When Your Mother Dies

Praying With the Tides

Eileen Patricia Lally 1944 - 2026

I imagined I’d be absolutely devastated when my mum died, so it was a surprise to find myself in a deep sense of calm.

I know this will change, perhaps somewhere in the moments I reach for the phone to ask her something, or a song makes me catch my breath.

Perhaps there’s something about the fact that I’ve considered her death for years. We talked about death a lot, she was very clear about how she wanted the end of her life to be. Her last days weren’t easy, but within the district nurse visits and ambulances, my sister and I remained calm, and somehow, against all the odds, she got a bed in the hospice she wanted to be at end of her life.

Peace

I hadn’t realised what hospices offer. They gave us the gift of space, and time. There was no rushing, no hurrying. There was no beeping machines, no tubes or drips and no harsh lighting. They gave us a reassuring quiet at 4 am in the morning, when we arrived just after she had died. Peace and calm walk their carpeted corridors.

This was my mother’s death, and how she wanted to die. There was a comfort to know what she wanted, where she wanted to be, the hymns that will be sung at the church she attended and the place she will be returned to the earth.

The best advice someone gave me was silence my phone. I hadn’t even thought I could do this, and just take time. No commitments, not ‘have’ to speak to anyone, to exist in a little bubble as you try to manage through the day. I knew only too soon we’d be rushed into funeral arrangements. This is a space many don’t get, so I appreciated it all the more.

I’ve thought about this woman’s death every days for countless years and so I am surprised I haven’t been bowled over by a great wave of despair. I know this feeling of calm won’t last, it will change and maybe at some I will wail and cry - but that wave will crash and won’t last. I noted my mother saying in my direction - no keeners or pipers - once both were equally important in Scottish death rituals.

Already I’ve picked up my phone several times to tell her this or that, and while I’ve felt a pang of sadness, I’ve also thought that she now already knows what I was going to tell her. I have this added sense of her with me, that I can do things for both of us.

There are of course questions I didn’t ask, information I didn’t write down but in the sphere of things these things don’t matter.

The day she died I did glance at my phone to check the time, and in those split seconds I saw a post that really spoke to my heart and soul. Radical Honey has the most wonderful series in honouring the tidal saints by praying with the tides. As February is the month of Brighid, she was praying with St Bride of the Isles Tides. For 24 hours they gathered online at the high and low tides, aligned with the tidal ebb and flow of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides.

Reading this brought me back into focus, while concentrating on my mums beliefs and wishes, seeing this reminded me to root back into mine. To the robin that was singing in the predawn chorus. To the Oystercatcher, piping over the houses, whose night song often thought of as the keening woman.

The day she died my sister and I managed to get to a a favourite beach. It was good to let the tears stream, as my face was washed with the rain. Standing at the edge of the water I sang an old chant to sing the soul home within the three days after death.

My voice was met with the quick ebb and flow of a a rain battered sea, taking my song out over the waves, travelling with her soul as she began her journey home.

Links:

Jacqueline Durban Linktree. Praying with tidal saints, every 2nd Thursday of the Month. Next date, praying the St Cuthmann Tides, Thursday 12th march 2026.