Departures

After thirty-six years of caring for premature babies at St Thomas’ Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, my mum is contemplating retirement. She has worked hard and she is tired. Dr Gates cannot imagine the NICU ward without its beloved Senior Ward Sister. She is the longest-serving nurse on the ward. Together with Dr Gates, she has witnessed the evolution of neonatal medicine over the years. The other nurses look to my mum for her knowledge and expertise. She is part of the make-up of the ward, its very fabric. There is not one tube or monitor or sound that she does not know. The ward is her home. My mum remembers the name of every preemie she has ever cared for. I know that there is a special place in her heart for the ones she has lost along the way. The best part of her job is when the babies are strong enough and well enough to go home and when she gets cards and pictures from their parents to show how beautifully they are growing and how much they are thriving.

My mum confirms her last day at the NICU three months before the event, an acceptable notice period for a nurse of her standing to receive the farewell she deserves. Her plan has always been to move back to Ghana. Although money was always tight, she managed to send some home to build her house in Cape Coast over the years, little by little. It is a huge accomplishment, some ten years in the making. She entrusted Uncle Kofi to give life to her vision: a five-bedroom bungalow, beautiful and spacious, each room with an en-suite bathroom, and an outhouse for the help. Bordered by six-foot-high white walls and an electric fence, a black gate opens to reveal the fruits of her labour. She will take her time to do the garden just as she dreamed it these past thirty-six years. A place to call her own.

On a rare day of rest for us both, I watch my mum in the kitchen as she makes omelettes for breakfast. I try to save our bread from the erratic thermostat of the toaster while the kettle boils for tea. She is really looking forward to a slower pace of life, an end to shift work and more time for herself. She will paint in her spare time. It’s been such a long time since she painted. Oh, how relaxing it will be. She would like me and Sol to come to the NICU on her last day. It will be nice for us to meet her colleagues and vice versa. They have organised a small reception for her at 3pm on the Thursday. Can I make it? Sure, I will ask the clerks to keep my diary clear for the afternoon. We can go for dinner afterwards. That would be nice.

 

‘Mum . . . working in the NICU must have been really hard for you – after losing Coral . . .’

I wait for the silence to be filled. It lingers in the air with the smell of our nearly ready breakfast.

‘It was. It was really hard, Stella. But God does not give us more than we can handle.’

I avoid eye contact to give her the confidence and space to visit some unexplored place within. To enter the forest of her thoughts, populated with sadness and darkened by regret. From there, we can navigate the tangled branches of her life’s hopes and dreams against the reality that she has lived. We can explore the roots of sorrow that were sown after she said the words ‘I do’. I am searching for some clearing or brighter place. Why did you stay with him for so long? To find a crossroads from which we can emerge, together. Understanding. A place from where we can see the light.

My mum signals the end of the conversation with the humming of an unmelodic hymn, the words to which she does not know or cannot recall. The music brings an abrupt end to the solemnity of the moment and signals to me the end of some hope that she will open up to me and impart some knowledge about her life from which I can understand mine. It will come, one day, I hope. The promise of the omelette is more exciting than its taste. We eat our breakfast in silence, but for the contact of cutlery against plates, the biting of toast and the sipping of tea.

 

I meet Sol at Westminster tube station and we walk together across the bridge. A magpie hovers to the left of Victoria Embankment crossing, its blue and green hues shimmering against London’s skyline. It drains my mind of colour and hope and introduces a distracting tension into my neck and back muscles as we make our way across the bridge. Sol is unfazed. He doesn’t believe in all that crap. I look earnestly, but unsuccessfully, for another one before crossing my eyes to make-believe his mirror image. Before I can make the two magpies appear from one, I bump into the shoulder of a single-minded walker. He is in a hurry to get somewhere at a dangerous pace. I lose my footing on the dropped kerb of the crossing and a black cab beeps his horn for a long time to let me know that he was close enough to hit me. My impact with the tarmac wakes me from my reverie and Sol’s hands collect me from my fall. I dust myself down and look back. I don’t know who shouted. No one stopped.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I assure Sol as we wait for the green man to appear again.

We meet Mum at the entrance to the NICU. She is wearing a blue sash with white writing – ‘Officially retired!’ – across her scrubs. She beams with pride as she presents us to her colleagues. They know our vital stats without the need for a formal introduction.

‘You must be Stella, the barrister! You are the spitting image of your mother – a beauty with brains!’

The staff are absolutely charmed by Sol, who engages them in meaningful conversation and commends the incredible work they do. The nurses and doctors conclude that my mum will be very busy in her retirement screening applicants for the position of Mrs Sai II. She must be the proudest mother in the world. A reception has been planned on the fourth floor. The staff take turns to give personal tributes. The kindness of their words forces my mum to realise the impact of her work. She is quietly overwhelmed with emotion. The Medical Director makes a visit to the reception to thank her personally for her service to the Unit and to tell her how sorely she will be missed. She is the pride of the NHS itself. Dr Gates gives the final word of thanks. He presents her with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a white envelope. If it contains Marks & Spencer vouchers, she will put them to immediate use. This prompts laughter from the panorama of smiling faces.

Mum navigates the NICU in the same way Giselle Barnes navigates a court room, with confidence and authority. The deference of young doctors and nurses alike demonstrates that, among her colleagues, Sister Sai is The Oracle, Commander in Chief of the NICU. Perhaps authority breeds devotion? Perhaps that’s why she loves her babies so much? When I hear my mum issue directions to Dr Cofie and Dr Sulleyman, it is like hearing a stranger speak for the first time. Her voice is loud and clear and unhesitating. She uses the imperative and places exclamation marks at the ends of her sentences. She does not ask – she tells. She does not try to make herself small at the NICU, or invisible. Her shoulders are unbent, her back is tall and proud. I think of the tiny babies on the floor below and how much my mum loves them, ‘my babies’. She works so hard to protect them from sickness and harm so they can be safe and well and go home. She protects them and loves them and fights for them.

More than she ever protected me.

More than she ever fought for me.

 

I did not know that my mum could tell a man what to do. I did not know that she could be assertive. I did not know that she could ever be more than what she was – at home. I wonder whether she has always been two different people: Senior Nurse Florence and my mum. I raise a plastic flute of champagne, along with colleagues present, to toast the One and Only: Senior Nurse Florence.

The champagne is bitter and sharp. It tastes of confusion.

 

Sol and I meet Auntie Baaba at Heathrow to say goodbye to Mum. I survived pupillage because she helped me, too tired to eat let alone cook. I have not paid attention in the kitchen over the years she has laboured. I do not know how to prepare the meals that I was raised on and love, already asleep before waking up to work late into the night. I do not know how I will survive without her. I wave goodbye at the departure gate, but I don’t know who it is I am actually waving to.

‘Safe flight, Mum. Call us when you land. Love you.’

‘Love you more.’