained grimace.

A child sat down beside Sarah, smiling, sucking on a lolly. She envied the young girl. She forced her lips to form some sort of smile in return and went back to her phone. The words still swimming and jumbled as tears again forced their way, and in spite of her adamance that they not spill, they did – causing an odd kaleidoscope of words, colours and pictures to form on her screen. She dried the phone on her jeans and pushed the choking, wracking sobs that threatened down. Not now. Not here. Not yet.

Giving up on pretending to care about the foolishness of her friends’ social media exchanges, she steeled herself with a deep breath and a slightly renewed sense that, although she had no control over the situation, no way to mitigate the outcome, no way to change the ending of this story, she could at least be there with her mum. Holding her hand. Singing softly to her as she listened to her laboured breathing that would all too soon cease, marking the end of her struggles, the end of her hurt, the end of a life that was almost too painful to even recount.

By Zoë Ricard

From: Canada

Website: http://www.zoeswritingtoo.blogspot.com

Twitter: Peach_a_Day