This ought not be about me, but I’m the one left behind. It ought to be about her, she is the one who has gone ahead to glory. It was 2 years ago today that she left this flesh-bound earthly life. I am certain it was a great relief to her and her cancer-riddled body. The battles she had had with that awful disease had been long and painful–and she was losing. We all knew that she did not have much time left, but no one expected her to go so suddenly.
The morning of September 13, 2020 started off as normal as it could, although normal had become strange in the midst of a global pandemic. We had finished our online church service and I was settling down to attend an online Bible class when I noticed a missed call on my phone. I hadn’t planned to even check my phone during the class, but then I saw it was from her sister. The missed call was followed by a text telling me she couldn’t reach Agnes and could I please find out if she had gone to church. I called her back, I checked with others. She had not gone to church. She wasn’t picking up her phone. Could I please ask someone to go to her flat and check on her?
On my way to her place I tried to convince myself that there were a hundred reasons she might not have picked up her phone, but I had an awful feeling. I had a call from another friend who’d heard she had been very unwell the previous night…so weak she could hardly stand. I had to find a housekey. I had to get prepared. The key was coming. While waiting, I called a doctor friend. What do I do if she’s unconscious? Be ready to call an ambulance.
We got the key and entered her flat where she had been packing to move to her new place. We were calling out for her, hoping to hear her voice, even if it was weak. When we saw her there on the bathroom floor, it was clear that there was no life in her. It didn’t even look like her. I had seen her looking pretty bad before, but a body with the life gone out of it several hours before is so much worse. Her body was stiff. Her friend went right over, shaking her, holding her, wailing with grief. I couldn’t. It just wasn’t her any more. I didn’t want to touch her or go near her body.
I was trembling. But I had to think. What do we do now? The neighbours who had followed us inside were both crying. Her friend was near hysterical.
Stop it! Stop shouting! Go call an ambulance!
He tried. He could hardly form a coherent sentence. I took the phone. I tried to explain. Move her body? Do chest compressions? I don’t think I can do that. I was surprised that I was refusing to try, that I wasn’t desperate to try to revive her. What about the first aid training? Wasn’t this the time to use it? It was too late. I was no trained paramedic but I tried to tell the dispatcher I was pretty sure she had been dead for quite a while. I stayed on the phone. A neighbuorhood first responder came and began the futile procedure. That’s all it was–a procedure. He pressed out the last bit of air that had been left in her lungs. That was it, but there was a checklist to get through, just to be sure.
They weren’t seeing her, not really. If they had seen her, they would have known it was too late.
When the paramedics arrived, they saw. They knew. They didn’t attempt any more futile procedures. The AED sat unopened and they went on to the next procedure–get the coroner. Get the identity card of the deceased. Certify the death.
Phone calls–notify the family. It was up to me again.
Her sister, who thought Agnes might have fainted, could hardly believe what I was telling her. She was coming. She would call the rest of the family. My children, who only knew I had gone to check on her, were at home alone. I couldn’t tell them. Mommy, is Aunty Agnes ok? No, no…she’s not ok. Daddy will be back soon and he will talk to you. I tearfully called my husband and told him that she was gone.
Our friends, they felt the shock of the sudden loss. We knew she was ill, but this wasn’t the way we had expected her to go. Her ex-husband who had brought the house key, who had not wanted to see her face-to-face, was instead faced with her lifeless body. He couldn’t look away. Pity held him there until he couldn’t bear to look any longer.
Next it was the police. They had a job to do but I hated them in that moment. Why did there have to be seven of them in that small apartment? They had to ask their questions. I had to answer them. How did I get into the house? Why had I come? Was the door locked? Who gave me a key? Who was I in relation to the deceased? I was getting angry. Can you please stop? Can I just be sad instead of facing this useless interrogation? The same questions from 2 or 3 different officers. Then the criminal investigators. Same questions again but these men were calmer. They seemed to be able to see more clearly. There was no foul play here. There was no one here who would have wanted to hurt Agnes. We were just sad people.
Do you have a family doctor? This will be more efficient if you do. She doesn’t. She has her favourite doctor, an infectious disease specialist who had saved her from dying of tuberculosis more than a decade earlier. No she doesn’t go see a GP for a simple cold. She goes to her favourite doctor whom she trusts. She tells her psychiatrist. I know what most people normally do–she wasn’t anything like most people. The other officer has already asked me the same questions. I’ve already told you. I KNOW her. You don’t. I’ve brought her to the hospital with deep self-inflicted cuts. I’ve sat with her in psychiatrist appointments. I brought her to the psychiatric emergency room when she took too much medicine. I’ve seen her when she stopped taking her medication. I’ve visited her in the locked ward of a mental institution. I’ve stepped into her trashed apartment and seen the empty roll of plastic wrap after she’d tried to suffocate herself. I’ve sat with her as she received news of her cancer diagnosis. I’ve visited her after her surgeries. I’ve been to the heart specialist and heard the doctor ask if there was a history of sudden death in her family. Is that what happened? I don’t know.
Her estranged son arrives. She had only just re-established contact with him the year before. She hadn’t been capable of being a mother. She was depressed, addicted, overwhelmed. One baby, a divorce, another baby, a dying mother, a suicide attempt, a prison sentence. The greatest regret of her life was that she was not able to mother her two sons. She had tried to find them when she began her new life. They rejected her. Their grandparents had to protect them, so they shut her out. But she had changed and she was dying and had managed to re-connect with her eldest son.
Family members arrived in small groups, all in shock, trying to comfort each other. And now what? I had to get help. A sister from church came, a pastor gave advice, funeral arrangements were taking shape. There was a lot to do. Find her social worker. Call the Property Agent who’d just sold her flat. Eat something. When I finally went home I was dazed and exhausted.
It had been the worst day. Grief was just beginning to well up. But then I thought, “God spared her.” I can’t say she didn’t suffer. She did. Most of her life was marked by suffering. She was a survivor and I reminded her of that often. “Look what you’ve been through,” I would tell her–“and you’re still standing.” On this worst day, her suffering ended–and that was glorious.
Two Culture Mom 