The closing curtain

As a 19-year-old second-year university student, the biggest question on my mind. Was that surrounding the technicalities of my student living washing machine. Are you supposed to mix black and whites? Can socks and pants go in together? What are all these bloody symbols? Questions so silly by nature, and yet my most significant concern.

That was until, one evening, I had just visited mum in hospital, and discovered one of these visits will be my last.

When I found out Mums life had an expiry date, the questions became a lot more existential. How will I live without her? Will my life ever have meaning?

But the question that kept me up at night,

Will I be able to say goodbye?

Mum set the world alight with her optimism, her cancer may have been terminal, but her will to live defied any odds doctors threw her way.

That's the thing about the mind, it's the most powerful tool we can invest in, and Mum fundamentally understood this. Her 11-year battle was a mental rollercoaster, a complex system of emotional decay.

To friends, her traumas were endless, and a future of happiness appeared unlikely. However, that is not how she saw it, to her, life was a blessing, each waking moment was a theatre of wonder and dreams. She was a survivor who danced through pain.

And, because of this, the thought of her passing was complete insanity.

So, On the 22nd of October 2019, pulling up outside Princess Grace Hospital, I was in no way prepared to say goodbye.

The 25-minute journey to central London had me pouring my heart out to the Uber Driver, a modern-day therapist. He even provided complimentary chewing gum, some water, and sweet jazz, to make the journey as comfortable as possible. Warranting him a healthy 4-star rating, which should have been 5 but I got careless with technology.

The Princess Grace Hospital has a magnificent ground floor, a modern interior resembling a hotel lobby in a top tier Turkey resort. Which was soothing and depressing simultaneously. It was a momentary distraction from our final farewell.

I wanted to get this right. You get one chance at a farewell, it needed to be perfect, every word and syllable needed a deep rooted meaning.

But the moment it was just me and mum, all that went out the window.

I wanted to say 'I love you, but I couldn't muster the courage to move my mouth muscles. I wanted to tell her ' I'm going to be ok', but that felt like a lie. I was distraught, my best friend and mother was leaving this earth. What did this mean for me? How could I ever know happiness again?

I didn't say a word.

But Mum, being the fighter she was,

reached out, grabbed my hand and squeezed. We knew this wasn't a goodbye.

Death is something we fear, but it doesn't need to be. There is something peaceful about watching someone letting go surrounded by loved ones.

She held on for us, gripping tightly at life's collar, a tiresome battle that never let her be. But in our goodbye, I realised she was free, her pain extinguished.

I can't wait for the day that she'll embrace me with a hug as we meet again.

Love you, Mum