I cannot get my head around the fact that she's gone from us already. This day last week, my mother and I were packing to go to Limerick to see as my Uncle had rang to say she'd gone downhill quite quickly. I can't believe that a week ago, she was still here, things were still semi-ok.
It's a very strange feeling, knowing someone you love dearly is going to die, and you're not sure when, be it in a few days, or a few weeks or months. It's just over 3 weeks since the hospital said there was nothing more they could do. It's just over 3 months since we found out it was some form of cancer. And it's just over 5 months since she started getting stomach cramps that signified something was wrong.
I was privileged to be there when she passed, having been down at their house since Sunday night. The days since have taken on a surreal feeling, like a week had passed each day-Monday she got herself all dressed up for 3 of her nieces who were flying in from New York & Spain. She sat with us all for a cup of tea after they'd had their time together and then, she insisted on waving them off from the window.
After they left, she sat sleeping, hand in hand with her big sister who was sitting on the other chair. Two of her wonderful neighbours sat with her at different points that afternoon, and late in the afternoon, we had our first major worry that we'd lose her very soon-as she dozed on the armchair, her skin was clammy and cold, her breathing stopping and starting, and yet, as we quietly freaked out around her wondering what to do, she suddenly awoke and said "I'm not going anywhere just yet!"
Monday night saw varying family members arrive and on Tuesday morning, we lit a fire and talked about how surreal it was to be where we were as we waited for the hospice nurse to call out. Having worked for the hospice herself, it was actually her friends who were nursing her, which was a comfort to both her, and us. My brother and I had to leave to head back East for physio for my knee and as the day passed, the news came through that although she had resisted the morphine pump til now, she had to start on it. She resisted because, having nursed so many cancer patients to the end herself, she knew what the pump represented.
She fell asleep around lunchtime on Tuesday. My Mum had texted me mid-way through physio to say the hospice nurse felt she'd be lucky to survive the night. My brother and I arrived around 8.30,less than 45 mins before she passed, and as we arrived our cousin met us at the door with the phrase "you should really get inside" and with that, I knew just how bad things were. When we got to her room, all her brothers and sisters on both sides of the family were there, some praying, some singing, some talking to her. Leonard Cohen played in the background, as various memories were shared and prayers were said, while her breathing; so varied, so ragged, was punctuated only by it's absence, or a laboured groan.
I had just nipped out of the room to get some painkillers for my knee when one of the nurses came down to the kitchen and said we should come down to the room again. When I got back, her breathing had quietened totally-She had opened her eyes, and for the next few minutes, as we all told her we loved her repeatedly, she was looking all around the room and to the roof. Then her eyes stopped moving and she was gone from us. I have no doubts her parents, her brother and her nephew were there to help across at that point.
I don't want to believe it, even thought I was there. I don't want to accept it, even though I've known that the day had been coming for the last three weeks. I can't accept that my beautiful, hilarious, sweet and wonderful Godmother, my amazing Aunt isn't around anymore. I can't accept that I won't hear her voice on the phone saying "hell-o Ita!" the way she used to. I can't accept that there's no more glasses of wine with the simplest and tastiest of salads and breads, that there's no more charity shop trips, that there's no more silly chats about work, about life, about fellas, about crap tv, about family, about memories of years gone by, about my wonderful Uncle and their trips together, about anything ever, ever again.
Yesterday, we said our final goodbye to the wicker coffin that has been Anne's body's resting place since Thursday morning. On Thursday evening, we gathered in Milford Hospice, where for two full hours her friends, her colleagues and even people who'd only met her a few times came to sympathise with us. One woman told us that she didn't know anyone there, but Anne- that she'd only met Anne as she'd nursed a dear friend of hers to the end, and that Anne had made such an impression on her that she had to come to pay her respects and to say her final thanks and goodbye. Friends came from Sligo to see her, to offer support and love, and what love and support that was, and how badly it was needed. Her neighbours welcomed us back to a house filled with food that was ready for us all, and so, we sat and talked and shared memories and stories long into the night, before beginning to plan her mass for the next day.
Friday morning was horrible and surreal. I had helped to carry her out to the undertaker's car on Wednesday as he brought her away to prepare her, and on Friday morning I watched as her husband and brothers carried her to the hearse for her final trip home. Her coffin and hearse was decorated with wildflowers from her garden, and walking past that garden behind her hearse is a memory that will never leave me. We walked her to the end of the lane, and then we got in our cars and left Annacotty with her for the last time.
So many of us convoyed behind the hearse to Sligo, her family, her neighbours and her friends joined us on the long road to Sligo too...as we left Limerick, a wee dude walking with his Dad stopped under a bridge and blessed himself as we passed. This was a scenario repeated in varying towns along the way and it broke me every time. As we approached Sligo, more family & friends waited in a convoy to escort her home from Collooney to the Cathedral. From when we arrived, (3.45) to the start of the funeral (4.30) to 6.45 when we brought her out was just a steady stream of sympathisers, family, friends, schoolfriends, old colleagues, old teachers, old neighbours...two of whom were celebrating the mass.....it seemed half of Sligo was there. At one point, I was reading one of the prayers of the faithful and as I looked down, I couldn't see any space in the place, all the aisles seemed full and there was a huge crowd at the porch and out to the front door. I had to stop looking for fear of just losing it altogether. Watching her hearse leave the cathedral and not following her was a hard and difficult task. Later that night, some of us gathered together in Dromahair to finalise the music for the following day's service in Dublin.
And then the final journey, from her soulmate's homestead in Leitrim, to Mount Jerome crematorium in Dublin. Her niece Aisling and I helped carry her out the to the hearse along with her brothers and we packed the hearse with her flowers. The drive to Dublin was surreal...more folk blessing themselves enroute, two kids on bikes stopped to do so as we passed....torrential rain, then sunshine, then torrential rain, then sunshine....a long drive in traffic through Terenure...two well dressed ladies commenting on the beautiful wicker casket and flowers, not realising we could hear them-Anne could always turn heads with her style, and here she was, still at it. We arrived to Mount Jerome to more crowds of people.....her sisters and nieces carried her into the chapel as Roberta Flack's "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" played. Sean spoke for a few minutes and asked people come up to talk about Anne, as songs that were special to she and Sean played in the background. I spoke first, and have no idea what I said other than that she was an amazing caring person and we should try to carry that forward in our lives, to keep her memory going. My Mum read a reading that they had asked her to read at their wedding, her sister Ita spoke and recited a poem-their brother shared a story of how Anne's campaigning began at an early age, her sister in law spoke of how even if they'd scripted a bride like Anne, they couldn't have made her as perfect as she was-someone from the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign spoke, a childhood friend spoke and then it was time to say goodbye and let the curtains close as "Stolen Child" played.
This song was chosen on a morning where the sunlight split the room, as I rested on top of a folded up duvet on an armchair, with my Uncle crouched on the ground going through his cds to see what songs he'd choose. He'd wanted some Yeats somewhere in the service, and as the beautiful opening of this played and Mike Scott began to sing "come away, human child, to the water, and the wild..." neither of us said a word. By the time Tomais MacEoin's voice began, the tears were already streaming down my face. It was perfect, it spoke of Sligo, of the lake she & Sean loved so well, and the music was so beautiful. To me, it echoed the surreal devastation we felt as the child, the beautiful "baby" Anne was leaving us and the incomprehensible numb feeling that can only come with a loss like this
As it began in the chapel, I watched as the curtains slowly drew across the wicker casket, the beautiful flowers from her garden, and across the photo we had chosen of her. I still can't believe it, nor accept it...and I don't know when or if I ever will. Throughout the past week, the phrase "your friends are the family you choose for yourself" has been proved, time and time again. Anne & Sean's friends have been rocks of support and comfort to us all, from the simple acts of doing the shopping, making tea, prepping food etc, to sharing funny memories of times gone by with Anne, of conversations, of stories...I hadn't known how often she had spoken of us all until over the days, people said " ohhh, you're Ita!! I've heard so much about you!" This was repeated with almost every one of her friends, they knew my work, they knew of my knee-saga, they knew everything. They knew of my brother Sean's cancer and close call last year, they knew of my brother Fearg's free-diving, they knew of my brother Seamie's two little girls, and they knew of my big sis Bairbre & her golfing. Her friends are as devastated as we are, and rightly so for they loved her as much as we did. Her neighbours too are in bits, and they have been amazing, providing beds at all hours of the night to all folk, providing hugs and food and support over the days as they were needed.
I feel like the last week has been this mad horrible dream, that at some point I'm going to wake up and realise I'm still in the hospital, and it's two weeks ago, and Anne is just back from Sligo and is still able to talk and laugh and be with Sean. As someone said, we're still just getting used to the idea that this is terminal cancer, never mind the fact that she's gone from us already.
My only consolation is that she passed in the arms of her husband, holding hands with him to the end, and with her big sisters holding her other hand. Words cannot bring her back and memories at the moment are only accentuating the pain I, (and we) feel each day when I wake. There's that blissful few seconds of waking each morning and not knowing...and then it hits and it's hellish and horrible and heartbreaking all over again. I have always been proud of my family, but this was one of my proudest moments, watching my Aunt smash her diamonds as part of a protest against the Israelis. She was something else, and someone who I will take inspiration from for the rest of my life...
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