Content warning: This article deals with the death of a parent, and medical trauma.
My mother had been failing for a while. Between the summer of 2020 and the winter of 2024, there were multiple trips to the emergency department at her local hospital. Most of them were for falls; in May of 2023, it was a near-fatal case of heart failure.
Some of the visits were easier than others; some of them were shorter than others. Most of the time, she was able to return home the same day. In one case, that day stretched to near-dawn the following morning, but given that I still went to bed when I eventually arrived home, I chose to count it as one day. (I will never forget the kindness of the PSW working that overnight shift; she met us at the front door of the retirement home with a wheelchair, and helped me get my Mum back to her suite, and ready for bed. The way she made sure my Mum got to choose her favourite nightie, the way she brushed my Mum’s hair. I weep just thinking about it.)
In May of 2023, the heart failure was bad enough that Mum was admitted to the hospital. Her local hospital is about an hour’s drive from my home, about two hours via public transport. She was there nearly two weeks.
I’m a committed knitter: I always have multiple projects on the go. There’s the large and engaging project for time at home, and there’s always something a bit more portable, small enough to fit in my purse, and doesn’t need a lot of focus. It’s usually a sock.
Those hours in the hospital—or in transit to and from the hospital—were interminable, and I needed distractions. The visits had become so frequent that I had a “go bag” packed and always at the ready, including snacks, a phone charger, and a small USB speaker to drown out the traumatic sounds of a busy emergency department. The key distraction, the knitting, was always in my purse.
All images by Kate Atherley.
