I knew my mother would not live much longer. I had mentally encouraged her to let go of this life, and move on to the next. I told her in my mind that she would be helped forward, to go towards the light without fear, that loved ones would welcome her lovingly. In my mind I heard the lullaby she sang me as a child, which I was always unable to hear without welling up with tears. It was as if she knew the roles were reversed, that I was lulling her to sleep.
I kissed her goodbye for the last time, hoping she would last until I returned. A Judas kiss. The emotion was too intense. I had to find an excuse to go. There was a perceived need to catalogue the contents of her house so they could be distributed among friends and relatives or otherwise disposed of. This became my excuse to leave. I had to buy a laptop computer to hold a database of these items, and photographs of each one. There was no outlet here in the West Country for Apple Macs, and as a dedicated Mac user nothing else would do. When the job was done it still had to be of use to me. I had to drive to London and buy a PowerBook, and return before the morning.
By the time I had purchased the machine and was heading west to the motorway, it was 9.45pm. I suddenly heard the Paul Robeson lullaby in my head.
Oh, my baby, my curly-headed baby, your Daddy’s in the cottonfields, a-workin’ all the day.
It continued to the chorus, as the long-forgotten memory resurfaced; my mother singing it to me as I was a very young child, calming me, relaxing me for the nights rest. I realised that my mother was at this moment on the point of transition to the other side of life, and the words continued to be sung in my mind as I proceeded down the M3. Around 10.30pm I felt a sharp pain in my chest, which subsided instantly.
45 minutes later as I was driving at 70mph my mobile phone interrupted my thoughts. My brother informed me that Mum had died at 10.30. Now my sadness had turned to a mixture of relief and remorse; she was no longer in pain, but I had avoided being there to help her through it. Then I realised that she was OK; her lullaby had been a loving message to me that she had passed on to the next phase. In a way, I had been with her, and she with me. The separation was only physical, illusory.
Lula lula lula lula bye byes — does you want the moon to play with, the stars to find your way with…Now Mum was, at last, doing just that.
