I'm starting this post with a content warning. This article is a way of getting my feelings out, so if reading about death, grief, cancer, or the pandemic isn't for you, feel free to pass on by.
I started writing this article at the start of 2020, with the intention of talking about the loss of my mum six months after her death. However, I think we all know what happened that year and it just felt inappropriate.
Some background to answer the question: why now?
I lost my mum five years ago today. As I said in my intro, this article was going to be written and published to reflect on my thoughts and feelings six months on.
But, as we all now know, 2020 wasn't going to be any 'normal' year. When it came close to publication in April 2020, the world was at a standstill and 1,146,596 people had lost their lives to a virus and, by the end of the pandemic almost a quarter of a million people had died with coronavirus.
Because the six-month anniversary fell at a time when Covid-positive deaths were at their peak of up to 1,122 a day, I just didn't feel right talking about my experience of losing a loved one when so many other families were losing theirs.
As it came to the first anniversary, in October 2020, Covid cases were back on the rise but not at the level seen earlier in the year, but the time still didn't feel right.
We're now heading towards the five-year anniversary, so maybe now is the right time to reflect on how I feel.
Introducing my mum
My mum, Sue, was one of the most kind-hearted women you could ever meet. The eldest of seven children to farm-working parents, looking after her younger siblings was just a fact of life.
Mum was born a few miles away in Burghfield, but grew up in Shinfield, as I wrote about last week. She was Shinfield through and through, even gaining the title of Miss Shinfield in 1971 at the annual Shinfield Carnival.
From her mid-teens she worked in the village shop, and it was there she met my dad who worked at his family's garage next door.
She got involved with the Hearn family business but, in the early 80s, her focus turned to bringing up me and my sister.
As we grew up, mum and dad got involved with running the Grazeley Youth Club, and later joining the committee of Grazeley Village Hall.
Mum loved the youth club in particular. Giving local children and young people something to do in the pre-Internet days was what she was good at.
The activities mum was involved with are near endless. Arranging weekly activities, trips away to Avon Tyrrell, the Halloween parties, bonfire nights, even having groups of Helen’s friends over to our house to rehearse dancing for talent shows, I know so many people of my generation would have been touched by her time with the club.
It wasn’t just at Youth Club where mum made an impression on young lives. Using her love of cooking, she took a job at Ryeish Green School as kitchen assistant, working her way up to kitchen manager. During her time here – way before Jamie Oliver – she challenged school food standards and did her best to make improvements with the pitiful budget she had available.
Then, in her words, she graduated and moved to become a chef at the University of Reading, making breakfasts for hundreds of students each morning. Same early starts, same hot kitchens, but even better stories – like the time when the agriculture students dug up a local resident’s lawn and transferred it, gnomes included, to the hall of residence corridors.
In 2009, mum went to the doctors after finding a lump in her breast. This was swiftly confirmed as cancer and, some surgery and radiotherapy later, it had been removed.
It was during the radiotherapy, however, that mum injured her back. Something 'tweaked' in her back causing her the gradual onset of, a thankfully temporary, paralysis. Mum was a stubborn, determined woman and she did walk again, even taking her GP by surprise when she turned up for an appointment, hobbling towards him with a walking frame.
Whilst trying to diagnose what was wrong with her back that revealed another cancer. This time it was in one of her kidneys and, some good news, it wasn't a secondary cancer related to the breast cancer, it was wholly contained within the kidney and easy to remove. Sure enough, one kidney down and mum was on the road to recovery.
Everything went well for the next 8 years, with check-ups not showing anything untoward and, as far as they could see, no return of the cancer.
When my husband and I got engaged, my mum was keen for us to get married as quickly as possible - just in case. Happily, though, she was there to walk me down the aisle.
Now, I'm not going to say those intervening years weren't problem-free, but mum was well and mobile enough to take a few holidays, including my husband and I introducing my parents to cruise holidays, which they loved.
Monday 21st October 2019. Lee and I had not long got back home, just a matter of hours, after a weekend with friends in London and a night at the Hammersmith Apollo at Jonathan Van Ness' show. We'd just sat down to eat our evening meal when the phone rang. It was dad.
I don't remember much of what he actually said, but whilst I was on the phone I had grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled words and phrases to relay messages to Lee sat beside me.
I found that piece of paper recently (and have since mislaid it again), hearing the words in my head again as I read them on the page. The two that stood out to me were "3 weeks".
I went in to my grieving as soon as the call ended. I sobbed so hard, I honestly don't think I could have cried any more. There was no way I could drive back to Reading now. I had a few things I needed to tidy up with work in the morning but, as soon as that was done, I'd head back.
Mum had been having kidney problems and, after a short holiday in Scotland, was admitted to hospital the day after getting back home.
These kind of open wounds were starting to appear around her waist and very little was helping with the pain they were causing. At one point Germolene cream was giving temporary relief until a doctor intervened to say its overuse was causing more skin damage. In the end it was just simple ice packs that numbed the pain.
I managed to remember my way up to the ward, it had only been a few weeks since I was last there for a quick visit. Dad was at the bedside with my sister and two eldest nieces. They managed tearful smiles as they saw me walk in. I held mums hand and she stirred slightly.
"Hello, darling." she said, just managing to raise a slight smile. At least she knew I was there. She was comfortable, but that was only down to the huge amount of pain relief she was on.
I'm so glad I saw her calm and at rest, because I wouldn't see her like that again.
About half one the next afternoon when there was a phone call from the hospital; the consultant wanted to see us. We pretty much dropped everything and headed over to the hospital.
Overnight, mum had had a large bleed from her wounds. He wasn't sure that she'd survive another one of that size so we should prepare ourselves as the original prognosis had gone from three weeks to just days.
Mum was in severe discomfort. Before we'd got there she had been on dialysis to help support her kidney but, of course, that was stripping out all the painkillers that were in her system. I don't think there was a minute that went by without her writhing in the bed in pain. The nurses did what they could to help; they brought ice packs to help numb the wounds, the morphine was increased and boosters were given.
As the nurses came to give morphine, she begged for another, and another to put her out of her misery. It was so hard to tell her "if we could, we would". Seeing someone you love in that much pain, begging you to end it is so heartbreaking knowing there's nothing you can do.
One thing we could do, though, was help ease some discomfort from her dry and chapped lips with sips of water and some Vaseline a nurse found for us.
As the painkillers started to take effect mum spoke her last words to us.
Every time she took a sip of that water, she'd mumble something.
"Not too much."
"Not too much, you'll dilute it."
"Can you get me the cornflour?"
In her painkiller-induced sleepy state she was making gravy! 😂 Once a cook, always a cook, I guess!
We stayed until about half ten by her side, until she finally settled enough to start to sleep. The nurses did offer the use of a guest room, but we decided not to.
Should we have stayed? I don't know. I guess that's something that will forever haunt me as, in the early hours of the morning, around 4.30, the phone rang.
Dad knocked on the bedroom door, we had to go. Throwing clothes on, we were in the car in a matter of a couple of minutes and headed to the hospital. Parking as close as we could, we headed inside and up to the ward. The nurses met us at the door and I immediately knew it was too late.
Mum had died just minutes before.
We rounded the corner and passed the nurses' station to her cubicle; the curtains were drawn. The whole ward was silent except for the distant beeps from a machine piercing through the nothingness.
Dad and I sat beside her at either side of the bed. We didn't really speak except for the occasional "are you ok?".
There was a point where, in the quiet, I could hear something. Distant music. It was Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time coming through mum's bright red headphones hanging up beside her. It was a little moment of light amongst everything.
The on-call doctor came by the declare the death, and was so kind and respectful, talking to mum as if she was just dozing. "Hello, Susan, I'm Dr [I forget], I'm just going to listen to your heart." "I'm just going to check such-and-such."
When it got to about 6am, I felt that was about the earliest respectable time I could phone my husband to tell him the news. Immediately, he said he'd take the day off work and come down to be with us. He did at least 5 trips back and forth along the M4 over the next few weeks, and we were all ever-so grateful for that.
There was a point where we were asked to go into the side room for a short while, just whilst they tidied things up.
When we came back to the cubicle, the nurses had indeed tidied around mum, packed away her things, brushed her hair, and there was a sweet, floral fragrance in the air.
We sat with her for about another hour, leaving at around 7.30. Before we left, though, we both noticed that it looked like mum was smiling.
I've read a bit about what happens to the body after we die, and Caitlin Doughty's Ask a Mortician YouTube channel is one of my recent binge-watch finds, but what I've read says that 'smiling' after death isn't possible.
But that's what we saw and what it looked like to us. So, that's how we're going to remember her - smiling at being free from pain.
We left the ward and headed a short way down the corridor before meeting two porters with an empty gurney. We held the door open for them and they passed, thanking us and carrying on the chat between them.
They most likely had no idea who we were, but we knew exactly where they were headed. We couldn't have timed our departure any better.
After a couple of hours at home, we went to see my sister and tell her the news. With small children to get ready for school, and being heavily pregnant, we didn't feel it right to call her earlier.
She answered the door and we walked up the stairs to her flat. In the living room she asked how we were, but neither of us replied. We just looked at her with tears in our eyes.
"Oh," she said, before the three of us just hugged and cried.
The admin after someone dies is another odd thing. There are things you need to do and people you need to tell - but because mum had the indecency to die on a Thursday morning, with a 48-hour waiting time with the hospital, we were unable to do anything like that until the following week. Mum wouldn't have liked all that hanging around.
I ran on autopilot for most of the next few weeks. I made the decision not to stop working, with the exception of the necessary errands. I needed the distraction plus, with that 48-hour waiting time immediately after, it just felt more comfortable having some form of routine. It took my mind away from thinking that, after two months in hospital, mum wouldn't return to her home of 40-odd years.
My work colleagues were wonderful.
The local vicar visited to start arranging the details of mum's service. He asked about readings, or if anyone was going to say something about mum. It wasn't something any of us had thought about.
But my mind started whirring. Thinking about if it was me who stood up there to talk about the most wonderful woman I had ever known, what would I say?
I opened my laptop, created a new Word document and just typed. Much like how I write my blog posts, I typed headings, memories, dates, random thoughts, anything I could remember. Except for that memory of when someone broke into my car in the early hours of one morning, and she shouted from the bedroom window, "I've seen you, you bastards!"
Not appropriate, even for a crematorium service.
As more and more words flowed out of me into the black pixels on screen, I got the confidence building inside me. I said to dad, "If you want, I could do it. I think I can do it."
And that was that. Another little project for me to focus my mind on.
Anyone could've told you what mum's favourite colour was: red. It was obvious, therefore, that we asked people attending the funeral to wear something red.
One thing I didn't really have was a suit. Dad was in the same position, so one weekend we went out in search of a suit. Dad didn't want to go in to Reading town centre,so instead we headed to Camberley, where we knew there was a large M&S, and other shops in the shopping centre were easier to access.
We were both left very surprised where, shop after shop, we left empty handed. I wasn't too shocked at not finding a suit to fit me - I'm a large guy who normally shops on websites for men on the fluffier side of life. But dad? He's pretty average. We 100% thought a quick visit to M&S and he'd be sorted.
Instead, it was House of Fraser to the rescue. They were in the early stages of closing down. Following signs up to the menswear department, we ended up on a pretty deserted shop floor surrounded by naked mannequins and a sad looking sale rail.
We eventually found the area where most of the menswear had been moved to, and a wonderfully helpful lady helped dad find the right suit, the right fit, and made sure he was happy. Faultless.
I turned to what I knew best: online shopping. A new suit and bright, poppy red shirt later and I was ready to make mum proud.
The day came. I was in the front row, my dad to my left, my sister to my right. Just before I was due to stand up and speak, something tickled my nose. Naturally, I rubbed my right index finger across my nostrils - and my finger turned red. As red as my shirt. I was having a nosebleed.
My sister hurriedly passed me a tissue and I stopped the bleed and cleaned up as quickly as I could. I don't know what brought it on, some kind of stress I assume, but we like to think that mum thought my red shirt just wasn't enough.
I stood at the lectern and looked around. Reading Crematorium has two service rooms, and this, the larger, seats around 100. The room was full. I can't remember if there were people standing in the doorway or outside, but it was possible.
For the next couple of minutes, something just took control and I read my piece without as much as a quivering lip.
Grief has a funny way of catching you out. Anything could be a trigger for sending you into a blubbering wreak. The first time this happened to me, I was driving and, for some reason, Radio 2 played The Wurzels' Combine Harvester. I was gone.
I managed to drive through my tears and pull myself together, but why had that novelty song in particular triggered me?
My grandad was a farmer, and that was the song played during the exit from his funeral service in the very same chapel room as mum's service.
I was standing helpless from further back in the room as I heard mum's loud sobs and howls as the song played.
Unexpectedly hearing that jaunty farmer track just smacked me around the face.
Some things are more obvious triggers. Like watching Channel 4's Big Boys, the comedy-drama about an introverted gay lad going to university. He'd lost his dad to cancer so, quite obviously, that set me off.
Then you've got things like Strictly where a great dance, or seeing others' emotions will mean tears rolling down my face.
I put it down to the exceptionally emotional rollercoaster of going through Covid so soon after losing mum that just heightened my senses.
I was also, perhaps selfishly, feeling happy/relieved that she wasn't there to go through Covid and the restrictions whilst she was ill and dying. The thought of her being alone, without us able to visit, upset me more than losing her in the first place. But then came the guilt that others didn't have that chance.
Almost 1.2 million people died during 2020 and 2021, and most of their families would've been restricted on when - or even if - they could visit their loved ones. Even on how many people could attend funerals, and being unable to comfort each other. Images of people being buried by pallbearers in full hazmat suits. It was horrible.
Just thinking about it now is upsetting me.
As time's gone on the one thing I have noticed is I've become way more nostalgic. I've always been sentimental, but that's different. Being sentimental meant not getting rid of items because their mere presence - even in a box in the attic - made me happy.
With nostalgia, I've got those items out of storage and turned them into a display in my office. Pride of place is my Amiga 1200 computer, but alongside it is a games console from the 1970s that belonged to my great-uncle Jack (we had the same one when I was a kid), my the Psion organiser I used during my sixth form years, a photo of me and my sister when were were about 3 and 2 years old and my dad's camera that photo was taken on, my school bus pass from my first year of primary school, even the little hospital wristband from when I was born. It's a museum of me.
But then I've gone on to expand that by buying things I had as a child. It started with the hunt for the same HiFi I remembered from childhood, then the accompanying CD player (even though it needs repair).
More recently I've bought a Casio PT-100, the same one I remember playing on a ledge at a Beavers meeting, and a Tandy/RadioShack electronics science kit that I had hours of fun with as a kid, and is probably responsible for my love of electronics now. Both immaculate eBay finds.
I really need to stay off eBay around payday.
Last year, actually around this time of year, I decided to make a batch of tomato and apple chutney, to mum's recipe, and give them to selected people as Christmas presents. I went the extra nostalgic step and gathered up as many samples of mum's handwriting as I could find, then used an online font creator to create a font based on mum's handwriting. This meant I could create truly personalised labels for the jar.
And that brings us up to today. Five years on and seems like it was a blink of an eye. I genuinely don't think a day goes by without my thinking about her at least once. Of course, time heals as they say, but you never forget.
For me, if I was to give advice to someone who's just lost somebody they love, it's don't dwell on the loss or how things may have ended. Remember the good stuff, those random little memories, those fun times.
Susan M. Hearn, née Galbraith
9 August 1953 - 24 October 2019
