ONE OCTOBER MONDAY, 2013

Tick tock, twelve o’clock…

A ’phone call at the office; it’s the hospital (of course) -

Wanting to know when I would be available “to converse”

“So… When do you want me there?” I pathetically enquire

“Now, preferably” comes a scarily emphatic reply

Packing up my workspace, I leave without really knowing,

Yet inwardly dreading, what the afternoon might bring

Tick tock, one o’clock…

After battling through traffic and struggling to find a spot,

Taking deep breaths and digging deep for courage I’ve not got,

Trying to find any of so many desperate procrastinations,

Hoping against hope to shirk off this sense of awful realisation,

Sudden vital text messages to send, parking fees, those mundane chores

Anything to delay the need to be heading through those doors.

Tick tock, two o’clock…

Listening to the constant background hiss of an oxygen mask

I’m standing in a doorway looking at mum’s bed, too scared to ask

Suddenly, before I can, I'm whisked off to the “Relatives’ Room”

And a doctor whispers about symptoms and “pathways” through the gloom

Their concern seems to be of making mum “as comfortable as possible”

And asking “someone”, i.e. me (!) to make “that” dreadful call.

Tick tock, three o’clock…

A telephone provides a vital link to the world beyond this bubble

As I can still type words that said out loud cause me to struggle

When I try cough out these shards, my voice just cracks, and I start to cry

Yet still my Beloved’s come to hold my hand, and my sister’s on her way,

Sometimes we’re “sent away” to pace and wait in these “sitting” rooms,

And different heads seek other families for whom darkness also looms.

Tick tock, four o’clock...

Watching the deepest of sleeps and the shallowest of breaths

We sit at mum’s bedside just to “be there” if she awakes

Cups of tea and sandwiches measure a mother’s final day

In this way an afternoon and a lifetime simply slips away

The end of life is ticked down in plastic cups and stirring sticks

She’s held on tight ’til five o’clock, but we’re not sure she’ll manage six.

Tick tock, five o’clock...

The Church Minister arrives pulling up another bedside chair

We leave them alone for their one-sided chat and silent prayers

Afterwards, he talks to us sharing some fond memories that shine

Asks about my sister traveling, wondering if there’ll be enough time

He seems drained from having seen far too much of this lately

More members of his aging congregation to see when he goes away

Tick tock, six o’clock…

Shifts have changed, new nurses come to turn my mother over

Her breathing seems to get far worse, one rasp and then another

Her eyes snap open briefly but I don't think she really sees me

But perhaps she did in which case I was the last thing she got to see

She settles down, her breathing thin, the last few grains of life’s sand

There’s nothing else that I can do but sit and hold her hand

Tick tock, stop the clock…

I’m talking nonsense sitting next to her when my mother seems to… stop

No fanfares, no choirs of angels, life to death in just one small step

I find a nurse who sadly agrees and starts an all-too-familiar process

I kiss mum’s head, and say goodbye, give her hair a last caress

Now one of many faded blooms in hospital rooms a-plenty

My sister’s still on the motorway, time of death six-twenty.

Martin A W Holmes, June 2015