Sanctifying Grace (Resurrection)

BOOK: Sanctifying Grace (Resurrection)
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Sanctifying Grace

Elizabeth Davies

Copyright 2013 Elizabeth Davies

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

 

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author
.

 

 

Acknowledgements

Editing: Shannon VonSach

Cover photo: Jimmy Thomas - www. romancenovelcovers.com

 

 

 

 

Resurrection

Sanctifying Grace

This is the third and final novel in the Resurrection trilogy that begins with

State of Grace and continues with Amazing Grace

 

Chapter 1

 

My death was edging ever closer. I could feel it in the way my mind lost words deep within itself and I could only liken this slow erosion to the unrelenting movement of a fog bank, creeping over the landscape of my mind, turning vibrant colour to white and deadening sound.

My speech began to falter soon after that episode at Grandma’s. She had been frightened so badly that she refused to be alone with me anymore, in case it happened again. Not that she was ever on her own with me now, because my mother was never far from my side. She had discarded all pretence of normality after Grandma phoned her, hysterical and panicky, as the force of my headache sent me slumping to the floor, agonised and incoherent, the magic blue pills only in my jeans pocket, but so far out of my reach they may as well have been on the other side of the world. Mum, ever calm and capable, told Grandma where to find them and how many to give me. Then she came to fetch me home.

From that day onwards
, she rarely left the house. I couldn’t leave, so she wouldn’t leave, either. When I tried to persuade her she should carry on her life as normal, she gave me one of her long, level looks and informed me there would be years afterwards for her to go out. She wasn't going to waste any of the time she had left with me by doing the stupid, meaningless things she would be able to spend the rest of her life doing. When she put it that way…

My family did everything they could to make me feel I was still part of the living. I had trouble going up the stairs
, and even more difficulty descending, so the dining table had been dismantled and thrown carelessly into one of the sheds. My own bed had been brought down, as had everything else from my bedroom, apart from the curtains because they didn’t fit.

Dad, gruff as ever, and not one to display his emotions, showed he cared in his usual understated way: he had Sky set up for me in ‘my’ room and fixed the window so it opened
; even though it was only March, it was a warm one. I enjoyed having the window ajar a little to listen to the dawn chorus. More often than not, I was awake at five when the singing started. I could hear the bleat of the newborns in the lambing sheds and the low voices of my father and Ianto as they kept vigil amongst the sheep, working shifts to ensure there was always one of them on hand if a ewe got into difficulties. This was the first year I had ever known where my mother didn’t do her share; all her energy and focus was on me.

I didn’t want to go into a hospice, but I put forward the suggestion anyway
; looking after me wasn’t fair to my family. Although caring for a sick child is part of being a parent, watching that child slowly dying isn’t, and never should be. But my mother stalwartly refused to let me go, insisting this is my home and this is where she wanted me to be. She said the hard part wasn’t going to be feeding me or cleaning me (thankfully I hadn’t gotten to that stage yet), but watching me wither and fade, and my being in a hospice wouldn’t change that. She wanted me at home where she could be part of my final months… weeks… hours. She had looked after me since I was born and she wasn't going to stop now.

It hurt me to watch her world shrink to fit mine, until I was the only thing left in it, but I didn’t think my hurt could ever compare to hers. And mine would soon be over.

I could still move around with the aid of a stick, though standing in the shower was an interesting test of my balance, until Ianto rooted out a white plastic garden chair and wedged it into the downstairs cubicle. It took time and effort to move from one room to another, but I had nothing else with which to fill my days, so I wandered slowly from kitchen to conservatory and back again. If I was upright and walking I felt as though I was keeping death at arm’s length.

I also had trouble eating for a c
ouple of reasons, one being that the fine-motor skills in my hands were starting to break  down and I often ended up wearing more food than I ate, and the other was that my mouth was slack. My lips and tongue were reluctant to do what I wanted them to and this was evident in my speech. It annoyed me that the words (when I could find the right ones) came out slurred and sloppy, and I became more and more reluctant to talk. It wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, I didn’t have much left to say; my family knew I loved them, and those were the only words I really needed.

I came to dread the headaches. The overly vicious ones always occurred after I returned from that other reality of mine, and they were the ones that caused the most damage. When one of those monsters was eventually quelled by the blue pills, it invariably left me a little present:
a deadness in my fingers, perhaps, or a blind spot in one eye, or maybe whole blocks of words which slipped out of my mind before I could grasp them.

But in
between those mother-of-all-headaches were the insidious aches behind my eyes, which never really went away, and I noticed with each consecutive day the pain was slowly increasing. I could bear it for now, but I was well aware that at some point in the not-too-distant future I would need to take my painkillers on a daily basis. And when they didn’t help… I pushed the thought from my mind; there was little point in dwelling on it. I knew full well morphine would be my only solace, and I dreaded it; morphine deadened the pain, but it deadened the soul, too.

F
or now, I was still compos mentis, though I had been grateful for my mother speaking up for me when I met with Mr. Khan, my new consultant. I was – still am – capable of making my opinions known, but it took greater effort and a little more time than previously. I tended to become cross with my inability to express myself with the ease with which I once had, and being cross meant I had even more trouble finding the words and forcing them past my wooden lips. And so it goes on.

Mr
. Khan wanted me to go into a hospice, and sooner rather than later. This surprised me, considering the cost to the NHS would be considerably less if I remained at home. Mr Cunningham had relinquished his care of me into the hands of one of the cancer consultants at the Heath Hospital in Cardiff, and I didn’t like Mr. Khan one little bit. I didn’t blame Mr Cunningham. South Wales was outside his scope of influence and he could hardly organise the necessities my failing health demanded if he had to deal with a different Health Board, so my notes and everything else were transferred to Wales’ principal hospital and landed on Mr. Khan’s desk. I got the distinct impression that he wasn’t pleased with the arrangement either.

At first
, he wanted to admit me in order to ‘run some tests’ and I vehemently shook my head. I’d had enough of tests and tried to tell him so. He only listened when my mother insisted on calling him ‘Doctor Khan’.

‘It is M
ister, if you please,’ he said huffily. ‘I am a Mister, not a doctor.’

‘Oh, so you’re
not
a doctor,’ my mother retorted, and I knew she was being deliberately obtuse. She was perfectly aware consultants were referred to as Mr. (or Mrs.). She was winding him up and I sat back to enjoy the show.

‘Could we please see a qualified doctor, then?’ she asked sweetly.

Mr Khan had been busy writing in my notes and hunting for an admission form, but stopped and frowned at the insult. ‘I
am
a doctor, Mrs…?’

‘Llewellyn,’ my mother replied. ‘I am Grace’s mother and if you
are
a doctor you will realise Grace has been prodded and poked enough. She doesn’t need any more tests.’

‘Yes, but let me explain, Mrs
. Llewellyn,’ Mr. Khan argued, rather unwisely, I thought, as I saw the set of my mother’s shoulders. ‘I can arrange for an MRI scan to check the progress of her tumour and –’

‘Why?’ my mother interrupted.

‘Pardon?’

‘Will it make any difference? Will you be able to operate?’

Flustered, Mr. Khan skimmed through all the accumulated evidence of my cancer. ‘Well, no…’ he admitted.

‘And will you be able to treat it? More chemotherapy
, perhaps? Something we haven’t heard of yet?’

‘Er, no, but –’

‘So, what’s the point?’ my mother demanded and I could see her anger building. She rarely lost her temper, but when she did it was spectacular and now all her pent-up irritations and niggles joined forces with the current reason for her ire, which she let fly. I was just glad it wasn’t aimed at me.

‘Mrs
. Llewellyn,’ Mr. Khan said, sitting up straighter in his chair as he prepared to do battle head on. Good luck, I thought; my mother has faced down a one ton fiery-tempered chestnut bull and not flinched – she will eat this little doctor for breakfast.

My mother cocked her head to one side and smiled winningly at her opponent. ‘Yes, Mr
. Khan?’

‘I can assure you that we all have your daughter’s best interest at heart, and –’

She didn’t let him finish, interrupting with a loud, ‘Good! So you agree that considering there is no further treatment you can offer my daughter, apart from pain management and palliative care, then her
best interest
,’ she put enough stress on those two words to only just avoid outright sarcasm, ‘is to let her die in peace and in the place of her own choosing. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by admitting her and running more tests. You can’t cure her; you can’t even treat her!’ She was almost shouting at this point.

‘I understand your frustration, Mrs
. Llewellyn,’ the consultant said, ‘but you must understand that the medical profession has done all that it possibly can to help your daughter.’

‘And that is where I shall stop you,’ my warrior mother interjected. ‘
You have
done all that you can
,’ she quoted his words back at him, ‘so why do you want to admit her to the hospital and subject her to a battery of tests, when there’s nothing to gain?’

It was a small victory
, but a significant one. We came away with the name and telephone number of the Macmillan nurse that would be assigned to me, plus a promise that he or she would visit within the week. God my mum was good!

I pretended not to notice the tears which gathered at the corners of her eyes and threatened to spill over onto her cheeks
; she was trying so hard to be strong for me and I had to let her think she was successful. She had given me life, love, and a good set of values for living it, but the only thing she was able to give me now was her love and her support, and she was determined not to stint on either.

I slept for most of the journey home. I couldn’t help it, I was forever tired. I wasn’t sure if it was my body’s way of withdrawing gradually from life or whether the internal war was taking up much of my physical resources, but
, either way, I slept a lot. I guessed that when I was finally forced to accept morphine as the ultimate source of pain relief, my periods of sleeping would become longer and longer until, eventually, I would fail to wake up and would slip away.

I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen then; would I simply cease to be, the flame of my existence extinguished like a snuffed out candle, here one minute, gone the next? Or would my soul, or spirit, or whatever it was called, linger a while after I drew my last breath, my brain continuing to work until oxygen starvation shut it down for good? Or was there an existence after death? Was there something else? I hoped so – it seemed such a waste if all the thoughts, emotions
, and memories that made us who we are dissipated and disappeared like mist on a summer morning.

I contemplated those kinds of things often, the time I spent dwelling on them growing exponentially as the decline of my body heralded my death. In some ways
, I was lucky: I had time to say my goodbyes and to make peace with myself, and, on good days, this was how I viewed my world. On the bad days, I cursed everyone and everything, from my mother for giving birth to me only for me to die young, to God for letting this happen, to the medical profession for not being advanced enough in their treatments to deal with my cancer.

I’d say that the good days and the bad ones were of equal measure.

BOOK: Sanctifying Grace (Resurrection)
3.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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