Tapestry

Seashells inside a golden frame, pink and sweet. A mermaid sits against a rock, her hands trailing in the pool beside her. Her gaze is serene and long auburn hair is blowing across her shoulders in the wind. Her skin is porcelain; a faint flush is on her cheeks.

I am sitting in my mother’s hospice room- the best room in the house, we discover. Her tall windows face fields and trees, and her bed looks towards the sunset. The lights of the airport can be seen at night, the gardens by day. It is warm and sunny, and overlooks the new, modern facility that will be complete in a month.

Greek mythology has it that when we die, the fates cut a person’s thread of life with shears. I look at my mother and think that no single thread runs through her- her threads are woven throughout my family’s life. They connect us to each other and to her, forming a tapestry- a picture made of light and dark, in infinitesimal stitches. My mother’s life is ending, and when the shears close, they will cut us all.

There are days where we talk and laugh, and others where I have to hide my tears. The people in her life come and go, visiting and reassuring themselves that she is still Ruth- that the person we love isn’t gone yet. I have many afternoons where time lies heavily on my hands, sitting beside her. I am impatient to be at home with my children and husband, far away from the pain of this place.

I bring out my tapestry, Teresa Wentzler’s Mermaid. When the room is silent and my thoughts run wild, I concentrate on her- counting her stitches keeps me occupied, as does the inevitable recount and unthreading. Indeed, sometimes I feel like I am the one being unthreaded. Mum’s nurses pop into the room at odd times, keeping an eye on how my mermaid progresses.

The waves surge around the mermaid, and storm clouds gather above. The horizon appears calm, but the water is displayed in steel grey- it is water with no blue sky to soften it. Still, she sits, with pearls in her hair and banded on her arms, almost smiling. She takes form on the cloth, her tranquil face looking beyond me.

My mother has secondary cancer. Her face is gaunt, and she is even thinner now than she was a few weeks ago. The doctor tells her they can do nothing more, and I hear his voice falter as he wishes her well. My mother smiles sadly at him. She is a nurse, she understands. She knows that she will not be coming home again.

I have been her carer for the last year. The roles are reversed; I am responsible for her now. It is a terrible, beautiful privilege. She has seen my worst moments, and I have seen hers. They are becoming more frequent now. As I sit in her room, I feel the waves of grief crashing over me. All my life my mother could make the nightmares go away; she was able to kiss away every hurt- but no one can save me from this pain right now. The threads have me in a net that traps me, and I am unable to fight my way to the surface again.

We busy ourselves with the little tasks we can do for her- organising her money, bringing clothes, toiletries. My brother and his wife are overseas and ask me over the phone if this is it- if they need to come home early. Four long weeks in the hospice have come and gone. My siblings are looking to me for the answer to that question- Is this it? Is our mother dying? I don’t know.

But I tell him to come home.

Her tail is steel grey, like the water. She is at rest in the surf, and a conch shell rests on her lap. Is it for decoration? Or for communication? Is she looking elsewhere for rescue, or does she know she can withstand the tempest?

My mother was the one who taught me to sew. I was a poor student at best; I had little patience for the details that finish a product. I look at my tapestry. The underside is cluttered by bulky knots and tangled colours. I smile at the nurses’ compliments wryly. The underside of me is as tangled as the threads behind my mermaid. The long weeks spent in this facility are beginning to wear me down. Each hour is a tiny stitch in an invisible whole. What are the colours of grief doing to me, to the picture of my family?

When Mum has a good day, she talks to us of her hopes, of the things she dreamed of. My brothers and sister and I are not strangers to her story, or to the disappointment she has experienced. We are not strangers either to the faith that is woven through her life, because she taught it to us. Even now that cord holds me steady. As the afternoon ends, I put away my mermaid, and kiss mum goodbye. I tell her that I will be back later. I go home to my husband and babies, and I try to smile as I tuck them into bed. After this is done and the night closes in, I get ready to go back to the hospice again, to tuck my mother into bed as well.

Mum is sometimes more lucid at night. She plays an orchestral piece of music over and over in the quiet. I watch my sister talk and realise that of the two of us, she is more able to be in this moment. I have been trying to survive for so long now that I am brittle and jumpy. On this night Mum takes a perfumed pot of cream she was given and anoints our hands. It’s a consecration, a mantle being passed to us. I watch my sister receive it reverently, but I would do anything to flee the room- for me the thread is now pulled so tight that I could break. And I can’t afford to break.

The new hospice opens as my brother returns from New York. Together we walk her belongings over to the new room, which is modern and well equipped. We tell ourselves it doesn’t matter, that our mother has the very best of care in the spacious, state-of-the-art facility. I have to return one more time to the old building that afternoon to pick up something we had left behind, and the electricity has already been turned off. The rooms are dark and empty. Even my mother’s sunny haven is cold, and my footsteps echo in the empty hallways. My heart pounds in inexplicable fear, and I leave the building at a run.

The move marks a turning point. Mum sleeps most of the time now, and moments of clarity are fewer. My mermaid is doing service, keeping my hands steady. I am congratulated by visitors on the detail of the cross stitch, on the picture that one day will hang in my home. I usually reply that it is a lifetime project- perhaps I already know that it will be a long time before I can look at it again.

Seven and a half weeks on, it is night-time.

I stand frozen outside the front doors to the new unit. I can walk to her room in my sleep, but right now I cannot move. The family waits for me in Mum’s room- they’ve messaged me, asking me where I am. I am the last to arrive, and somehow, I cannot make myself walk towards them all again. I think about running away, about not coming back. But there are stitches in my own life, taught to me by my mother- the threads that bind together faith and works, love and duty. I must keep walking for her sake.

As I enter her room, I can hear by the change in Mum’s breathing that she is worried. I come close and make a feeble joke, since that is what I do. We talk quietly, and then say goodnight together. We know our time is short now.

The next afternoon I visit, and I tell mum I will be back that night to tuck her in, and kiss her forehead. I tell her the only thing that matters right now- that I love her. It is the last time I see her alive.

In the years since then, I have realised that the “fates” have it wrong- the threads that bind us to people do not disappear when we die; they remain, giving shape and depth to our tapestry. My mother’s life was not severed as I had imagined; her influence is seen every day in our lives. Her threads are still bound to us all and her colours are wound around us too.

Every now and then, I take the mermaid out and study her face. The threads to finish the picture lie in the box, waiting for me to pick up the needle again. My mother had red hair, and as I look at her in this form, I am able to see things differently. The sea is calmer in the picture than I remember, and the sky lighter. Where once I could only see individual stitches through blurry eyes, I now see colour and shape.

As the years go on, I realise that my own threads will form a part of my children’s story as well. Their tapestry will incorporate both love and pain, tiny stitches that will make up their whole.

My mermaid is of water and air, as we are of both grief and joy- and one day we will learn to embrace both.