''I don't regret what I did; I regret being in a situation where I had to do what I did.”.
(Davison, S., 2012)
Your disease grants you a short life, so I am your keeper. The tighter I hold onto you, the more you fight. There are bee stings all over my hands, my cupped palms preventing you from flying free. When you were born, you were so small that the doctors said you would die, but you flew. They say the worst pain of all is a mother losing a child, but a far worse pain is watching them fall.
***
My back hurts. I thought I would be used to hospital chairs by now — the shitty pullout ones that have become a half-bed, half-torture device. You have a heart monitor, an IV, and about fifty other sci-fi-looking machines hooked up to you.
“Exterminate!” you say, giggling and mimicking the motions of the Darlic, an alien creature from ‘Doctor Who’.
“I look like one, don't I, mum?" You say this, eyeballing the puncture wounds on your arms and the long plastic tubes protruding from your chest.
“Yeah,” I say, forcing a smile. I see you wince slightly; your giggles becoming coughs, sharp and dry. I place my hand on your back, feeling your ribs through your paper-thin skin, I can feel you becoming smaller, shrinking into yourself.
“I'm fine,” you say. I reach for your drink bottle, clasping its textured lid.
“I said I'm fine!” you shout, knocking it out of my hands. You clutch your chest, the painful motion bringing you to tears.
“I'm sorry,” you say in breaths, gulping down the air. I clutch your hand.
“I know,” I say. You smile at me but without your eyes.
“I love you, mum." You say, and I brake.
***
You're asleep now, your breaths short and raspy, your shoulders protruding from your skin like wings, the skin stretched against the bone, translucent and taught. In a colony of bees, if the queen dies, the colony is left to perish. Is that true for humans? They say it's not long now. I can feel it in the air—how the nurses look at me, the way you look at me. And the sound of your breath as you sleep.
***
The rash, I remember so vividly being red, blotchy, and angry. You had just turned two, and your dad had just left me. Leaving nothing but his features in you: your bright, blue eyes and fuzzy brown hair. I remember it all—the young doctor trying to ease my fears.
“Kids get rashes all the time; it's nothing to worry about; it's probably just a bee sting or something." But even then, I knew something was wrong. The way you would cry when I touched you and the smell of your tears. The next day, I rushed you to the hospital as the white lumps appeared on your neck and stomach. The sound of your angry screams as you struggled in your car seat and your faint murmurs as you tried to move.
‘They said mumps at first, but after the bloods, they said that dreaded word, ‘leukaemia’... I remember saying stupidly at the time.
“Cancer... kids don't get cancer?" Not my baby; why not someone else's, anyone else's, but not mine. They said the remission rates were high, but treatment after treatment each time coming back more potent than the last, and you weaker. ‘Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia’ is a fast-spreading blood cancer, most common in children, but unlike the other children with this disease, you didn't get better. Your hair was stolen and replaced with thin wisps, and your bright blue eyes were now pale and sunken in. The disease took your identity and your features, replacing them with thin, gangly limbs that were too weak for running and too thin for playing.
***
I feel the soft tap of your hand on my arm, and almost instinctually, I ask,
“What's wrong?” I feel my chest tightening. There is always something wrong.
“Nothing,” you say, looking away from me in a way that tells me something is wrong.
“Mum?” You say weakly, head still turned away,
“Yes, honey?”.
“It hurts”.
“I'll call the doctor,” I say, reaching for the edge of the seat to help me up.
"No,” you say, raising your voice with a sternness I didn't expect.
“It's time.” I hear you say, the words I have been dreading for years. My heart sinks, and I know what this means.
***
You're five, and you're running through the garden, your pigtails like antennae, the only thing visible through the tall grass.
"Mummy, look at me!” you shout.
“Coming,” I say, wading through the summer sun, the thin, dry grass tickling my thighs. As I watch you do a handstand.
“Are you watching?” You shout, now upside down, your legs in the air, your arms wobbly, and a crooked smile on your face. You're wearing fairy wings and that pretty yellow dress grandma got you for church, though it's mostly worn for ruffhousing, to her dismay, but to my delight.
***
Before they tell me I know what's happened, I wake up and listen to the sound of muffled voices and the hustle and bustle of the hospital. The beep of matches and the cries of children. This nostalgic and warm sound that I have grown accustomed to. I hear the hurried footsteps of nurses and doctors. They huddle around me, and I squint my eyes at the sun shining through the paper curtains, making it hard to see.
“Katie?” I'm mumble.
"Ma'am, are you awake?” A young nurse says. When did I become a ma'am? It must have happened recently. Something outside of myself giving it away. Wrinkles seem to form like rock formations so slowly you don't even realise it’s happening.
“Yes?,” I say, slowly nodding. She is breathing heavily, as if preparing herself for; something.
“We have some bad news.”
“Your daughter... she passed away last night." It feels like she has said this hundreds of times, I wonder if she is numb to it. I wish I was numb to it. I feel like I'm watching a film of myself, with the sound turned down, like I'm dreaming, but it's someone else's dream.
“Take as much time as you need.” She says gently, almost annoyingly,
“I don't understand,” I say weakly.
“Can I see her?” I plead.
“I'm sorry, ma'am, but we can't do that,” she says to me as if I am a child who wants a toy that they can't have. Having a tantrum like you once did.
“What do you mean you can't do that. Take me to my daughter.” I turn away towards the door, so I'm facing the window. My eyes go blurry for a moment, and your face flashes before my eyes. And all at once, you are flying. Your hospital gown flows like wings, the ties in the back revealing your pale finger. I fell to my knees. My mind is like a wipe board wiped clean of its contents; all that remains is a smudge of black ink. Your face flashes before my eyes once again, solemn and blue, wings made of flesh and bone protruding from your back, your spine broken in two, your skin stretched angst your ribs—you look almost like an insect after it's been swatted. I sense a touch on my shoulder.
“I think she is in a state of shock,” one nurse whispers to her colleague. I hear someone talking, though I'm not sure if it's me or someone else.
“I'm fine,” I hear myself murmur. I stagger to the exit. I feel someone grasp my hand; words come out of their mouth, but I'm unsure what they say. I push them away, walking forward. Unsure of what to do, where to go, or who to call. All I know is that I must leave. Go somewhere far… Far away. I feel myself plummeting.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Into the rabbit hole, like I'm falling asleep with my eyes open, blind and deaf all at once.
***
We are at the shore now, and I hear the muffled voices of foreign tourists and the sound of casting off. Your hot pink fishing rod louse is in your hand, the line blowing in the wind. The sound of teenage boys laughing. The fumble of the net. Blood pulls at its gills, red and thin, like the stuff in cheap horror films. They watch and laugh, pointing their cameras at it, leaving it flailing around on the deck.
“Mummy,” I hear you whisper to me.
“Why not just kill it?”
“Why make it suffer…?”
***
They tell me I ‘was’ a good mum, “was” that horrible gut-wrenching word that signifies your absence. If they only knew the truth, would they say this? You always wanted to fly. But not like this; they put you in a bin bag and sent you away. Holding you as if you might break, I remember hearing that if you touch a bee's wings, it will no longer fly. I wonder if this is true.
I will forever remember the sound of the pills in my hand being crushed into your drink. The rhythmic thump, thump, thump of the glass against the plastic table. I didn't push you off the edge; I just walked you to it.
Bibliography:
CCI. (2024). Children’s Cancer Institute. [online] Available at: https://www.ccia.org.au/about-childhood-cancer/leukaemia#:~:text=Today%2C%20the%20survival%20rate%20in,very%20few%20treatment%20options%20available [Accessed March 6, 2024].
Laville, S. (2010). Mercy killing mother cleared of murder after helping seriously ill daughter die. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/25/mercy-killing-kay-gilderdale-cleared [Accessed March 6, 2024].
The Sydney Morning Herald. (2012). Son’s mercy killing splits families. [online] Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/sons-mercy-killing-splits-family-20120114-1q0g9.html [Accessed March 6, 2024].
Wildflowermeadows. (2022). Queen Introduction: Balling the Queen Bee in Wildflower Meadows. [online] Wildflower Meadows. Available at: https://wildflowermeadows.com/2022/09/queen-introduction-balling-the-queen-bee/ [Accessed March 6, 2024].