Grief laid bare: Eutille Duncan’s unflinching account of a daughter’s pain

Born from the sorrow of losing her mother in 2017, Eutille Duncan’s book God and the Ordinary Mother emerges as a powerful narrative of healing. With unflinching honesty and emotional depth, Duncan captures the raw essence of her journey with authenticity and heart. Eutille Duncan is a Tobagonian writer and publisher.

A proud alumnus of Bishop’s High School in Tobago, she holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Andrews University. Her latest work, God and the Ordinary Mother, is a poignant exploration of love, loss, and the complexities of grief. Duncan’s latest book reflects her deep connection to her roots and the profound impact of her mother’s passing, driving her to create a work that resonates with anyone who has grappled with grief.

With her teacher’s encouragement, Duncan began writing in primary school, starting with Mother’s Day cards. This evolved into poems on handmade birthday and Christmas cards. “By the time I was a teenager,” she recalls, “writing had become my voice for unspoken feelings, a tool for healing, self-examination, and self-expression.”

This early start became a lifelong commitment to expressing her inner world. While pursuing her history degree, Duncan recognised the vital role of storytellers in shaping our understanding of the world. “Writing ensures cultures and civilisations are not forgotten,” she reflects—a conviction that inspired her to establish Eutille Duncan Publishing, dedicated to amplifying Caribbean voices that might otherwise be lost.

Duncan’s works are deeply rooted in her dual heritage from T&T, shaped by a rich immersion in both cultures that defines her writing and worldview. God and the Ordinary Mother is a testament to the power of writing as a means of healing. Duncan shares the raw, unfiltered emotions that come with caring for a terminally ill parent and the profound lessons it brings.

“After many pages of angry and irrational venting, I was able to move on to the acceptance and the realisation of all that the entire experience … had added to my life.”

Extract exclusively for The Sunday Guardian WE magazine with full permissions granted by Euteille Duncan: God and The Ordinary Mother

God Never Gives Us More Than We Can Bear

On an unremarkable afternoon in May 2010, I heard my mother anxiously calling to me from her bedroom where she had retired a while earlier, for a mid-afternoon nap; she was in the beginning stages of a stroke, and I would like to say that I handled it with the calm of a mature, level-headed individual, but I did not.

My mother was one of those persons who never seemed to get seriously ill and in all of her seventy-seven years she had only slowed marginally. She was always busy with one pursuit after the next, giving off the illusion of being invincible. But that afternoon in May, which was in no way different from every other afternoon, was the beginning of a journey that taught me that unlike the popular saying, which she herself loved to quote, “God Always gives us more than we can bear.”

My mother was rushed to the hospital in time to survive the attack, and tests were run to determine what caused her unexpected stroke. Her results returned with the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. This changed everything for both of us, but not in the way that I would have anticipated.

In the ensuing six-and-a-half-year journey as her primary caregiver, I learnt several very powerful lessons, the first one being: God consistently gives us more than we can bear so that we may learn to trust in Him and not lean on the illusion of our ability to cope with crisis. He allows us unbearable burdens so that we may learn to “Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His face continually.” 1 Chronicles 16:11 KJV

We Didn’t Come Here to Turn Pillars of Salt

After a week-long stay in the hospital, my mother’s test results came back, and her diagnosis was pronounced. She had suffered a stroke which had affected the right side of her body; her right arm and leg were sluggish, and she had a slight drop on the right side of her face. The stroke had been brought on by her previously undiagnosed Parkinson’s disease, and given how far the disease had already advanced, we were told she had a two-to-three-year span before her body completely shut down (and this was with medication).

After the doctors ascertained that there was nothing more that could be gained by keeping her warded, she was discharged from the hospital, with instructions for her long-term care.

The following morning after her arrival home, she lapsed into a state of inexplicable dazed confusion; she did not recognise any of us and refused to eat. I quickly called a nurse friend (who was indeed a friend in my hour of need), and she told me not to worry. A short while later she arrived at our home with a doctor in tow.

He examined my mother and informed us, her anxiously gathered offspring, that she was experiencing a rare side effect of the Parkinson’s medication which she had been prescribed. He further informed us that we would have to monitor her and wait it out. And also, we needed to bear in mind her age, and that she had recently suffered a stroke. I would love to tell you that during this experience I was a paragon of level-headed reasoning, faith and strength, but that would be a baseless lie …

… she came to herself early in the morning to find me kneeling and praying in tears at her bedside.

Her softly whispered question was, “Elizabeth, why are you crying like that?” (“Like that” referred to my breathless gasping sobs, streaming tears flowing from my eyes, accompanied by streaming snot flowing from my nostrils. And in retrospect, I won’t want to come to consciousness to see that either.)

“Mother you are awake,” I blubbered through my tears, “…, we thought that you might die.”

Her response, just as softly, “We didn’t come here to turn to pillars of salt like Lot’s wife. Death is ‘appointed unto man’. It is not my time yet, but if it was, I go to my Jesus in peace. Kindly pull yourself together and get up from there.”

Needless to say, at that time, wrapped up in my own selfish fears and a bit hurt because she had essentially just scolded me, I did not understand either what she was saying or her seemingly nonchalant reaction to the entire situation.

However, I would eventually come to learn that her death was not about me or anyone else, but about her and God. Her faith in God was so deep that the words of the apostle Paul rang true for her …

“For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:7-8 NIV.”

–End of extract

Duncan has independently published five books. Her body of work includes Woman to Woman, Thanks to the Brothers, Divisions, In A Fine Castle, In D Mélé (co-created with her niece and daughter), and now, God and the Ordinary Mother.

Ira Mathur is a Guardian Media journalist and the winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction for her memoir, Love The Dark Days.

Website: www.irasroom.org

Author inquiries can be sent to irasroom@gmail.com

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