Julie Morrissy: Saying goodbye to Serena Williams is tied up with saying goodbye to my mother

One evening in early September 2019, I gathered my laptop and made my way to the Beacon Hospital in Dublin, a daily trip for me at that time.

Serena Williams had reached her fourth Grand Slam final since her return from maternity leave in 2017, when she won the Australian Open while eight weeks’ pregnant.

My mother Ursula was in the oncology ward with terminal cancer.

By the time the 2019 US Open came around, the chemotherapy had been halted and we would soon learn that these would be the last weeks of Ursula’s life. I was there when that news was delivered. My involuntary, audible gasp filled the room.

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The night of the US Open final I rang the bell outside oncology, gazing at the towers on Sandymount Strand as I waited.

The drive to the hospital took about 20 minutes — just enough time to have a good cry and then pull myself together in the basement car park before going upstairs.

I took special care to choose a new outfit for each hospital visit. I did my hair and make-up. I knew it lifted Ursula’s spirits to see me looking well. She loved clothes and fashion, and really any expression of joy.

She had recently been moved to a private room beside the nurses’ station, a bad omen I should have picked up on, but didn’t quite.

It was an exciting night for us — Ursula and I had been watching Serena since I was a teenager. The Williams sisters are just a few years older than me and we watched every match they played. That night we were desperate to cling to the joy of Serena potentially winning her 24th Grand Slam and breaking the last remaining record. If Serena was going to do it, Ursula and I wanted to see it together.

It was a tough match against a new Canadian star, Bianca Andreescu. Serena trailed the whole way through, but in the last few games she fought harder and for a few minutes it looked like she might pull off a comeback. The crowd was so loud in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Andreescu had to plug her ears.

As much as she fought and as much as we willed her on, Serena did not win that US Open final. She didn’t win any of the four slam finals she made since returning from maternity leave.

Six days later we took Ursula home to a borrowed hospital bed in the dining room of my childhood home. My family cared for her around the clock until she died on October 18th, 2019.

One day last month I woke to the news that Serena will be “evolving” away from tennis. It felt heavier than it should have. I had never met Serena. I had never seen her and yet she and Venus were such a big part of my life. I grew up watching these two formidable women winning and losing all the while battling racism and sexism inside and outside the sport.

My mom has been gone for almost three years. A few months after she died the world shut down. My first birthday without her fell on Mother’s Day and, of course, we were in lockdown. It has been an exceptionally strange time in which to be grieving.

Now, as I slowly get back to a sense of self, I face another loss — Serena — a person who has been with me since I was 14 years old and who meant to so much to me and my mom.

I grew up playing tennis from a young age, teaching tennis when I got older and watching many, many hours of the sport.

A few months before the US Open, Ursula was living a full life despite being terminally ill. In March 2019, I was in Miami launching my first poetry collection and I convinced my parents to join me. The trip coincided with the Miami Open where, sitting beside my parents, I saw Venus Williams for the first time.

When I was 15 years old I had caught a glimpse of her walking through a barrier at Roland-Garros (the French Open) and it was thrilling. Seeing Venus actually playing tennis was spectacular, not least because I was with Ursula.

Not long after that there were problems with the chemotherapy. Biweekly chemo is a lot to take physically and eventually the treatment took its toll. Cancer is brutal — far too many people know that.

One day in August, sitting around the kitchen table with my family, Ursula returned from a consultation at the Beacon to tell us she wasn’t going to make it. I remember looking down at her hand holding mine. Her delicate fingers a mirror image. I choked, “Is three to six months really all we have?” In the end, we did not even get that much.

Over the summer Ursula spent long periods in the Beacon. For me, that meant visiting every day, bringing the laptop and hoping the internet connection would be good enough for tennis. We sat together for hours. Sometimes I would paint her nails. I brought things to show her. We spent a lot of time talking.

In July Ursula was free from the Beacon’s grip and we had big plans to watch Serena’s Wimbledon match together. Ursula had chemo that day, a six-hour stint, so I arranged to meet her back at the house for the match. When she got home, she wasn’t feeling well. She had a temperature and, very reluctantly, we had to call the oncology ward. We knew what happens when you call oncology — they tell you to come in.

Though she was an extremely positive person, in that moment Ursula was dejected. We had a simple plan. We wanted to sit on the couch in her house and watch Serena. Instead we ended up back at the Beacon. When we got to the ward the television was not working. I was determined to get Serena on the TV and I shamelessly asked every member of staff about getting the set working.

Of course, this request seems trivial in a cancer ward. When I explained that we really just wanted to see Serena, one nurse responded, “Sometimes life gets in the way of tennis”. I raised an eyebrow, surprised the nurse thought we did not already know that. We did eventually get the television working and we did watch Serena that day. Ursula repeatedly apologised about our plans being ruined. I told her it didn’t matter where we watched the match, as long as we were together.

For Ursula, actually, life and tennis were one and the same thing. Right until she was diagnosed at age 64 she played Class 2 league tennis. She was dogged on the court — an absolutely fierce competitor. When she and I played against one another she kept a record of the wins/losses in a little notebook. When she won she was quietly victorious. When she lost she would joke, “Well, you should be beating me. You’re 30 years younger”.

Ursula didn’t completely stop playing tennis once she began chemotherapy. There were a number of times she got into her tennis gear and out on to the court to hit. Her coach told me she was still better than most people, even then.

Though lots of people appreciate my love for Venus and Serena, few are willing to get up at 4am to watch them compete in Australia, for example. But Ursula would.

In 2017, the year before the diagnosis, we did just that. I slept over at my parents’ house so that we could get up in the wee hours and watch Serena playing Venus in an astonishing, fairy-tale final. The last slam final Venus had reached was Wimbledon 2009, also against her sister. Little did we know, this time Serena was pregnant. We were conflicted about who to cheer for but ultimately we knew the record was important. We jumped out of our seats crying when the last ball was hit and Serena fell to the ground victorious.

Five years later, with many ups and downs, Serena has announced her retirement. By a stroke of luck, I am living in the United States. I fork out for tickets to see Serena, telling myself I cannot let the opportunity pass. Her match is scheduled for Monday night in Cincinnati, a four-hour drive from where I live. My best tennis friend agrees to join me. The plans are set.

The weekend before I should have been brimming with excitement. Serena is drawn against Emma Raducanu, who won the US Open the previous year at age 18 after coming through qualifying. Her story was unheard of.

But the day before my trip to Cincinnati I feel depressed. I stay in bed until the late afternoon. I cannot bring myself to do much of anything. I sporadically check the schedule for the order of play. I make a loose plan for the drive. I tell myself my lack of excitement is because it doesn’t feel real. But really, I think it is because it does. I can’t help but switch my brain forward into a mode that imagines seeing Serena without Ursula.

I know my friends who have also lost their mothers feel this way about their weddings — they cannot imagine getting married without their moms. I have never had much interest in marriage but I start to feel new aspects of loss in these big moments. I remember the day I passed my PhD viva, about six months after Ursula was diagnosed. I got out of the car and was standing with her on the street in Belfast. We hugged and she immediately started crying. Really crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said, “I’m not going to see how it turns out. I’m going to miss everything”.

The night before Serena’s match I think about that day in Belfast. I wake up early the next morning with a new sense of excitement for the momentous day ahead. I flip my phone out from under my pillow to several texts, all saying the same thing. Serena’s match has been postponed. It won’t happen tonight, and I cannot get tickets for the next day. I will not see Serena this time. Once more, life gets in the way of tennis.

A lot of commentators wonder whether Serena should have retired sooner. She could have ended on the high note of winning the Australian Open against Venus in 2017.

When Ursula started having serious reactions to chemo, there was a question over whether she should continue. It became necessary for her to be admitted for chemo because the reactions were so bad. Sometimes the treatment had to be suddenly stopped right after it started. After that happened a couple of times, the consultant asked Ursula what she wanted to do. “I want to keep trying,” she said.

I got the sense that day that this was not a typical response. Serena kept going in these past few years through postnatal depression, breastfeeding and injury. She continued to compete at almost 41 years old — and sometimes the general feeling seemed to be that she shouldn’t.

In the past few years I have experienced a type of aloneness that is profoundly different from loneliness. I know what it is like to walk around every day with the understanding that the end is certain. I know how it feels to live with urgency and ordinariness at the same time. I also know that the end is simply another part of the journey. It is no more important than the beginning or the middle. Sometimes, it feels like the end is most significant. But it’s not.

This month, I did have one last chance to see Serena at the US Open in Flushing Meadows — and I took it. From way up in Row Y of the highest heights of Arthur Ashe stadium, I watched a woman who has inspired me for decades, and another woman was with me too—is always with me. I am not sure anymore who I was saying goodbye to. I have struggled even to write the end of this essay. For some reason I cannot think of the last line. I don’t know what I want to leave with. I guess I don’t want this story to end—the story of me, Serena, and my mom.

Julie Morrissy was the 2021-22 Poet-in-Residence at the National Library of Ireland. Her website is juliemorrissy.com