What I Wish I'd Known Then

The family get-together gets off to a rough start,
She doesn’t feel well but heads straight to the bar,
Come morning, she skips breakfast because she’s in too much pain,
Alarm bells will ring because drink is damaging her brain,
That night your sister will ask, ‘Do you think mum’s gonna be okay?’
And she’s too smart to believe a word of reassurance you say,
Next day you get back from the beach and find she won’t answer the door,
You get the master-key from reception and find her collapsed on the floor,
Her clothes are soaked in urine and blood and she’s not making any sense,
But she’ll insist she’s okay, even in this state keeping up the pretence,
You get her cleaned up and ring your aunt staying nearby,
You put yourself first nowadays and can’t live a lie,
Your aunt drives you all to the family BBQ down the street,
But it’s hard to have fun when she’s refusing to eat,
Her words become jumbled and she can’t help but stutter,
She can’t move her limbs and only offers the odd mutter,
By the afternoon, her movement and speech has gone completely,
You carry her to the car and try to leave discreetly,
Back at the hotel room, you feed her water and bread,
But she can’t swallow the food because she can’t move her head,
You open the wardrobe to find a half-drunk bottle of wine,
Her body is shutting down so with a racing heart you dial 9-9-9,
Your sister hugs her and cries, ‘Mum I love you’,
But she’s mentally gone and can’t love us like she used to,
The paramedics arrive and bombard you with questions,
But you don’t know the answers and you’re out of suggestions,
They lift her into a wheelchair and carry her out,
And everyone in the hotel’s gathered to see the fallout,
Her bright yellow eyes are full or worry and fear,
Your world’s falling apart but there’s no time for tears,
You spend the night in the hospital while they fight to get her back,
But her liver’s shutting down and the future looks black,
Three hours from home, you’ve never felt so lost,
All these years of alcohol abuse have come with a cost,
The liver removes toxins but now hers are being sent elsewhere,
They cause infections in her body she’s too weak to bear,
You spend a night tossing and turning in a stranger’s spare bed,
But it’s hard to sleep when thoughts take over your head,
Through the night, loved ones drive from all over the place,
They can’t get here fast enough, against time is this race,
Your nan’s world falls to pieces when she arrives at the ward,
She was too blinded by alcohol to see by how many people she was adored,
With a heavy heart you let the doctors switch off her machine,
Two days later your sister loses your mum at just turned fifteen,
And now you long to go back to when you saw that poster on the world,
You wish to be oblivious and that you weren’t made to understand it all,
‘Alcoholism tears a family apart’ is true in the most horrific of ways,
It leaves you high and dry with nightmares that will stay for the rest of your days