She Loved the Sea: The Last Days with Mom.
I was outside at a very special spot we call the Mushroom Road (the name came from a mistake, but we’ve never bothered to correct it), waiting for a message or a call from my brother Jim. It was a wonderful afternoon in late August, and in my headphones, I was playing Katey J. Pearson’s The Wicker Man album on repeat. I snapped a photo of the tree on the other side as I sat there, feeling that something terrible would happen. And it did. My brother finally called, and with a shaky voice told me Mom had just received a cancer diagnosis — liver cancer. Moments later, I called her, and she sounded tired but fine. I cried, but she kept me calm and told me something I’ll never forget: “Remember Fred, when a mom dies, a new clearing opens up in the forest. So next time you and Gregory are out in nature, keep your eyes open.” Naturally, this made me cry even more.
It took eight weeks for her to succumb to her illness — six of them at the Västerås hospital, and the last two weeks at a care home, Öjersbo, in Norberg. Norberg is a small town in northern Västmanland, quite close to Dalarna, with a population of approximately 4,000. Once a bustling hub for the mining industry, it’s now a quiet town where not much happens, except for the yearly bike competition and an Elvis Presley festival. I like Norberg, but Mom absolutely loved it and felt safe being there until the end.
I watched as Mom gradually changed over those weeks. When I first visited her at the hospital, she was in reasonably good health — she could eat a bit, sit up in bed, talk, and was very aware of her surroundings. But as the weeks passed, with each visit, I saw her start to slip away. She became less talkative, preferred to lie down, and ate and drank less and less. When she was finally moved to the care home, it was a bit of a shock to see her. She had called me the day after she arrived — she ate ice cream, talked, and laughed, and it felt like she was getting better. I’ve since learned that a change to a better environment often brings that kind of temporary improvement. I was expecting that version of Mom when I visited, but instead, I found her sicker than before, drifting away and becoming weaker.
But you know, she was happier. She was calmer, she felt safe there, and loved being surrounded by friends and family. I don’t know how many times I sat by her side, but sometimes I stayed a couple of days, sleeping in her apartment, so I could see her two or three times a day. Mom always lit up when I, my brothers, or her granddaughter stayed with her, even if only for an hour or so. She had visits every day from friends in the neighborhood — hugging, kissing her, laughing, and telling stories.
Toward the end, she hardly talked, often falling asleep mid-conversation, and soon, my visits were just to be with her while she slept. Her face became slimmer, and her beautiful hair looked exactly like her father’s. She snored and dreamed, and I cherished every moment sitting there. It was something important I had to do, and every time I went home, I started missing her, feeling a strong urge to be back at her side.
The last weekend of her life, September 14–15, she spoke very little. But one of the things she said was, “I love the sea,” which struck me as something deeply powerful. I’m convinced she saw the sea, that she knew it was waiting for her. And she wanted to go. Her father was a captain, and Torfinn, her late husband, was a former sailor. There wasn’t a body of water my mom didn’t dip her toes — or her whole body — into. She just couldn’t resist it. If there’s a heaven, as my mom believed, I’m sure it’s a sea — a big, beautiful, calm, endless sea.
On the morning of September 16, I was at home but got that feeling again — the feeling that I had to go to her. So I finished the laundry (I really wanted clean clothes when I visited her) and bought a ticket to Norberg. First, I had to take the train from Märsta to Uppsala, and then another to Sala, where I would switch to a bus, then another bus. While on that first bus, my brother called me. Mom was unconscious, and they didn’t expect her to wake up again. As the bus was late, I feared I’d miss the second bus, but thankfully — this is the countryside after all — it waited for us. In just half an hour, I was back in Norberg, walking to the care home, preparing for the worst. I arrived first, followed shortly by her granddaughter and one of my brothers. She was still alive, her eyes half-open, unconscious, breathing intensely through an open mouth, like her body was gasping for air, wanting to stay alive. My feeling then, and now, was that her mind, her consciousness, had accepted her fate and was calmly waiting for her vessel, this time machine made of flesh and bones, to finally run out of battery.
A kind nurse stayed with her overnight, and we returned the next morning at 7 AM. Paul had to go home during the night, and Denice had to work a bit in a conference room in the same building. So I sat with Mom, alone, and told her my secrets, my dreams, my hopes, and how much I would miss her. I had told Grzegorz what she said a few days earlier — that she loved the sea — and he sent me a song he deeply connected to what she had said, Breathe by Cinematic Orchestra. I played it for her and cried, and maybe I imagined it, but there was a calm that came over her face. Like she was actively listening and enjoying the music.
As her breathing grew slower, with longer pauses between breaths, we sat with her, holding her hands, kissing her forehead, and telling her it was okay to let go. Everything would be fine. Everything was good. There was something in the air — we knew it was happening. We felt it. She closed her eyes and took her last breath at 11:30 AM. It’s difficult to describe, but it felt like “something” left the room. The atmosphere became lighter. We all felt that Mom had departed in some way, and after that, it was so still. I’ve never experienced anything like it — it was as if time itself had stopped.
It took a minute or so until her pulse was no longer detectable. She was still warm, still alive in some ways, but her essence — whatever that is — had left us. We sat for a while, crying and talking, until we left the room so the staff could make arrangements, dress her, place a flower between her hands, light a candle, and so on. Everything felt unreal — heck, it still feels unreal. Like a movie that just keeps going and going, overstaying its welcome with more emotional scenes before the end credits.
Now, all this is sad and horrible — it is, and it will stay with me for the rest of my life. However, I need to talk about another set of feelings I had during this process — the process of watching my mom pass away, and the whole journey leading up to that moment. I’m sure most of you who have experienced this will agree with me, but some readers might find this shocking. I’d say, without hesitation, that living through this process has been the most beautiful, profound, and important experience I’ve ever had.
In 1977, my mom, Wendela, gave birth to me. It wasn’t an easy task. I refused to eat and had to stay at the hospital while my parents went home. Mom told me that the feeling of leaving me there was so strange — walking home with my dad, but without me. I survived, obviously, and a few years later, Mom finally broke free from her addictions, mainly alcohol and pills, and raised me into a fairly decent human being after all. In the end, she gave birth to me. I exited her body like another fractal, and she cared for and loved me as best as she could for the rest of her life. I have her to thank for many things — mostly for the fact that I’ve rarely conformed to what other people wanted me to be. Having a mom like that, a protective — but not overprotective — parent, who dealt with things I can’t even imagine as a parent, raising the youngest of three sons, often in complicated environments with not-so-great people around, for all those years.
To be with her, to hold her hand, and to comfort her during her last days, was the most important part of being her child. It’s our mission to guide our parents to whatever comes next — to stay with them, to talk, to listen, and to just be there. I might be exaggerating by calling it a ceremony or a ritual, but in some way, it is. It’s a ritual to let go of unconditional love, while also realizing that it will always be there, but in other forms. The passing of a mother or father is the final initiation into adulthood or maturity. While I feel deep sadness over losing Mom, there’s also a quiet joy in it all. When you sit there as a child, experiencing death up close, you become the ferryman, and it’s on you to help your parents transcend as safely and peacefully as possible to whatever lies beyond death’s door.
I feel honored to have done that — not out of some egotistical pride, but because my family and I supported my mom on her final journey. It’s a powerful experience, hard to describe. But if you ever find yourself in that situation, where it’s about to happen and you have the chance to be with your loved one — do it. It’s hard, but in the long run, I’m certain you won’t regret it.
Fred Andersson is a Swedish researcher and writer with over twenty years of experience in commercial television and the author of Northern Lights: High Strangeness in Sweden, out now from Beyond the Fray Publishing. He lives in Märsta, outside Stockholm, with his partner Grzegorz and two overly active cats. Join him on Twitter and Instagram.
