This was written on September 9th 2018.
Dear Mom
Today it has been two years since we spent what would turn out to be your last day together. It was a Friday. I still lived in Vesterbro, Copenhagen, but I took the trip to Albertslund every day to see you. That day I arrived early. For some reason I got there by 9.30 am. ”Mom isn’t up yet”, my dad said, as I opened the front door. ”Oh!, I said, ”Well, she has had many guests the last couple of days”. We made coffee and sat down and waited for her to wake up.
You had been discharged from the hospital that Tuesday. Very much against our will, but you had to go to a hospice, and there was no room for you. Anywhere. Wednesday T and I were checking out a terraced house we might want to move into, 150 meters from yours and dad’s house. You were so happy and excited. So were we, so the atmosphere was good and spirits were high. That carried through into Thursday right until we got the message. Your son, my brother, had cancer. You became desperate to get to him, but it wasn’t possible, because you had cancer yourself.
Time passed by, but you never really woke up. Sometimes you called out. To us, or your mother. We were by your side, and we knew something was wrong. I called the hospice and explained how you were doing. She listened. I’ll move her to the top of the list, she said. I thanked her. She probably knew what was happening, and I guess I did too. My sister had gone to be with my brother. I called her. They would both come back on Saturday. My dad, and I were still waiting, but what we were waiting for became more and more unclear. Finally, the home nurse arrived. She and my dad talked for a while, and then she called an ambulance. I rode with you. The paramedic asked, if he should resuscitate you in case the unthinkable happened. It hurt my heart to say ”no”. At the hospital the nurse told me to call whomever I needed to call. My other brother and his wife came. The other two were too far away. You were taken to a room in the ward you had been discharged from three days earlier.
You had slept all day. A kind of peace had pervaded at home, but in the emergency room you became uneasy and that continued in your room. They wanted to give you some pain medicine, but they couldn’t find a vein. A lot of time passed by. We held your hand and stroked your hair and your cheek. We cried. The began to set. It was so unbelievably beautiful. The sun had a red colour you only see in the autumn. It was easy to forget that it was autumn, because it was so warm. You were so uneasy. My brother suggested I sang to you. The lyrics and melody to a song went through my head, but every time I opened my mouth tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn’t do it. I knew you were dying, and I still couldn’t do it. They finally succeeded in doing what they needed to do, and you got some peace. The next morning you were no longer with us.
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