The Moment

It was 8pm Tuesday 14th June 2022. Laura's mam and sister had been at her side when I came into the room. As they left me and Laura alone I noticed her breathing had slowed a little. Our room was warm and bathed in the late evening sun. I opened the window wider to let some more air into the room. The evening was quiet, broken only by the birds singing their love songs to each other in the trees outside. Kneeling on the floor next to the bed, I held her hand and I told her how much of a nice evening it was. I told her the kids were okay and downstairs with family. I told her that we love her. Then I was silent for a while, listening to her slow, peaceful breathing, grateful that she was no longer feeling the pain that she had experienced over the weekend. 

The weekend had been awful. Even the word awful is a gross understatement. Throughout Friday night to Saturday morning she was up constantly in extreme pain. I didn't know what to do. I was woefully underprepared. When we fell asleep on the Friday night after coming back from hospital, I fully expected her to wake up and be communicative and lucid, despite her pain and confusion in the days previous, but that wasn't to be.  During the night the liquid morphine she had been taking gave her some relief but it wasn't long before she would wake up again, doubled over and crying out in agony. I was frightened that her cries would wake the kids. I was at a complete loss. I didn't know who to call or what to do to help. Up until then it was the worse thing I'd ever faced in my life. In her pain, she was more incoherent than ever. There were times during the night when she wanted to go to the toilet, or she led be to believe she did, but just trying to get her to sit upright on the edge of the bed was incredibly difficult. She would cry out in pain, saying she wanted to lie back down, then an instant later she would want back up. She was so confused and I was having to guess what she actually wanted. When she did want to go to the toilet it took ages again to get her to sit upright on the edge of the bed and then up to a standing position. Her pain was excruciating and my heart couldn't deal with the agony she was going through. We slowly walked, step after agonising step, and got through the door to the toilet. Just getting her there and back took half an hour. To this day I'm unsure if the kids actually heard it all. It would be a miracle of they didn't. This fact sits heavy with me. Laura didn't want to be here, the plan was to go to a hospice. She didn't want to house "tarnished" by this event but we had no option, such was the speed in which it happened. I have said many times that it's a sign of Laura's indomitable spirit that she only had to let her guard down once for her very aggressive cancer to take her. It was the first of too many long, painful nights. 

In the morning, when the kids woke up, I jumped up and took them downstairs. I quickly made sure they were settled. I must have been downstairs no longer than a minute when I heard movement upstairs. I ran up to find that she had gotten up and went to the toilet herself. She was still in severe pain but her pride and that inner strength got her there on her own. The task that drained both of us during the night, she pushed herself to do on her own. I couldn't believe it. Yet I could. As I helped her back bed I noticed that she was even more confused and incoherent but added to that she was now becoming upset and angry. I made her as comfortable as I could then I got the numbers I needed and called every number available to me for help. The Macmillan nurses were there in no time. They helped settle her, changed and cleaned her and upped her meds. I hoped she wouldn't have another night like that but sadly I was wrong. The following night was worse. Far worse. Fortunately, my sister stayed over to help me with the kids. That night I called the nurses out 4 times. Even though they had upped her painkillers, the threshold seemed to change along with the dose. I was reminded of when she was in labour with Aden. Nothing could take away her pain; gas and air, painkillers, epidural. Everything they tried during labour didn't seem to even touch the sides of her pain. This situation was similar in a lot of ways. Her pain seemed to increase exponentially with the dosage. 

On the Saturday afternoon I decided it was time to tell the kids. I gathered them close on the sofa and told them as best I could. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I can't even remember what I said. We cried and hugged. They said they wanted to see her but when we got upstairs to the bedroom door they changed their minds. Inwardly, I was glad and I know Laura would have been too. She, we, wanted them to remember her before she was ill. We wanted that to be the lasting memory. We made a deal outside the bedroom door. We would always be there for each other. We would try not to keep our feelings bottled up. We would cry if we wanted to and when we did, we would always have a cuddle. We invented our little mantra of "cuddles cure cries". It hasn't always been perfect but it has served us well.

I also made the decision not to let anyone outside family visit her. This was an incredibly hard decision, because outwith the kids and family, her friends were her life but she was so distressed that I didn't want to risk upsetting her and upsetting anyone that visited. I also know that, like the kids, she wouldn't have wanted any of them to see her in this way. She had said this to me many times. It was her wish and I hope that her friends will forgive me.

The following nights were still distressing and I had to call the nurses out again on more than a few occasions. On Monday, unable to cope with seeing her in constant pain, I requested that they increase her painkillers fully and let her go in peace. All I wanted was for her pain to end. It had been too much to bear. 

It was time. 

At a few minutes past 8, in our bright and sunny bedroom, when I broke the silence once again to tell her that everything would be okay, that she needn't worry, that we loved her, I noticed her breathing had slowed even more. Then at 5 past 8, time stood still for a moment. Just a fleeting, peaceful moment. There was no sound. A momentary pause. Silence. Then the silence grew. It grew beyond the room. It enveloped everything around me and everything the sun touched. Everything stood still. Everything I know, everything I knew and everything I am, was contained in that fleeting moment. My world stopped. Our world stopped.

And then in another second, when nature willed the world back to life, there was just me. Me, alone. Only Laura remained in that moment that was, fixed and frozen in time. The only sound that marked that moment passing was the deafening hush of my heart breaking; the only sign, the unending torrent of my tears.