Strength of a woman: The family we choose

"Doan put your sweety there... dem will tief it" she said, and I remember it like it was yesterday. It's been almost two decades that she said these words to me and perhaps 7 years since she passed away peacefully at the Kingston Public Hospital.

She embodied strength...grace...and at times she personified happiness. Always greeted you with a smile, despite her numerous challenges, her failing health and her hair falling out in clumps. Struggling to make it up the hill to work after enduring painful hours of chemotherapy the night before.

She never said no. She always found a way to make it work. She was not a blood relative, but that's not how we saw her... She was family, and she will always be family. When she died I almost couldn't believe it, I had known her for almost as long as I knew my mother. She treated me like her daughter. She answered my questions, fed me if I was hungry, made sure I didn't waste things and provided a figure for me to look up to.

I loved her... and she loved me. I just know it.

One day after school my mother and I rushed to the Kingston Public Hospital to visit her... The cancer came back ... again and she may not make it this time they said. Then, they realized (after treating her for a second bout of cancer) that it was pneumonia.

We made it just in time, just before the end of the visiting hours, asked for the directions to the ward and walked briskly to see our long-time friend, loved one, relative. We walked for almost 15 minutes back and forth..We had the directions right, but for some reason we couldn't find the bed she was on. I was panicking as I gripped my mother's hand, I feared we caught her too late...that she had already passed.

"She's right there" the nurse said pointing, "row five, bed three". We turned to see a lump of a woman curled up on the bed. She was never a big woman, small-bodied and short, but she was almost half her size. I fought back the tears... The woman I looked up to for so many years was lying in front of me helpless...the disease had progressed too far, so she was basically waiting...waiting for her time to leave the troubles of the Earth.

We called out to her, she turned slowly and greeted us with a big smile. She reached out to me and I bent to give her a hug. I could hear that she was smiling and she held on to me for a little while. Then she hugged my mother. We spoke to her for a bit, asking her how she was feeling...not really sure what to say, because we knew that soon enough we would have to say goodbye to a member of our family.

We prayed with her and hugged her again before we left and she said she was happy to see me, and she wondered why I didn't come with my mother before ... Partly because of school and partly because I don't do well seeing loved ones in the hospital. We departed.

As we were on our way to my mother's office, not far from Downtown Kingston (where the Kingston Public Hospital is located), my mother's cell phone rang... it was the inevitable... Our friend had passed away within minutes of us leaving the hospital. I didn't cry because I couldn't believe that she was really gone.

My mother had enlisted her services when I was a toddler (perhaps younger), to assist with babysitting me during the day, and washing/cleaning.This created a bond. There was nothing to me like my Ms. Gayle and she looked out for me at all times. So, even when I went walking through the apartment complex (yes I lived at an apartment complex in the early years of my life) and collecting sweets from people who couldn't resist my cute little face (:D) and I wanted to display my loot on the window ledge at the front of our apartment; of course Ms. Gayle advised me that that would not be the best place to display them since there were kleptomaniacs in the complex (or so it would seem, there was a period within which they would steal even clothes off the line).

She lectured me while ironing... I would usually prop myself on the wall and listen first to her stories about the issues she was having with her children and then she would impart words of wisdom. Her wise words were sometimes disguised as parables...but the next lesson would reveal the message. She had so many many many problems, her children weren't always supportive, loving or helpful and just a whole list of  other issues... but she was never without a smile.

She crunched up in a ball... sick from the chemo... alone at the hospital. She's been there for 7 hours...unable to move, eat, or sit up properly because of the intensity of the therapy. She had no energy to call anyone. But she turned up at our house the next morning for work ...late but she was there. She didn't need to come in that day. We understood her situation and my parents took care of the bills she made them aware of and continued paying her despite her inability to work. She was a part of the family in any instance, that's the least we could do.

We opened the gate and asked her why she had bothered to come...She explained the situation and said she didn't want to go home. Mommy took care of her feeding her, talking to her... She spent the day. She didn't sleep or lay down... she wanted to work... she wanted to be with her family. Of course she did no work , who would have allowed her to anything in her condition? Daddy drove her home in the evening.

No matter where we moved to. She was with us...smiling, commenting on how much I had grown and how much she couldn't believe how big I had gotten. I'm sad she didn't get to see me go to university. She didn't get to see me get my first real job. She didn't get to hug me to congratulate me on graduating high school.

I loved her

I really can't write anymore... my keyboard will be swimming in tears if I attempt it and I don't want to write too much about her personal life...just because...

She was the strongest woman I know... Ms. Elfreda Gayle