The doctor had told Tara that morning that Mum's decline and lack of responsiveness meant was typical of a person within one to two days of death. Knowing how much Mum hated to be told what to do, I steeled myself for four to five days, but danged if she didn't leave her life the same way she lived it - on her own terms.
It was a sheer fluke that both Tara and I were at hand. That morning, she had gone back to Mum's apartment to take a shower, and I had spent an hour after that walking Mum's dog, Willow. Two friends had come to visit and we had left the palliative room so the nurse could change and re-position Mum. One of the friends had left to fetch some coffees from Tim's and arrived only moments before Mum expired.
Mum had been in laying her bed, mostly dozing, but still muttering the lyrics to the songs playing on the iPad beside her, and you could see her painted nails (which she did not like to have covered most of the time) keeping time to the beat throughout the morning.
Suddenly, she started drawing heavy breaths through her nose - not laboured, not panicky, but intense, and unexpected since she had been breathing exclusively through her mouth for some days by that time. She also squeezed Tara's hand firmly with her weakened right hand.
I came to the other side of the bed while Tara hit the call button for the nurse so quickly that it took me a few seconds to process what the chiming sound must have been. After perhaps nine or ten breaths, Mum relaxed and lay back, her eyes closed.
A nurse named Angela, whom we'd not yet met, arrived within 30 seconds of Tara pressing the button. We explained the breathing, and Tara added that Mum's eyes had tracked strongly to one side. She nodded and pressed the stethoscope to Mum's chest. After a moment, she turned to us and said, kindly, "This is the kind of thing you would expect to see in the final moments before death. You are going to want to stay close." She offered to lower the bedrails so we could get closer, which we did.
Tara and I stepped away long enough to let our guests say goodbye. When we stepped back in, Mum was calm, her breathing becoming more and more shallow each time, until she was at peace. I couldn't tell you precisely when she passed, but when Angela came back in and listened with the stethoscope, she looked at Tara and I and said, "You can stay as long as you like, just let us know when you need us."
I was speechless. Tara said, "So she's..." and Angela nodded sympathetically, "Yes, she's gone. I'm sorry for your loss." Then she left, and then the tears came.
Which felt stupid; this was not only a foreseeable outcome, it had become a desirable outcome, and yet there the two of us were, clutching each other and weeping. Humans are ridiculous, I suppose.
After we'd composed ourselves, we began letting people know. I had texted Audrey after Angela had warned us, so she was already collecting the girls and heading out when I texted her that Mum was gone.
When Audrey and the girls came, there were more tears, but then some laughs as we recalled good times with Nanny, and how fortunate it was that she passed in love, with her children at her side and music in her ears and a song in her heart.
We packed up her room and loaded up the cars before heading back to Edmonton so we could all spend the night together. On my way out, I kissed Mum's forehead one last time, whispering, "Sleep tight, Mum."
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