Jenny’s Story

I’ve always known how my mother was going to die. Ever since I was tiny, I would beg her to stop smoking, and would lie on the couch crying as I pictured her dying prematurely of lung cancer and leaving me alone in the world. It wasn’t until she was 57, and already diagnosed with COPD, that she finally managed to quit, and I’m sure that this gave us extra years together. I knew she would never get to old age, but I also knew deep down that she didn’t really want to either. 

I’d had an unconventional upbringing, and our relationship had sometimes been difficult. Mum was a free spirited hippie who dragged me to festivals and house parties, and moved us around the country a lot when I was small. I had no father and no siblings, and she was my entire world.  I didn’t always feel fully assured of her love as I grew up, or that I was the most important thing in her life. She partied and drank a lot, and I often felt that she prioritised her social life over me. During my teenage years I would regularly have to put her to bed after she drank too much, and was often home alone, making my own meals while she was out with friends. We struggled to understand each other as I am the polar opposite of her, with her wildness and zest for life. She couldn’t fathom how her daughter was so quiet and bookish and reserved, and she would often let me know this during her more unpleasant alcohol-fuelled moments. Some people would tell me how lucky I was to have such a fun mum, as these people clearly had no idea how it felt to live in such an unstable environment. Yet somehow we were also incredibly close; I was her sidekick and we shared everything together while she taught me to love music, art, nature and animals and to stand up for causes I believed in. She always told me she hated it when I went back to school after the summer, as she loved us spending so much time together. Our house was full of plants, artwork, exotic foods and loud music, and although I craved normality, I also found her utterly fascinating and inspiring.

She finally slowed down a little in her fifties, and our relationship grew and strengthened.  We enjoyed each other's company so much, and spent most of our free time together. I would call her every day and almost always be greeted with the same words- “Hello my darling girl, you read my mind, I was just thinking about you”. We loved thrifting, concerts and trips away, and working on art, sewing and gardening projects together. My husband adored her too, and we loved nothing better than having a meal and drinks with her and listening to all her stories of her wild and crazy life. She was truly my best friend, and I worried as she got older how on earth I could possibly manage without her, when I’d kept her as the centre of my world. With no close friends locally and no children, mum was genuinely everything to me. I could feel that she was trying to make up for the earlier years, although she would never admit as much to me. Although she was my favourite person to be with, part of me was still hurt by the earlier days, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I loved her, despite her telling me all the time. 

Her COPD began to worsen, and she was hospitalised in November 2022. They found a tumour in her lung, and it looked like it had spread to her adrenal gland. Mum was incredibly zen about it, as she pointed around the ward at all the sick people and said, “I don’t want this” and I knew she meant it. We lay on her hospital bed together, and she stroked my head as she joked about how annoyed she would have been if she’d lived a good, clean life and then got cancer. She told me she didn’t want to leave me, but would be with my grandad watching over me. She said she wouldn’t be far away as we were too close to be separated. I could barely speak, as I knew how badly she wanted me to stay strong. I didn’t dare tell her just how terrified I was at the thought of being in the world without her. After talking to her friends and her doctor, she agreed to start treatment so that she could have more time with me, and she was sent home to get stronger for the biopsy and MRI. A few days later, she wasn’t answering my calls, and after a couple of hours of trying not to panic, I drove over to check on her. I found her sitting and sewing in her chair, listening to Sounds of the Seventies. “You weren’t answering your phone” I sobbed, as she held me tightly. “I’m so sorry for giving you a fright,” she said. “I mean, I will have to give you a fright one day, but not today”.  I wondered how on earth I would cope watching her slowly battle the cancer, but in the end I didn’t have to. The day before her biopsy, I found her at her home and I could see that she was dying. We got her to hospital, but the tumour had blocked her lung and it collapsed and she also had bronchopneumonia and I knew that treating it only meant keeping her here for a slow, painful death via chemotherapy, that she desperately didn’t want. I sat with her in the hospital, playing her favourite music while drifted in and out, sometimes nodding her head to the beat. She even managed to laugh at my jokes, all as she gasped for breath. Friends sent her voice messages for me to play for her, and my husband came and they were able to say that they loved each other. But at the end, I wanted it to only be me and her, the way it had always been. I told her a hundred times how much I loved her; those words I’d struggled to say for so long now poured out of me. A healthcare assistant held her other hand as I told her stories of mum’s wild life, and said how it was a miracle she made it this far, then I looked over and saw she had taken her last breath. She left me just after Christmas 2022, 1 month after her diagnosis and 7 days after her 72nd birthday, and my world collapsed. I finished up the details with the hospital staff, then walked to the car park at 4 am, and fell into my husband’s arms screaming and sobbing.

Her friends were all devastated, but all agreed that she timed it so well, avoiding the brutal treatment and living life til the end. They all told me how much she loved me, how proud she was of me, and how I had always been her shining light. Some also said how she had admitted to them that she hadn’t always been the best parent. They all told me that in her messages to them telling them about her cancer, her main concern was only for me and for how I would cope. I wish that insecure, anxious little girl knew back then what I know now. 

The initial grief has been nothing short of horrific, mum has been my whole entire family wrapped up in one person, and I feel lost and alone in the world without her. I cannot yet come to terms with the fact that the most vibrant, fun, positive person I ever knew, is now just a memory, and that everything will carry on without her. Figuring out how to get through life without her to help and support me will be a never ending challenge.

My relationship with her has been the most important to me but also the most complicated, and I have spent years trying to figure out why certain things happened the way they did, and how to understand her and her parenting. I have since read theories which suggest that our spirit chooses our parents before we are born, and that we are here having a human experience in order to learn and to grow. I wonder if mum and I were put together for us to learn about acceptance and forgiveness.  She was a one-off, who lived life to the full and on her own terms, and was in awe of the beauty of the world and all it had to offer. I know how lucky I was to have had her for so long, when so many people have to navigate so much of their lives without the love and guidance of their mothers. Looking through her notebook after she died, amongst the curry recipes and lists of songs she loved, I found a quote she’d written down- “Goal in life, die young as late as you can” and it seems like she achieved her goal.