SAYING GOODBYE TO MY MOTHER

The night-nurse gently shook me awake and softly said, 'It's time.' I nodded, slightly groggily, allowing the enormity of those two little words to sink in. I took a deep breath in and sat up, my eyes adjusting to the dimly lit room. The room was a familiar one: it was my mother's bedroom. The one she had slept in since I was five years old. She had slept alone for the past 15 years, my mum was widowed – she had lost her husband, my darling dad, to cancer. I had also been there with him as he passed away, which made me feel like quite the expert at saying good bye to a parent, but in this case, past experience doesn't seem to be much consolation.

I walked over to my mother's bed on the other side of the room and looked down at her tiny sleeping frame. She was breathing, gently, but very deeply. Her breathing had changed ever so slightly from when I kissed her goodnight several hours before. I felt very contemplative as I thought about letting my mother go. I also thought about myself as a daughter. In a few moments, I would also have to let go of the idea that I am a daughter.

My thoughts were gently brought back into the present moment by Comfort, which unbelievably, yet ironically was the name of the Marie Curie nurse who stood by my side. She held my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze and asked if I was 'ready'. I paused for a moment deliberating this interesting choice of word. I decided it was a good word. If she had asked me if I was 'fine' or 'alright', this would have been odd, but for me to prepare for what was about to happen, of course I had to be 'ready'.

I swallowed back the lump in my throat and squeezed my tears back into their tear ducts. I looked up and flashed her a brave smile. 'Yes,' I nodded, 'How much time have we got?' I managed to whisper. She cocked her head as if to indicate not very much. I asked if I had enough time to light some candles and burn some incense. She understood and urged me to be as quick as I could.

I stepped away and kissed my mother's ever so slightly furrowed forehead. It was very soft and warm and I knew that it wouldn't be much longer before the warmth subsided.

In the next room, I collected the candles and the incense burner and this momentary distance allowed me to compose and prepare myself for what was about to happen. Reality was fast looming and smacking into me like a train on a track. The time had come to finally say goodbye. My mum was actually leaving me. This was the moment I had been dreading, but not quite believing.

My mother had been given the diagnosis of terminal liver cancer over 18 months previously. She was a hugely optimistic person, and did not want to hear any talk of her life expectancy, so we did not find out 'how long she had left'. Because of this uncertainty, I'm not sure I had taken the 'terminal' part of the illness seriously until this actual moment, as I lit one scented tea-light after another. I quickly filled the room with candlelight, and as the woody vanilla aroma swirled around the room, it created a calm, relaxing and meditative atmosphere. I put her soft mantras on in the background and came back to hold my mother's hand. I closed my eyes and for the first time said a 'real' prayer, to a 'real' god. Unlike my agnostic father, my mother had held traditional Hindu beliefs of god, reincarnation, the soul and karma, and it felt right for me to step into her belief system in this moment to be in the same thought space as her. I silently asked god for her guides, angels and loved ones in spirit to come and get her when she was ready and I informed them that I was ready to facilitate her soul liberate itself from the physical world and her dying body. I wanted the ambience to be just right, just how she would have wanted and expected it.

The room was silent, apart from the soft music playing, beautifully peaceful and calm and there was an air of expectancy. I held my face close to my mother's cheek and could feel her ebbing breath against my own tear-stained cheek. Her breath was still warm and smelt slightly of minty mouthwash.

I closed my eyes and knew that it was time to say goodbye. I told her in my mind over and over how much I loved her. I was sorry for everything I needed to be sorry for, and I loved her, and I would miss her; the children loved her, they would miss her; and I hoped her soul's onward journey would be peaceful; and I loved her, and I really loved her, and I was sorry. After a few minutes of this nonsensical giddy repetition, my instincts dictated that I lift my head to kiss her, and as I did, she took her final breath of air and then exhaled very slowly almost like she had a slow puncture. I watched her brow instantly un- furrow and every muscle in her face relax. Her expression was peaceful, and she appeared to have an ethereal glow about her. Her fingers uncurled out of my grip and it was over, that was it, she had gone.

No drama, no bells and whistles, nothing. Just an empty shell left behind. My mother was no longer inside her body.

Comfort squeezed my hand again, which was still clutching on to my mother's limp soulless hand and then stepped outside the room, leaving me alone with my disbelief and my mother's lifeless body. I just stared at her blankly immobilised and frozen. My emotions and breath seemed to have also escaped me. I was helpless, numb, empty and hollow. I felt like I had also left my body and I somehow became a detached observer floating over this extremely surreal tableau. I continued to silently stare at this body that only a few moments ago contained my own mother. The body that, as I remembered from my father's passing, would be cooling down rapidly, and would only take a few minutes to turn to cold stone.

I placed a soft kiss goodbye on her smooth forehead, knowing that this would be the last warm kiss I would be able to feel and allowed the tears to flow. But suddenly, they had all dried up as if I had in that moment also turned to stone.

The first realisation that went through my mind was 'I am an orphan.' I cannot describe easily the sudden feeling of loneliness and desperate isolation that came over me, but this feeling triggered a distant memory and I was instantly transported back into my childhood.

I was alone, in the dark, bobbing around; maybe even spinning ... It was hard to tell. I was in a space with no obvious boundaries. I may have even been floating, or sinking – there was no point of reference. It was very dark, pitch black. It almost felt as if I had turned my vision around to stare inside my own brain and witness my own thoughts flickering on and off in the distance. Like when you have your eyes shut tightly and eventually pulsating balls of colour and lights seem to permeate the filmy eyelid that usually blocks the outside world to the retina's scrutiny. Was I dead? There was a heavy silence, a silence that was so irritatingly loud, it was almost deafening. It felt like I had no body, almost like being in a flotation tank that is exactly the same temperature as your body. Suspended, in space, in mid air? Where was I? I couldn't shout; I had no voice. There was no one to hear me, even if I could. How did I get here? How do I get out? What should I do? What could I do? I could wait. I surrendered to the stillness. A rhythmic reverberation punctured the stillness. What was that? I listened and felt. It was a beat. A heartbeat. I waited, until it was time. Time for what? All these questions! Who was I asking them to? Myself ? Who was answering them? Me? Was I having a dialogue with myself ? I realised, yes, I was. I was thinking, and this was all I was. I was a thought, a seven-year-old thought. A seven-year-old thought with a beating heart.

This was a recurring dream of mine. I had it on a regular basis and always woke up feeling the loneliness lingering. This particular memory recall triggered more memories, as if I were watching a cinema projection in my mind of my own life. It felt very surreal, not dissimilar to the reports one hears of near-death experiences, where people have their life 'flash before them'. It was as if I too was scanning through my life's timeline. Searching for a point of reference, a nugget of familiarity, a moment of comfort. I wanted to be held, cuddled and supported. I wanted my mummy and daddy back. I wanted to be back in my mother's womb, all warm, protected and safe. I needed that feeling of comfort and security. Suddenly, my life was feeling very slippery, very fluid. I felt like I was melting, melting back into the foetal position.

My new status as a 38-year old orphan brought with it a rush of memories and family fable about my own birth, and it seemed important to recall how my mother had brought me into the world.

I was my parents' only child and certainly made an extremely interesting entrance into the big wide world. I came into my physical body 12 weeks earlier than expected, kicking and screaming and demanding constant attention from all those around me, from the first moment of my very premature infancy.

Every hour, from the artificially lit incubator in the corner, I would wail 'Allah, Allah' when hungry, much to the amusement of my Hindu mother, who was regrettably unable to place me lovingly upon her bosom, but instead dutifully pumped her expressed milk down a plastic tube fed through my nasal passage into my tiny tummy, the size of a cherry, that would be satisfied after only a minute.

As an only child, losing my parents felt incredibly painful, as there was no one else that shared my pain or deep sense of parental loss. I felt I needed to hold on to the story of my own beginnings, because as one part of my world and identity felt like it was crumbling under the ground I stood on, the other part – the story, felt like it became even more important to hold on to like a helium balloon to help lift me up and keep me safe.

I was nearly not my parents' daughter. I would like to tell you the story of my birth as it was told to me and at many a dinner party whilst growing up. As children we cherish and hold stories dear and true to our hearts, whether these may be comforting bedtime stories, fantastic fairy tales, fables with a moral message or simply our own personal story of who we are.

Stories shape us, and as a solution focused hypnotherapist, I believe very strongly in the power of positive metaphor as a medicine for the mind. If we can learn to create a story that helps encourage our mind to replay the positive story back with compassion, this can be the glue to help us piece together the grief-filled cracks.

My birth story became such an embellished family tale, that I sometimes wonder how much of it is true. The story goes like this:

Three months before I was due, my mum attended her routine maternity hospital check up. My dad was fast asleep in bed, just having done a night-shift, it was that day that I decide to make an early and very unexpected appearance. I am a tiny doll of a baby, weighing just over two pounds. My poor mother was totally confused and my dad, completely unaware that he was now a father. My mum was told that they needed to whisk me away to be incubated, because of infection risks and pre-natal 'complications', and congratulated her on the birth of her baby boy. (Yes, you read that right ... They told her she had had a baby boy!)

So, the news breaks of this tiny baby boy born too soon, into a see-through box. The visitors have to be deterred – a four-day quarantine has been sanctioned due to the potential infection risk to my immature immune system that is already in deep shock. Eventually, after the four days were over, my proud, and undeniably anxious, father gets to meet me – his new son. What a proud moment! Or was it? When presented with what seemed a tiny bundle of white shawl, poking out a tiny wrist brandishing the hugest-looking hospital band marked 'Pre-Natal Female', he nearly drops me, exclaiming, 'This is the wrong baby.' The nurses look puzzled and slightly amused as the panicking Indian gentleman looks at them in horror and exclaims, 'We had a boy. This label says it's a girl.'

What a mix-up. As it turns out, I was the right baby, and yes, I was a girl. Apparently, my unusually long umbilical cord was stupidly mistaken for a male part of the human anatomy, resulting in the midwife announcing in haste to my also confused mother, the birth of a baby boy, as they hurried me away to intensive care immediately after my unannounced entrance. Slightly worrying, and would in these days it would be a cause for litigation and press coverage, I am sure. But, back then, just a communication error, and a simple apology sufficed.

The two foot by one foot plastic box that became my home for the first four months of my life was warm, relatively comfortable and clean. It wasn't five star accommodation, by anyone's standards, but it was adequate, and served my needs – I couldn't really complain. The room service was faultless, my meals were always on time, and my bed changed on a daily basis. The lights were bright, day and night. Two long fluorescent tubes above my box-shaped bed seemed to have a language of their own – a hum, or a buzz, depending on their mood. The energy contained within them would spark and react at such speed, that this caused the light to dim and flicker. They seemed to be communicating to me. 'You are like us,' they would hiss and buzz to me. 'You are light, a little sparkle of light.' And, funnily enough, that's what I became, my name derived from the Hindu festival of lights, Dipawali, or Diwali, for short.

So that was how my mother saw me into the world, and now I had just seen her on her way out of it, and as she passed away from me, so did the last person who had been there when I was born. When we lose a parent, therefore, we not only lose their physical presence, but our shared experience, and a part of our story disappears into history. All we have left are our memories and these become the very poignant invisible stitches that hold the delicate fabric of our world together.

THE ADJUSTMENT PERIOD

You may have this book in your hands because you have also faced, or are about to face a deep loss, or something has changed or shifted in your world in some way or another and you are not sure how to deal with it. This may have been a recent event, or you could be harbouring a residual feeling of not being 'quite right' that you are looking to shake off. Either way, you are in the right place. This book will help.

Grief is not just something that you go through when somebody dies: there are many other experiences that can trigger grief. It may be you are facing a life-changing health issue that you have to come to terms with, or have lost something or someone you held dear, perhaps even the loss of your independence in some way. And it is not only loss that can bring about feelings of grief either – any change to a routine and way of life or way of being can do this. Maybe you are grieving your single life. Becoming a parent, not able to become a parent, miscarriage, abortion, getting married, not being able to find the 'one' for you, unhappy relationships, getting divorced, moving house or location, children leaving home, settling into a new environment, promotion, demotion, redundancy or retirement. Even loss of a pet or best friend, all these life and death experiences can trigger different kinds of grief.

I was talking to somebody recently who told me of his realisation that he was grieving his youth. A forty-something man who had just reunited with friends from 'back in the day', the stories and reminisced encounters from his late teens had instantly transported him back to the early nineties, and for him, these were the golden times, the hedonistic days and nights that merged into one, where he and his friends were young, free and single. They didn't have any responsible cares in the world apart from working out where the next party was going to be held and how they were going to get there. These are the kinds of experiences and times that we grieve. As time ticks on, and passes us by, we remember the past, quite often the best bits that cannot be re-created or reinacted, and we grieve the parts that made us feel good, feel better and most of all feel alive. If we had the ability to erase our memories, we may be able to also erase our grief. But, we need our memories; these keep us safe, so as a by-product, we have to accept the grief as well.

Changes, big and small, in our lives can contribute to feelings of anxiety and stress and can often lead to a grieving process, and this book is designed to support you through these feelings and this process, so you feel understood, you feel nourished and most of all you feel that you are most definitely not alone.