The Five Stages of Grief
When you Die in a Magdalene Laundry
written by: Adele Evershed
Denial
It was a week since she had died. Of course, at first, Maeve didn’t believe that was what had happened. Waking, she felt a little light-headed when she sat up. It was as if she hadn’t eaten for a while, so Maeve wrapped the long white sheet around her and made her way to the kitchen, hoping she hadn’t missed breakfast. Sister Bernadette stood at the sink, haloed in steam, scrubbing the large porridge pot, and Maeve felt her heart sink. She would have to do her laundry shift on an empty stomach. Instinctively, Maeve rubbed her red, calloused palms over her baby, but her stomach was as flat as one of the sheets she ironed every day. That was when she decided she was dreaming.
Anger
When she didn’t wake up, Maeve roamed the convent, trailing her shroud like a grievance behind her. She angrily shouted at the Nuns and felt a familiar taste in her mouth when they ignored her. She remembered when she was six, and Sister Dominica had told her that her mother was a sinner because she had divorced Maeve’s father. Maeve had told the Nun that it was her father’s fault, that he had another family in the next town over, but all Dominica had said was, “Divorce is a sin. Your mother vowed for better or worse, and God will judge her.” Maeve felt herself swell like an old sponge, and she bit down so hard on her tongue that her mouth filled with blood. Since then, her tongue became coated in rust every time she was angry. As Maeve watched her pregnant friends scrubbing other people’s dirty sheets, she felt her anger grow until she was spitting gobbets of blood. Her fury fell onto the sheets like cherry blossom onto snow.
Bargaining
After four days of swirling around the place like a cloud of incense, Maeve tried to bargain with God. If he would let her live, she would give up her baby to a more deserving family. She wouldn’t even ask to see her baby after it was born, and after she left the convent, she would only have sex within marriage and bring up all her babies as good Catholics. But, of course, like all her prayers, they went unanswered. So Maeve changed tack; she promised she would willingly give up her life if God would let her baby live.
Depression
On the sixth day after her death, she saw her baby leave in the arms of another woman. It was wrapped in a blue receiving blanket, and so she knew it was a boy. As Sister Malachy opened the door of the Beetle car, she heard her tell the woman, “No, there will be no problems from the birth mother, very sadly she hemorrhaged after wee Matthew’s birth, and there was nothing we could do. Maeve is in the arms of Jesus now,” but she did not make the sign of the cross. Instead, she sucked hard on her dentures, a sign of disapproval Maeve knew well. Maeve ran her son’s name over her own strong white teeth, it left a bitter after taste. She had told Sister Malachy that if she had a boy she was going to name him after her Uncle Pat who had been so kind to her when her father left and the old crone couldn’t even give Maeve that. The sun went behind a cloud, and a sudden gust of wind tangled Maeve in the sheets billowing in the garden. When she finally freed herself, the car that held her son was nowhere to be seen.
Acceptance
Maeve sat in the chapel, watching the Nuns flutter in for her funeral mass like a murder of crows. Alongside her were the spirits of two other women who had lost their lives in the laundry over the decades. One of them, Angela, explained that Maeve was lucky because she had a choice. When Angela’s baby was taken from her, she had taken her own life, hanging herself with one of the sheets from the old oak in the convent grounds. Angela said her grief was overwhelming, and she had just wanted it to stop, but now she was barred from heaven and had the added punishment of knowing she’d never see her baby again. The other woman, Bridgette, had said little to Maeve. According to Angela, she had been beaten so badly by her Da when he found out she was pregnant that she never regained consciousness, and her baby was born brain-damaged. Because of this, her baby was still in the orphanage, which was why Bridgette stayed. The notes of Abide with Me rang through the chapel; Maeve looked up at the statue of the Virgin Mary, and saw she was crying too as she offered Maeve her hand.
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