the People the Poet

The Trip-Lyrics

It started with a trip on the train with his mother,

When it stopped they said goodbye then he told her that he loved her,
Then he took another trip to Paris,
But the trip was not a trip,
It was more of a fall,
Not a fall which would land him in love,

In the city where you fall in love,
A fall which would land her in a coma,
Where she would stay.
Then he took another trip
But he knew there weren’t a single switch he could trip to turn her body back on,
She was gone.
At least in her head,
For the next hour or more he sat by her bed,
Watching the colour run from her face,
As she slowly slips away.
It’s just like a word can have so many meanings
She had so many meanings to me.

The Story

Hey Leon/The People The Poet,

 This is a pretty personal story, and probably a sad one at that. I can’t think of any other band that could do it justice really, if you don’t decide to use it then that’s fine but I’ll give it a shot anyway.

Basically the story is about my Mam and how she died, the situation that I faced and how I dealt with it.

July 2008 and it was the day before I was due to go to Paris for a week, I was leaving home as I was going to stay at my girlfriend’s house so we could go and catch our coach to London together the next morning. I had got the train down with my Mum, we hadn’t really had a good talk in a long time, so in that half hour train ride we had talked more than we did in a long, long time, as the time came to part company for what would be the last time, I told her I loved her and that was it, the last time I saw her alive.

I went to Paris, and everything was going alright until the third day in, we were spending the evening in Montmartre when I checked my phone to see I had a missed call off my brother, it was just the one so I assumed he had forgotten I was in Paris and thought nothing more of it, the rest of the night was nice enough and we returned back to the hotel and went to bed.

Next morning, about 7.00 am I was woken up by my phone ringing, in the haze of waking up, I ignored it until my phone beeped with a voice message. It was my Aunt asking me to ring her back as soon as possible. I turned to my friend who I was sharing a room with and just said to him that I knew something was wrong. I called her back and she told me to get one of the people in charge (I was on a College trip with about 5 teachers) I demanded to know what was wrong but she wouldn’t tell me.

I ran upstairs to one of the teachers rooms and handed her the phone, by this time I was pacing the corridor before I realised I could hear her talking, putting my ear to the door, all I heard was her asking my Aunt how what was the best way to tell. I just found myself pounding on the door and snatching the phone before shouting at my Aunt to tell me what’s wrong.

By this time, I had all sorts running through my head, my Nanny, my Grandmother, My Dad?! Not once did I ever consider it to be my Mum, until she said that it was her, I pretty much felt as if everything had crashed around me, I hung up on my Aunt and ran as fast as I could to my girlfriends room. As she answered I tried to cry, but I couldn’t. Nothing had been taken in at all, so I phoned my aunt to collect all the details. My mum was in a bad way, she had had a stroke and then a brain haemorrhage, she basically collapsed and that was it, she was gone, at least inside her head she was, she was being kept alive on life support so I could come home and say my goodbyes.

The rest of the morning passed in a haze, the teachers booked me and my girlfriend a flight home, all I could remember was being a mix of emotions, sitting in the airport departure lounge I was flicking between smiling at random memories of my Mum and crying my eyes out at not knowing what to expect. 

While in the airport I spent about £150 on two bracelets for us, one for her and one for me.

We flew into Birmingham, got our things and begun our journey home to Cardiff. The trip itself didn’t seem to take that long, not as long as I expected anyway and before I knew it I was at the Hospital, being greeted by my Uncle and taken upstairs to see my Mum.

The first thing I did was ask for some time alone which was obviously granted and the first thing I said to her was to stop messing around and just wake up, she didn’t look in pain, but she did look distressed, her brain was damaged so much that every so often her she’d make a face like she didn’t know what was going on, but that in some way, she was still there.

I was told that if I talked to her then her heart rate would increase, I’m not sure why but it did, by this time everyone had converged back around her and I decided to talk to her. I just told her how proud I was of her and how brave she was. I’m not sure about anyone else but if I heard that without knowing what was going on I’d pretty much want to know. So I told her what was happening, I told her that she was dying and whereas before her heart rate would only raise a little bit, after I told her this it shot up, it was huge, it was awe inspiring, I knew deep down in her subconscious she was fighting her absolute fucking heart out, she wasn’t scared, just fighting and fighting, like she would.

I obviously knew there was nothing that could be done, so I just gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead and let the Nurses begin the process of letting her die naturally.

We were told that it shouldn’t take long after she was taken off life support but she proceeded to fight and fight for a good hour or more, until it became apparent and certain that she was dying. She started to lose colour and her breathing became laboured. She had her family around her, a strong entourage of around 20 people. All holding it together to watch her pass away, by 4.30pm she had died, she was the best person I’ve ever known.

My Mum was an Organ Donor and the most helpful, caring person I’ve ever known and even after she died she continued to help people. Perhaps most poignantly I recently found out that her heart valves had been given to a child only 10 months old and once again as if I needed reminding, my pride rose considerably more yet again.