Fiona knew that her time was short. Every day she existed, it seemed as though it took more and more energy to get through the day. It seemed to her that even though she slept a full eight hours, she woke up with only a third of the energy that she usually would get out of a full night's sleep. And it seemed as though every day she felt weaker and weaker. Eventually she realized that even with an elevator, going upstairs to sleep was a chore that she was unable to complete.
It was at that moment that River and Haruo realized that Fiona was on her way out. They moved the bed downstairs to the living room and tried to make her comfortable as best as they could. There was nothing that could be done other than to give her palliative care as time would give them.
Thus began an around the clock vigil which other members spelled off as they could, given their employment situation. But it was mostly up to River and Haruo to make certain of her needs and to spend time with her as Fiona drifted in and out of consciousness.
There were some lucid moments where Fiona was able to make conversation and was able to look over at River who was sitting beside her.
But most of the time Fiona spent sleeping, her breathing barely noticeable. In fact, it got so that Haruo and River took to sleeping in the living room with Fiona to make certain that she was still there with them.
It was one late afternoon several days later that Fiona had a relapse of consciousness and a resurgence in strength that allowed her to get back out of bed, but like many just before death, had a brief moment of lucidity. "Simis...?" she whispered. "Am I..." as a transfiguration came over her. She smiled, despite the dark visage of Grim and extended her hand to shake his. She was having her reunion with her beloved Simis.
River was heartbroken; the one person in her life who had been there for her during her childhood...was gone. Now her husband and his family were her only foundation; she was now expected to walk life by herself with only her husband. And for River that was a hard pill to swallow. Her mother had been her guiding light for so long and now the only thing that she had to remind her of her mother was this tombstone.
There was no substitute that could ever replace Fiona's role in her life. And for River, Fiona's death was a hard awakening. Her mother was gone; she was alone and sometime that realization was too hard to bear.
To some it could seem as though her grief was excessive, but when your life has been such that you haven't known life without your mother, the thought of her not being there for you; is frightening beyond belief. River knew that her mother was in a better place, reunited with Simis but it didn't matter, she still wanted her mother. And the next evening she went over to the gravesite to visit her mother accompanied by her husband. to pour out her grief.
To be unable to share the lighter moments of her children's growing up, to not have her there to seek her counsel, to know that her presence on this plane of existence had been extinguished; those were the things that River realized upon the death of her mother and it had brought on a cascade of emotions - and a vast sense of the alone-ness of the rest of her own life...and the fact that the only person that she could turn to was her husband.
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