A noise awoke me around 2.15am. It was Oliver, who had aroused from his sleep. As my brain registered the noise, I immediately came into conscious thought. I could feel that Thomas still lay nestled into me, pinning my arm to our bed, just as he was when I had closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. Jason lay on the other side of him. It was dark and I didn't have a clear sight of him but I needed to know whether or not he was still alive. I brought my free arm over to touch him to determine whether or not he was still breathing. I knew if I rested my hand gently on his chest, perhaps he might flinch in response to the touch, or perhaps I could feel a slight rise and fall with his inhalations.
As the tips of my fingers made contact with him, what met my touch made me briefly pull away slightly; it was not what I was expecting and I couldn't understand what I had found. As my brain started to try to analyse what could possibly have happened, I realised that Thomas was indeed dead. Something there was cold and wet. It was the wetness that had shocked me the most. The cold, yes of course, people who die turn cold. As silly as it sounds, I had temporarily forgotten this in the early hours of the morning split seconds after I had woken. So he must be dead, but why was he wet? Had his chest burst open when he had died and his heart had stopped? Had something terrible happened to him whilst I had slept soundly next to him that had made him bleed everywhere? I knew I would have to put my hand back on him to try to answer these ludicrous questions that started whizzing around my head. I am usually a logical thinker and with a reasonably scientific background, I was sure there was a perfectly rational reason.
I gingerly lowered my hand back down from where they had hovered above him for this time. It was cold and wet, I was prepared this time, and yes, he was definitely dead. It was his skin I was touching, not his chest that had been covered by his babygro. As my fingers began to glide across the flesh, I realised that I had in fact landed my hand directly above his top lip. I realised that the wet was coming from his nose. Ugh, he needed a tissue and I had just run my hand through it. What if he had been crying before he died and I hadn't woken to give him the comfort he was seeking, or what if he had come down with a cold beforehand?
All of this happened within a couple of seconds. Oliver had continued to call and Jason was now stirring. Knowing that Jason was now awake, I whispered, "he's died, he's gone". Quickly Jason pushed himself up and turned on his bedside light. I could now finally see Thomas. Pale, ashen and lifeless, lying on my arm. I could see those features I had spent much of his life admiring, but I no longer recognised him. He had changed, he was no longer there. Jason passed me a tissue and I wiped his nose. It didn't take long to realise that I needn't have worried about him crying or suffering from the sniffles before he died, it was, in fact, a sign of the natural decay of his body. No, no, no, how long had he been dead? It must have been a while. And how I had slept through it? I hope that he wasn't in pain and I hope he was comforted by knowing where he was; at home, snuggled in bed, between his mummy and daddy, in his mummy's arms. I hope he had remained asleep, as he had been when my own eyelids had closed, and that he had peacefully drifted to rest.
We had had an incredible difficult previous 48 hours with him. Watching him suffer had broken my already-bruised-and-battered heart once again and so a sense of relief came over me. His 30 days with us had been so full of physical and emotional pain, stretching us to the limits of our human capacities, limits we didn't know ever existed, and now he was finally at peace and no longer suffering.
The love I felt for his body changed with this. I didn't feel that same pull towards him, that same urge to pick him up and cuddle him, to mother him. I didn't even want to touch him, that felt too much, it would just reiterate that my son was now dead, in a very unforgiving way. I gently eased my arm out from underneath him. I felt little attachment to this body now lying in the middle of my bed and yet when I looked at him, there lay the little bundle I had birthed just over a month ago. Yet my son wasn't in my bed, he was no longer with us. It felt so confusing and took so much for me to try to understand it all. I still can't understand it now. I was ready for his body to be taken away.
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