The Psychopath: A True Story(3)
My mother helped me hold my head above water with her sympathetic, matter-of-fact, calm strength. Even after finding out that she was losing her battle with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (just weeks after discovering my husband was a bigamist), she was there for me. She was amazingly supportive throughout the last four months, helping me recover whilst I helped her with shopping and cooking, etc. I spent as much time with her as possible whilst she fought her cancer.
She told me to stand tall and to write my story down. She knew my experience could help other people and that telling it would help me. She told me that there must be others who had been through similar situations but if people weren’t talking about it then maybe I should.
The last time I saw my mum was in hospital on 14 August 2006. She was tired and uncomfortable. She was ready to let go but still had her sense of humour. The nurse asked her if she needed anything.
My mum replied, ‘Yes, a big rock!’
The nurse looked confused, so I added calmly, ‘It’s to hit her over the head with.’
‘Ah, I see,’ said the nurse. ‘I don’t think I have one of those.’
Mum didn’t like to make a fuss but she was in a lot of pain and struggling to breathe. It was hard to see her in so much discomfort, so I told her to make sure that she asked for more morphine if she needed it. At that stage the hospital knew it was only a matter of time until she died and they were just trying to make her as comfortable as possible. I knew that visit was probably the last time I would see her and tried not to show her how sad I was, even though my heart was breaking all over again. We talked about writing my book, and she told me she had no concerns about me at all. She said, ‘I want you to have my wedding ring. I’ve had some good years out of it, forty-nine to be precise, so I hope it will see you happy too. And Mary, keep at it – it’s all going to work out for you.’
I didn’t want to leave her that night and thought about sleeping in the chair by her side but she told me she was tired and I had to go home to my children. So I left her with a notebook of mine so she could write things down if she wanted to. I hugged her and told her I loved her, then said I would see her tomorrow, knowing in my heart that I might not but at the time selfishly hoping we could have at least one more day together.
When it became obvious early the next morning that she only had a short time left, the nurses wanted to call us back in but Mum told them not to. She didn’t want us to bear the distress of seeing her die. So the nurses only called us at the very last minute and by the time we arrived it was too late. Mum died on the morning of 15 August 2006.
A week later, on 22 August 2006, we held a celebration of my mother’s life with a humanist ceremony at Mortonhall Crematorium. We had to move the celebration from the small chapel to the big chapel because so many people said they were coming.
Professionally she was an interior designer but she had also been a campaigner for the arts, a hostess of wonderful parties, and a collector of lost souls. She had touched many lives and made them all better. Amongst various other things she had sat on the Art in Architecture awards panel for the Saltire Society and travelled all around Scotland looking at buildings and showing appreciation for them. She absolutely hated the Mortonhall Crematorium building and had said on many occasions that if she could, she would knock it down and start over. However we had no other choice of venue so the celebration of her life as well as the cremation were held there.
It was a beautiful summer day and I stood outside the crematorium with my father and three older siblings waiting for people to arrive, feeling like my chest was being ripped open. It was suffocating. More and more people arrived, and as per her wishes, everyone wore lots of colours as a mark of respect. It was overwhelming: 150 brightly clad people, each saying what an amazing woman my mother was and how much they had appreciated having her in their lives. She had been such a bright light to so many people and it helped to know her life had had such meaning.
I don’t remember the service at all, though I know it was positive and validating that so many people loved her and wanted to be there. I believe that my brother and eldest sister spoke but I have no recollection of it. I think I was just trying to hold myself together and keep from dissolving into a puddle. Even now, I can’t think of her without my chest burning and big fat tears rolling down my cheeks.
In line with Mum’s request we had a party back at her house afterwards with champagne and smoked salmon. Everyone had a story to tell about her – about how she had helped them, how she had inspired them, how her life had meant so much to so many people. It truly was a celebration of her life, just as she had wanted.
The next day I listened to the news and fell about laughing, probably the first time I had laughed since she died. There had been a fire at Mortonhall Crematorium shortly after we had left. The door to the crematorium had not been closed properly and it had set fire to the roof. It had taken five fire engines and twenty-five firefighters nearly six hours to put out the blaze. Thankfully no one was hurt. I called the crematorium and asked if it had been my mother’s cremation that had set off the fire and the telephone operator nervously told me, ‘No, no, there were no human remains in the cremation chamber when the fire started.’
‘Why on earth was the cremator lit then?’ I asked.
I just got a rather short and mumbled reply and then they quickly hung up.
My mother didn’t believe in life after death, but if there’d been one thing she could do it would have been to burn down that building, so to me it was utterly delightful that the fire at the crematorium had happened on that day. Also it was something that Mum would have found highly amusing.