Conquering Love

Resuscitation, grief and courage in a heartshell

Mum passed away three weeks ago. I’ve had a vague weird sensation that someone has cut the anchor for about the same amount of time. No surprise there. It’s six weeks since we were told she was ill. It’s five weeks since she refused resuscitation or intervention to make her a bit more ‘comfortable’ for a short while.

Mum requested not to be resuscitated. ‘No?’ Is that right.. ‘Mum?’ You’ve already got that clear in your head? Her mind was so clear. Unlike mine. It was her decision, and I respected that. We all did.

Me? I’m fine. Until I go to the café at the top of town and chat to the owner. One little baby has turned into a toddler I notice as she walks gingerly towards her Mum’s table. That’s when I realise it’s been a while since I’ve been here. ‘How are you?’ The owner asks us, thinking similarly judging by her expression. Smiling, we explain,

‘I have been in England a lot over the summer’, and then I add, ‘Mum was ill’, and then casually, well that was the plan, I casually say, ‘Mum passed away’ and out of nowhere there are tears prickling my eyes. No warning.

Traffic lights flashed red when they’d been on green! Obviously, a circuitry fault.

Eyes full of water. A pathetic attempt at a smile. Ha!

‘Fine!’ are you?’ Asks self to self.

God knows. There’s me, and there’s me. One of me ‘has got this’ as they say and the other me does what the hell it wants, when it wants.

Later I look up bereavement. Thought I’d find something to help me   us out. I came across something written by Julie Churchill, -

    ‘Tears are an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death’s perfect punctuation mark is a smile’.

Mm.  I like her comment about a complete life. Mum had lived completely until she reached eighty-one.

This morning, I got up early. I hadn’t planned that either but half asleep in bed we hear that one of my daughter’s three dogs is feeling nauseous. Having heard the dog heaving my husband bolts out of bed, shoots downstairs and opens the front door hoping the dog would be sick in the garden rather than in the house at least.  No such luck of course. Thinking we’d escaped having to clear up a sticky, nasty mess I find the floor all wet right under the electricity extension. It’s been there at least half an hour when I discover it by accident. My immediate concern was the wooden floor but probably the electricity connection should have been my worry.

As we were all up well before daylight, I got dressed and grabbed my camera and headed for the beach, hoping for a sunrise to die for. (Did I really use that metaphor? Is there no limit to the other me?)

I arrive, camera ready but it’s a grey sky. Silver sea. Sun is stuck behind thick cloud like a hangover on the horizon. Dull and misty, soft tones of mist on grey add a touch of magic to the seascape, but nothing to…no I’m not using that phrase again.

Good. The two of us agree on one thing this morning! That’s progress.

But wait! Somebody had made my visit worthwhile after all. There, in front of me, was a message in the sand. Forget the dazzling horizon, the stunning waves and a sparkling orange sunrise, this was even better. On the beach was a huge, stone heart. Pebble heart to be more precise, left with love, by some-wonderful-one from the day before.

Love without words or smiles, without a voice. A kindness of heart laid bare that neither the sea nor the night nor the wind had dared blur. I couldn’t help wonder who had made the heart. What were they thinking at the time? How were they feeling? If we met in the street could we converse? Were they from afar and on holiday here like thousands every summer? Whether it was pebbles, sand or even conkers, we obviously had at least one language in common.

This pebble heart took me straight back to the days in the hospital with Mum. She had a room with a huge window that looked across a triangular square. (Yes that is what I meant to say.) The very tops of two cherry trees and a silver birch reached her view on the third floor where she was. As I stood at her window that reached from toe to ceiling, I could see a patch of green grass below and a path and in the middle of that path there was a heart of conkers.

Every day.

Sometimes it was a heart filled in with conkers. Some days it was an outline of a heart made of conkers. The squirrels were not bothered by the shape of this open fruit bowl on the ground. They came down the trees and took the conkers one by one, so the heart would slowly lose its form through the day as the squirrels reached supper.

Who was making these conker hearts? We all asked that question more than once. It was so uplifting to think that somebody had the empathy to do that. The message of compassion flew up, up, and up, flying from ward to ward, as clear as Nightingale’s song. Everybody got it. It didn’t matter what your mother tongue was. Empathy. Sympathy. Heart. An air hug. Disarming; you were reduced to nothing more and nothing less than a heart-warming smile.

Smiles were priceless on the palliative ward. It wasn’t anymore only the palliative team who was visiting Mum by this point. It was the ‘purple butterfly’ team; often volunteers with hearts of gold who help families face end-of-life care. Yes, a heart of conkers couldn’t have been more soothing as Mum began to turn her breath inwards, in honour of metamorphosis, in honour of the beauty of flight and the weightlessness of butterfly wing.

One day I caught sight of a girl kneeling on the path. She was probably about twelve, in school uniform, filling in the heart. I will never know if it was all her doing, or if she had been inspired to top up the conkers into another full heart after seeing it was beginning to lose its shape. Maybe that was it. Somebody had begun a custom that nobody wanted to let go of. Maybe it was a whole school class who pass the hospital daily taking it in turns. Or volunteers; the hospital was full of volunteers who worked hard to help the hospital function even better. Some of them drove mini-electric buggies for patients who couldn’t walk far in this huge hospital that employs eleven thousand employees. Whoever it was, the gesture was conquering vulnerable hearts, people like us, hungry for love to hang on to.

It was one of the loveliest things, as Mum faded away. We told her about the conker hearts. She was too ill to even slide off her bed for a second and peep down and watch the squirrels. Soon she was gone and we were without words or smiles, without her voice.

Just salty tears and conker hearts.

I wanted to write about the hearts but those days were full of turmoil and pain and busy hospital care that never stops. Time escaped us all then. I had put aside the memory. The moment had gone. I couldn’t make it real again. But today, the pebble heart resuscitated that memory and good things. I realised today that it isn’t the first time I have knowingly smiled at the beach. Passers by who make the effort to look and observe, inherit sand castles with bridges, shell walls and moats, sand sculptures of dragons and hearts. The sand, shifting as it always will, attracts the heart of us because transition is home.

Memories come alive again and again, as does love, thank goodness, because it’s the love in our veins that makes us feel strong.

PEBBLES OF LOVE AT SUNRISE RESUSCITATING MEMORIES by Pipp

Thank you for reading. Have a good weekend. Lots of love