Behind The Uniform

Christmas Time

December was here with the weather even colder than November. People were singing christmas carols in the town centre and christmas lights were strung up. There was christmas food piled in the supermarkets and a certain cheer filling everywhere but inside the hospital walls that hope seemed to be gone. The cheer no longer there, even the hospital decorations felt drab as if trying to hide the death in those walls. I had always loved Christmas up until that year, it wasn't my favourite holiday, that would be Easter and still is but Christmas had a special magic about it, it was lost. I must sound like a grinch but it's true, it was lost that year.

Christmas eve found me sitting underneath my usual spot by my mother's bed. Outside the wind was howling in the night sky and the street lamps were glowing amber. Ross wasn't here as he was spending time with his father and brother. It was just me and Teal staring at Mum, who's hair was limp. Her skin still so pale. She looked ill. These past few weeks had been the worst. Every day I had come home from school, heading straight to for the hospital. Ross had tagged along almost every day but eventually, he had stopped. My mum had noticed his absence for she had just asked last week about it.

"Where's Ross today?" She asked, coughing and retching up blood and bits of black.

"I don't know." I replied wishing I did know why my best friend had started to drift away from me. All I could put it down to was the fact about what I said all those days in November, maybe it had affected him more than he let on. I had to apologise, to do something but he talked to me at school like everything was fine. I hated that he was hiding from me again, the trust we had shared was gone again. 

Annabelle was also at home. She wanted to be with me but she needed to be with her family. Her mum was going to give birth to her first child so she needed to be with her, to see that glorious life entering into the world. 

It was eleven, the clock's hands ticking away the last hour until Christmas. Teal was holding my mum's hands and they were talking about something, so quietly that even I couldn't hear them. Not that I wanted to. I didn't want to discover any more things that made hurt me. I had found it hard enough to know my mum thought that she was always going to die, that her hope was never really her true self. It had taken a lot of me to hide that knowledge away from her, but now it was starting to fall away as she slowly got weaker and weaker. 

"Jamie." My mother whispered to me. I looked up and went across moving my seat towards it.

"What is it Mum?" I asked, clutching her spare hand. 

"The ring on my finger, take it please." She replied, putting at her wedding ring. 

"Why? I don't need your wedding ring. It's precious to you." 

"That's why I want you take it." My mother removed her hand and took the ring off with her other shaking hands, they were becoming bones. 

She passed me the ring and I looked at it. I had never really seen my mother's ring up close as she had always kept it on her finger apart from when taking a bath or doing the washing up. It was the last thing that she had of my father. It was more of a ploy to reunite me with him. 

The ring was a beautiful gold with the date my parents had gotten married on the 5th June 1998, a year before I had been born. I turned it over in my palm, unsure of the feeling rising within me. Did I like this ring? Did I loathe it? Or did I not want it because it reminded me of the very man that I despised. 

"Mum, please take it back." I begged.

"No. You keep it, give it your father when you see him. I want you to try and become a family again, let him into your life. You need someone to care for you."