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.
4 comments:
I really like this and found it very moving. I can see why you wouldn't want to read it aloud to the the group. Is this a first draft or have you worked on it ? - not that if feels like one but I find that with stuff that is near the bone, reworking later can create enough distance to be able to make it more public while refining the poignancy of the piece.
As you have implied, it was painful to recall and to write, so I may have rushed it to get something out. I have a notebook filled with the details of my last moments with my mother and this piece was commenced without reference to it, in the class on the Thursday evening when we looked at emotions. I have tweaked it later with some reference to the notes, but there is a lot more material that could be used to lengthen it, though perhaps at this stage it would be better left short. I might revisit it later, but for now I am happy to let it stand as work in progress!
I like it a lot because it is so moving.
I really like this, David. I like its brevity and the detail of going to buy an Apple powerbook which says so much about you.
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