Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye Ma
At 6.45 this morning there was a loud knock on my door. I woke instantly. ‘Yes’ I called. The door was unlocked and so the nurse outside opened it and asked me if I knew where I was. Of course I did – it was my mother was on the drugs.
I was in room 24 in St. Monica’s ward in Galway hospital and my Mam was just down the corridor. I’d said goodnight to her at about 12.55 the previous evening and told her where I’d be if she needed me.
We’d been listening to Leonard Cohen – Live in London and humming along.
My mother was doing an increasing amount of morphine and hadn’t been saying anything for some days as the tube that entered her nose went down somewhere inside her and she was supposed to excrete through this tube. That’s the sort of thing my mother wouldn’t be caught dead doing and so this tube was only for show.
Contrary to the expectations of the extraordinary nursing staff, she didn’t struggle for life for the last 10 minutes and give me a chance to hold her for her last breath. Instead, she breathed in, breathed out and left it at that. I don’t think she could have been dead for more than 3 minutes when I got to her and suspect that my mother wouldn’t be caught dead dying in front of anybody.
I’ve just arrived back in Dublin and can’t remember being so glad to be going to my own bed and it’s been a long, spinning sort of day. It has been an honour to have spent a big chunk of my mother’s last five days at her side.
Eileen O’Neill Born 10th November 1920. Died 16th September 2009
Rest in Peace
Sorry for your loss
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