Hello Stranger

I don’t know how I found my feet. I don’t know how I kept my breaths steady as I followed Chloe with her tears streaming down her cheeks and crossed the landing to Mum’s bedroom.

Chloe held back, my little jitterbug hovering just a second with wide eyes, not quite sure whether I wanted her there or not.

I did.

I needed her there. I needed her hand in mine. I needed her at my side, and at Mum’s side, because she’d given us so much. Loved us so much. My beautiful freckle-faced girl had only been with us a fleeting moment of time in our world, but it was worth a lifetime.

She was worth a lifetime.

The man I’d become, so sure of his footing, was falling. The terrified child within me was peering through with scared eyes, no matter how hard I tried to hide him.

Chloe’s head was on my shoulder, my hand gripped tight as I leant in and took hold of Mum’s fingers.

I sucked in a breath as Mum’s eyes flickered open, and I saw it there in her smile, the pure joy in her heart as she saw my jitterbug there alongside me.

Her eyes were happy, even as she neared her end.

Her grip on mine was firm, even as her body reached its limits.

“I love seeing you two together,” she rasped. “I’ll rest easy now.”

I knew Chloe’s tears were streaming without looking. I knew her smile would be magical to match my mum’s, love and pain both at once.

Then Mum’s attention was all on me, and I understood more than words could ever say. That connection. That love. That infinite bond between child and mother that nothing will ever stand a chance of replacing.

“I’m so proud of you,” she said, “Honestly, sweetheart, I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of the man you’ve become.”

I couldn’t hold back the sobs, the tears.

There were tears in her eyes, too. I could hear her straining, her desire to speak at odds with her body’s desire to breathe.

We were quiet as we sat together, all three of us, breaths in rhythm as hers faded. I knew the end was getting nearer, and so did Chloe. She excused herself to go to the toilet, leaning in to kiss Mum on the forehead before she went. I could see it a mile off, that sweetness in her scurrying away to give us our last final moments together.

I knew what Mum was going to say before she said it. She gave my hand the very slightest squeeze as soon as Chloe was out on the landing.

“Don’t…” she wheezed. “Don’t you… let her go…”

I didn’t answer, just squeezed her hand right back.

“I love you, Logan,” she rasped, and I nodded.

“I love you too, Mum.”

Then she left me, giving me one final smile before her eyes closed. I felt her give up. I felt the very second she let out a sigh and slumped a final slump against her pillows. I knew she wouldn’t be opening those twinkling eyes again.

I’d seen it enough times over the years to know that her mind was done, just the body slowing down, shutting down, the smallest of breaths. I couldn’t stand it. The tears fell, and the little boy in me piped up, one single whisper.

“Mum.”

Chloe must have been hovering on the landing. She stepped in when she heard my whisper and wrapped her arms tight around my shoulders as my tears came flooding, matching them with sobs of her own.

We cried. We breathed. I held Mum’s hand as her body kept on rasping in tiny shallow breaths, and Chloe held mine.

The tears calmed to streaks, both of us in silence as we sat there. Both of us lost in thoughts as she faded away. Fading as her petals fell, leaving just the stem, a broken body that gave up at the final mile.

It was sunrise when her breaths finally stopped.

The sunlight was creeping in through the curtains when I knew Mum was really gone and the little boy inside broke his heart. Gasps and sobs, hands trembling as the truth hit, stabbing deep.

That retch of no, no, NO, when your whole body racks with the pain. Crying, begging, pleading for another minute, just another minute, just another word.

But it was time.

This time was really the time.

No hopes, no miracles, no more smiles on her face or twinkles in her eyes.

No more cackling laughter.

My mum was gone.43ChloeWe sat at her side, sobbing. We held each other. There was nothing words could ever say through the pain, through the loss… but there was more. There was more than the pain and the loss – enough to shine like beautiful warm lamplight in the pitch darkness.

Love.

I could feel it in the air all around us.

Love that consumes you completely.

Love that consumes your heart and wraps up your soul.