Yesterday was the anniversary of my mum’s death. Seven years, and I remember every single detail like it was yesterday. The date, October 19, hangs over me like a giant bell. There’s a slow build-up where the bell gets lower and lower until finally it’s right on top of me and I’m trapped inside.
For two solid days the bell rings and I hear nothing else but her last goodbyes.
I got the phone call at 4am and drove down to Margate. The roads were completely empty and I drove slowly. I was so scared of speeding and being stopped and arriving at the hospital too late. I was with my friend Amanda, who is very funny — she has a very purple dark sense of humour but that morning as we drove from London from darkness to light, there were no jokes or banter.
I knew my mum was dying, all I could feel was an overwhelming feeling of fear.
The only time I’d felt anything similar was when I was pregnant and I knew I was going to have a termination.
It was odd because when my Dad had died six years earlier I did not feel like this.
This time I knew it was part of me that was also dying.
I held her hand for four days. The memories and pictures in my mind are so clear. They are filled with sadness and her pain. My mum suffered so much, she didn’t want to die, she refused to die.
My mum never believed in God, in fact she was a staunch atheist when it came to religion, apart from seances, Ouija boards, Tarot cards, fortune tellers and anything spiritual. I remember when I was little and followed home from Sunday school, we had to call the police. “See what happens if you follow Jesus, someone strange will follow you.” I never went to Sunday school again. I really don’t know why I went in the first place, I was at an age where I did everything to be out of the house, my mum was at work all the time.
My mum did everything for us, she stole lead from roofs, squatted the cottage where we lived, hot-wired electricity, and worked and worked and worked but we never seemed to have much.
My childhood was traumatic, I was left alone too long with the wrong people. In later years this became a big issue for me and I blamed my mum for not being there, I blamed my dad too.
Being abandoned as a child no matter what the reason is something you never recover from, and here it was happening again she was going to leave. This time for ever.
I held onto her hand, she looked at me and said, “Am I going to die Tray?”
I said yes, then she asked, “where am I going”, I had no answer, her question was too good.
There is so much I can write about, those four days were the most difficult of my life.
Watching the person who gave birth to me die. She died at 1am in the morning. Neither night nor day.
She told me she could see her mum.
I hope to God that when I die my mum is there waiting for me.
I would do anything to feel her love and warmth.
I miss you mum
Pansy Cashin 1928-2016
Tracey Emin is an artist
