Two
weeks ago, Mum died, aged ninety. She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s
disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I was with her every day in hospital for the
last sixteen days of her life. One
of the few things Mum could remember was her address, and no wonder, for she
had lived there nearly sixty-three years.
In the last couple of years, she had twice had respite
periods in a care, and throughout those stays, her litany had been consistent:
‘Where am I? What do I do now? How do I get home?
When can I go home?’
During her final stay in hospital, it remained much
the same.
For me, as I faced her demise, I allowed home
to change its meaning.
In Mum’s earlier absences from home, the thing she
was missing was clearly being in her marital home with her husband. "Where's
Martin?" was very much part of her round of questions.
However, this time it was different and she hardly
mentioned Dad, but firmly still wished to go home. Dad said she had recently been talking much
more of her childhood in Wolverhampton. her family had left there for Cornwall
when her parents divorced.
"I believe," he said, "That now, when
she talks of home, she is talking of her childhood home
in the Midlands. She wants to go back there."
Myself, once it was clear that Mum was dying, I assigned
home a third meaning. It is Heaven.
There was some evidence that Mum was preparing to
move on.
Several times, she asked, ‘Can I just go in peace?’
She asked me a couple of times as I sat at her
bedside when I was ‘going back to Heaven?’
When my father and brother and I were all there
round her bed, she counted us twice and each time included a couple of extra
people who we couldn't see.
Above all, taking home as Heaven allowed me to answer her repeated question both comfortingly and honestly,
‘When can I go home?’
‘Soon.’
