Part Two: Nick
Sally was a year old and it was difficult to believe that something so small and lovely could demand the vast amounts of attention she craved and received. And attention was what she got as any parent will bear witness to. Maggie had taken redundancy from her job then and had been paid off quite well but the strain of the sleepless nights and pressure I was under at work was beginning to show.
When I got home I was exhausted and Maggie was asking me to do so much for our daughter. She was always on the go and I didn’t believe she was sitting around all day watching TV – that’s just impossible with a small child. I caught myself thinking things like “what the hell was she (Maggie) doing all the time?” But of course she was attempting to bring up a very small but integral addition to our family and all parents can understand how mentally and physically draining that can be.
It was the second half of the year that Sally was born when Maggie started getting the chest pains and vomiting. There had been occasions when she brought up blood but she never told me until toward the end. She always seemed out of breath and pale, very yellowish, and we just put it down to her charging around such a large flat, looking after the baby and carrying out the numerous domestic chores that go hand in hand with a child. It didn’t seem to worry Maggie too much, though I had noticed that she would often be clutching her chest with her fist. I questioned her and she said that it was actually her back that was a problem and it was causing discomfort all over her body. I was not aware at the time that she was taking up to fifteen aspirins a day to relieve the pain and had also asked the chemist for stronger pain relief. He suggested she go to the doctor and she agreed. But she didn’t do it.
She was constantly tired and I had to get up at four or five in the morning to comfort Sally while her mother slept. Maggie was in distress and pain from doing the simplest of tasks but I was far too young and blind to the symptoms. It was her mother that mentioned that the burden of looking after the baby was being equally shared so Maggie should not have been as tired as she was. She had also lost a noticeable amount of weight and, after the usual arguments, she eventually agreed to make an appointment to see the local GP. She expected to be given a tonic charged with multi-vitamins and a lecture on parenting skills.
I visited the doctor with her as I needed a break from her mother, who was staying with us for a few (but far too many) days. That’s the problem when you have too many bedrooms – people tend to come and stay.
The doctor listened to all we said and then gave Maggie a brief examination while I waited in the reception with our daughter. He was concerned about her lack of energy and lethargy and wanted us to see a specialist at St Bartholomew’s hospital. It was then that Maggie became worried because he wanted the appointment to be done urgently – over the next couple of days.
Because of Maggie’s work in the NHS she was not surprised about the referral, but the urgency of it was rare – especially as the consultant’s receptionist called us the following morning and asked if we would be available the following day. At the time I did not drive and Maggie’s mother was (fortunately) still with us. I took the day off work and arranged for a taxi to take us. We still had no real idea and knew that the day would be spent having tests and answering numerous questions. In the taxi Maggie began to cry and I put my arms around her, not really knowing what I should say. “I know it’s not good. This is not the standard procedure; something is wrong,” was all she could say.
I felt rather helpless and hopeless then, but just held her. I knew full well there were enormous waiting lists to see specialists and only in extreme circumstances could you see one with just a few hours’ notice. But I also knew that our doctor was a personal friend of the specialist and the medical world often revolved around people doing favours for each other. My life up to that stage had been relatively hospital and doctor free and, besides, Maggie and I were far too young and the young just did not get ill – or at least not seriously.
It was not until three weeks after that first visit that the final results of the various tests and examinations were known. We had talked about the possible outcomes during the waiting period and Maggie seemed much better. She had been prescribed stronger painkillers and there was that hope that whatever was wrong it had a name that wasn’t too frightening and, obviously, a cure. We needed to know what it was so we could get the right treatment and get on with the difficult task of being parents.
There was no mistake and it had a name, but it was like hitting a brick wall.
My beautiful young wife had lung cancer and it was too advanced to be stopped.
The specialist had discussed this outcome with us along with many other possibilities but there was nothing anyone could have done to prepare us for the confirmed news. Maggie looked well composed as he told us, but as I held her, she was shaking. I thought if there was anything at all I could have done to swap places with her at that moment then I would have chosen it.
“And just how long do you think I have, Doctor?” she asked without any trace of fear in her voice.
“It’s very difficult to say,” he started, “but a rough estimate would be between six and nine months. But I must stress that you can only use that as a rough guide.” He sighed, hesitated and continued, “However, much of that time you may need to be hospitalised because the disease is so far advanced.”
With that the pair of us then broke down and she screamed at me, “I want my baby, I want my child. Why didn’t you let me bring her with me? Why didn’t you?”
Words alone cannot describe the emotions of the months which followed.
It was everything from the heartache, the pain, the rejection of any religious beliefs and the constant battle simply to be alive. Cancer in any form is a cruel and wicked disease which does not discriminate. My adorable wife had never even smoked a cigarette yet she was dying before me and there was nothing in the world that I could do about it. I felt helpless. I cried so much I really thought that I could not shed another tear. But I was wrong.
While she was having the treatment I would visit the small chapel in the hospital and pray with all the passion and conviction I could muster that the cancer would leave her body and enter mine. I called upon our so-called loving and compassionate God and shouted at him about how unfair he was being. But he didn’t listen – for some reason, I believed, he wanted to make us suffer.
The families were both told and they all took it badly. But Maggie, for one so young, had become strong and wise and was not prepared to put up with the intense emotions around her. There were enough of those inside her already and, as predicted, she became practical and gave us all instructions on how to cope with her death.
Where would we have been without her?
Yet in the middle of all this was our innocent child. A child who was healthy and had a full life ahead of her; except her mother was about to be cruelly taken away.
It was a full six months after the cancer was confirmed that it became too much for both of us to cope with and my wife was admitted to the hospice. The painkillers only lasted a short while and it didn’t help that she was now half the weight she had been a year previous. Her strength was running out. Sally was still under two years old and a bigger handful than she was as a small baby. But everyone was very good to us. The staff and management at the bank were all sympathetic and practical, and the respective families gave us as much time and help as we needed. It was only near to the end that Maggie accepted all the help. She loved Sally more than life itself and looked after our child until she physically could take no more.
I brought Sally in to see her every day. The nuns adored her and Maggie put on a brave face even though she was wasting away. Sometimes she was so heavily drugged that I could not allow our daughter to sit on the bed. Every hour of every single day it broke my heart to watch my wife in pain and discomfort and trying to smile for that part of life she loved so dearly.
It was in the early hours of the morning that she dre
w her last breath. I was with her; she had earlier refused medication and we both knew that her time was up. We talked about stupid little things that really didn’t matter and for the hundredth time she reminded me of the promise we’d made that Sally would know how much her mother loved her and her father. Maggie did not want to be forgotten.
My wife died in my arms.
Sally and I were alone.
CHAPTER TWO