Grieving mum's faith and pain stuck with me

A grieving mother. (Courtesy/iStock)

One day as I sat at the hospital restaurant waiting for friends, I saw a lady sitting at the corner table looking dazed. She barely blinked, staring at a point above the pictures hung along the walls.

Soon, she was rocking herself as one would a child to soothe it. Tears ran down her cheeks, she looked exhausted, defeated even.

As soon as my friends arrived, I pointed towards the lady at the corner.

"Let's say a prayer for her," said my friend Mary, a prayer warrior in other circles. After the prayer, she suggested we sit with the lady for a moment, and maybe buy her a cup of tea. We did.

The lady told us she was waiting for her husband, who had taken a walk to gather himself. The story she told through her tears was one of pain, faith and hope.

Her daughter, Betty, was born seven years ago. Life was good, she hit all the milestones with flying colours.

Then at five years Betty became a fussy eater. Meal times were a laborious task, taking almost an hour to finish off her plate. She started napping more often, first to the delight of her mother and then to alarm.

One day, her kindergarten teacher called to say she was not feeling well. Her mother promptly picked her up and off they went to see her pediatrician.

A short discussion and a few tests later, a diagnosis akin to 'stomach flu' was made. That was the beginning of many doctor visits and hospital stays.

One week later, back at the doctor for a review, her daughter needed more tests. A battery of tests. As she sat at the doctor's office, being told of the final diagnosis, treatments and options, her heart sank into the pits of despair. Did this doctor realise what she was telling her? Her daughter had blood cancer, known as leukemia.

Her daughter spent many nights in hospital. Sometimes overnight, a three or four-day stay when she was overwhelmed by treatments and procedures.

One day, out of the blue, Betty asked her mother 'Mummy, why aren't you and Dad married?" The mother pretended not to hear and told her girls to say their nightly prayers and go to bed.

She thought that was the end of that. However, every so often, Betty asked her mother the same question. Closer to the end, with a very high fever and a lot of pain, Betty was rushed to hospital. She now needed comfort care as chemotherapy was no longer working.

To ease the pain, Morphine, a very strong painkiller, was to be administered, As the pain specialist explained to the little girl what the medicine she would give her would do, Betty, very clear-eyed and determined told her that it would not ease her pain. Only her parent's wedding in a Church would!

Every time she was lucid, she would ask her mother 'Mummy, why aren't you and Dad married?" The nurses noticed that this would distress Betty that her pain became more intense. Her parents were emotionally exhausted.

The analgesics should have been working. The doctor, now heavily invested in her patient, decided to step up and have a private session with her parents. Broaching the sensitive topic of their marriage status required tact.

Did the parents want to get married? Why weren't they married? Could they 'pretend' a wedding for the sake of her patient who was at the end of her life? Did they need to talk to the counsellor, extended family or even the hospital chaplain?

So here she was, almost two years later, at her daughter's deathbed, trying as hard as she could to be strong for her daughter and not break down when her daughter suddenly asked her "Mummy, can you hear the music?" Dazed, she said the first thing she could think of...... "rest sweetie".

Soon the girl was asleep. The mother went to the nurses' station to tell the nurses that there must be something wrong with the medicine she was on. Was she hallucinating? There was no music in her room.

For the next few days, she would walk into her daughter's room to find her singing. Sunday school songs and hymns long forgotten. She realised she had not seen that look of pure joy and peace in her daughter in the last two years.

Her daughter would sometimes stop singing to ask her to join them. Join who? Who is 'them'?

At first, she resisted the urge to go along with her but finally decided to join in. She had happy conversations with unseen people. Then she would sing again. She asked her mother "Mummy, can you see them?" This time, the mother asked her "who?"

She asked her daughter to tell her what they were doing and saying. The little girl laughed and said, "I am tired now, let me sleep, I will tell you when I wake up". As she fell asleep, she held her mother's hand never to wake up.

As Betty's mother sat with us at the corner booth of the restaurant waiting for her equally distraught husband, she said she believed her daughter was seeing angels and family in heaven.

She was happy for her daughter, angry that she left before her time, and heartbroken that her daughter did not get the bright yellow flower-girl dress she wanted to wear to her parent's intimate wedding ceremony held at the hospital chapel because they did not have it in her size.

She was exhausted from the roller-coaster of emotions she had experienced in the past year and shocked at the affirmation of heaven through her daughter's experience.

I still think of this lady today, and wonder about her marriage, her faith, how she's doing and if she found the joyous peace her daughter had as she left with the singing angels.