Page 95 of Postscript

She shrugs. ‘Just saying.’

As we’re hauling the bags into the van, my phone rings inside the house. I run inside but still miss a call from Denise which makes my stomach churn with dread. I take a moment to calm myself and I call her back. She answers immediately.

‘I think you should come over.’

‘OK. God.’ My throat tightens.

‘Her parents just left. She wasn’t responsive but I think she knew they were there.’

‘I’ll be there as fast as I can.’

Denise’s home is calm. The main lights are off, lamps and candles light the hallways and rooms. It feels hushed, but calm, no urgency or sense of immediacy, and we all keep our voice down. Now that Denise and Tom are the official guardians for Jewel, Ginika and Jewel have been living with Tom and Denise for the past four weeks, receiving care in their home, and it has been good for Ginika, even in the condition she is in, to be in the space where her daughter will grow up, to be breathing the same air. Holding on and letting go. Tom guides me to Ginika’s bedroom, where Denise is by her side, holding her hand.

Her breathing is slow, barely there. She hasn’t been conscious for days.

I sit at her bedside and take her other hand, her right hand, her writing hand. I kiss it.

‘Hello, sweet girl.’

A mother, a daughter, a striker, a fighter. An inspiring young woman who only got a fraction of the whole, but gave me and us so very much. It doesn’t seem fair because it isn’t fair. I held Gerry’s hand as he left the world and here I am again, saying goodbye to somebody I love, and I love this girl, she got inside my heart. Witnessing this transition, saying goodbye, never gets easier, but preparing myself and helping her to feel prepared has eased the suffering, the anger, the rage that spikes when confronted with the brutal reality. They say easy come, easy go, but not in this instance. Arrival into this world is a marathon for both mother and child, life pushes to get into this world, and leaving it is a fight to stay.

Denise and I stay by Ginika’s side for the remaining hours, a gentle departure from this world as she knows it. After hanging on to her breath for so long, she takes a final inhale, and there’s no exhale as life lets go and death catches her. Though the illness was a painful one, the passing is peaceful as I promised her it would be, and as she lays still on the bed, no more fluttering eyelids, no more rise and fall of her chest, no more laboured breathing, I imagine, I hope, I wish, that the fun-filled soul that inhabited her body now has the freedom to drift and dance, swirl and soar. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but my God, fly Ginika, fly.

A moment like this, as tragic and overwhelming as it is, is an honour to witness and, perhaps selfishly, in time it will help that I was with her for the end. I will always remember how Ginika and I met, I will always remember how we parted.

As if she knows, as if she senses her own greatest loss, from the other room, Jewel awakes from her sleep with a cry.

Around the kitchen table, red-eyed and exhausted, Tom, Denise and I regroup. I retrieve a keepsake box from my bag and place it on the table.

Ginika’s letter.

‘This is for you, Jewel. From Mama.’

‘Mama,’ she says, grinning. She grabs her pudgy toes and pulls at them.

‘Yes, Mama,’ I try to smile, wiping a tear. ‘Mama loves you so much.’ I turn to Denise. ‘This is your responsibility now.’

Denise lifts it and runs her fingers across the lid. ‘Beautiful box.’

It’s the mirrored jewellery box I found at the shop. I glued the loose crystals found inside back to the lid, and I slid out the inside so it is perfect as a keepsake box, which contains the envelope, Jewel’s first pair of socks, babygro and mitts, and a lock of hair, both Jewel’s and Ginika’s first cuts braided together.

‘She wrote the letter herself,’ I explain. ‘I didn’t read it and she didn’t tell me what she was going to say. She did it all by herself.’

‘Brave girl,’ Denise says softly.

‘Open it.’ Tom encourages her.

‘Now?’ Denise asks, looking from him to me.

‘I’m sure Jewel would love to hear it, wouldn’t you?’ he says, kissing her head.

Denise opens the box, takes out the letter. Unfolds it. The sight of her handwriting, her hard work and effort makes me cry again.

Dear Jewel,

You are thirteen months old.

You love sweet potato and stewed apples.