Listening to the Pauses…

Last Friday I sat by my mother’s bedside, listening to her breathe, silently counting the lengths of the pauses between breaths.

That I was even there that night was because I had heard another pause, earlier in the day, during a phone conversation I had with my brother.

I had called to give him an update on where she seemed to be in the pattern of what hospice anticipated might be her last hours. After a summer of unanticipated changes in her health, I was exhausted. I would be better able to help her, I told him, if I could just get a good night’s sleep. Perhaps, I rationalized, she might even be waiting for me to leave her alone.

I waited for what I was sure would be a positive and supportive response from him. But instead, he paused.

He paused for just a beat or two before saying, “Okay.”

I heard his words, but what I listened to was the pause.

It would have been easy to ignore, but instead I let it ruminate in my head.

Late in the afternoon, after hours of listening to my mother labor to breathe, Tom took me out for a much needed good meal, followed by a glass of wine with Zoë and her boyfriend. Afterwards, aware of how much I wanted to go home and sleep, he instead offered to drive me back out to see her. Remembering the momentary pause in the conversation with my brother, I realized I had already made the decision. I said yes.

Had I not, I would have missed my mother’s very last hour of life – and the opportunity to breathe with her, until she had finished breathing.

Author: kristin fellows

Documentary film consultant, writer & photographer Kristin Fellows is based in Asheville, North Carolina. She has worked as a documentary film consultant for more than 125 films on a multitude of topics. Kristin’s adventures in the past several years have taken her to Iceland to hike volcanoes and photograph puffins; to Barcelona, Mexico, Addis Ababa, and New Orleans for street photography; and most recently, to Athens for a big fat Greek wedding, to Helsinki to get beaten with frozen birch branches in the city’s oldest public sauna, to Portugal to track down the backdrop of an old photograph, and to Italy to travel in the footsteps of her late grandmother. Her travel articles have been featured in Pink Pangea, a travel blog for female travelers, and other publications. Her photograph, “Skywalker,” was chosen as a National Geographic Photo of the Day in 2015. Kristin is very nearly finished with her first book, "Lions, Peacocks & Lemon Trees" – a travel memoir that follows a collection of old letters half way around the world, from the Blue Ridge Mountains to Ethiopia to Portugal and Italy. Educated in both London and the US, Kristin also has a cherished diploma from Álfaskólinn, the Icelandic Elf School. Kristin is the niece of the late New York Times foreign correspondent, Lawrence Fellows. Follow Kristin on this blog and on Instagram @ kristinfellowsphotographswords View all posts by kristin fellows