On Monday 8th December, Mum seemed weaker, but insisted she was okay… Everything felt somehow calmer now my Dad had died, because there wasn’t the constant worry that while I was with one, the other was having a heart attack or had fallen, or just suddenly deteriorated… Also, it was much easier to manage the visits. Parking at the hospital was impossible, even if you were visiting outside visiting hours you just couldn’t find a parking space. So, I’d been taking a taxi to and from the hospital. I was using a local taxi firm, a family business, and every single driver was both compassionate and professional. I was incredibly touched by their kindness, because every day the journey to and from the hospital felt unreal… The normal works traffic, the congestion, people going about their daily business, with their normal lives and I felt so separate from all of it, as if I was no longer part of that world. Even sitting in Mum’s hospital room on the 3rd floor of the hospital, looking down on the traffic going past below, it felt as if it was a world I’d never belonged to, never would belong to.
The hospice was much closer to my parents’ flat, maybe just 3 miles away; the drive there was pleasant, the parking was easy. So, I’d arrive in the morning and pop int the canteen to order lunch… It was great because each day a simple lunch was offered, as long as you ordered before around 11.30am… I wasn’t eating that well in the evenings, but knew I needed to keep my energy levels stable. After I’d ordered lunch – feeling very guilty because of course Mum could neither drink nor eat – I’d go along to her room… past the little nurses station decorated with tinsel and Christmas cards… There was always those few seconds as I approached, when I could see her through the glass pane of the door, head turned slightly looking outside… I didn’t pause, but each time I walked in, I wonder exactly what she was thinking, what she was feeling. How do you cope knowing you are actually dying? That your body is slowly shutting down? It all felt so unreal because as I walked in, she would turn to me with a bright cheerful smile, and we’d kiss and embrace as if it was just a normal day, when of course none of the days were normal days…
I’d sit and chat to her, or read while she did a crossword or wordsearch, then I’d go and buy a hot chocolate from the drinks machine, and dab hot chocolate on her lips, so the taste would be absorbed…
That day, I had an appointment at the Registrar’s Office early in the afternoon. Mum seemed weaker, and I was worried she would die while I wasn’t there, but she said I was being ridiculous, of course she wasn’t going to die… So, while her sister and brother-in-law were visiting, I drove the 3 miles to the town centre – changed beyond all recognition since I’d last been, two decades earlier. As I drove into the car park, I pulled out in front of a bus, terrifying myself and the bus driver, who gesticulated and cursed me; I couldn’t blame him… I probably should have got a taxi, instead of driving because I wasn’t functioning terribly well, and keeping my emotions in check was not easy… Not knowing where exactly the Registrar’s Office was, I stopped a passerby to ask, then wandered around for 20 minutes until the time of my appointment.
I am an organised, capable person, and that is down to my Dad. He had kept a “Funeral Box” for decades… Since I was a teenager… He – they – always wanted me to go through that box with them, but with the naivety of someone who had never faced death, I had refused… The night my father died, I braved the box. I knew where it was, so I wrapped myself in his dressing gown, curled up on his armchair, and opened the box. His love for me tumbled out onto my lap… Onto his blue check dressing gown… Every last detail was there for me, ready, just what I needed. Because my Mum was dying and I wanted to be strong for her, in the way she had always been strong for me, I could not allow myself to properly cry for my lost father….. However, that evening, the evening of the day he died, I sobbed as I carefully, methodically went through this box… I was alone in their flat, surrounded by their life, their things.. It was just as if they had both popped out for the evening. Word search and pen to the left of his armchair, within reach. Shoes in a neat row by the door in the hallway… Glasses case on the dining room table. Waiting for my father…
In the box was a book… In the book he explained to me what I had to do. (1) Register his Death. (2) Arrange his Funeral. (3) Contact the Solicitor. All details were there, written in his shaky, distinctive handwriting. Names, addresses, postcodes, telephone numbers… A page or two for each, with notes explaining what I’d need to take… The Funeral section had a leaflet, showing me which coffin he wanted, and which Mum wanted (matching) and the simple flowers they wanted… The hymns, the reading… Mostly it was Dad’s handwriting, but sometimes Mum’s writing found its place, too. Beneath this notebook, in the box, were plastic wallets… Labelled, of course. Clearly. The last 6 months bank statements… The last 6 months utility bills… Details of his insurance policy and pension… Lower down, now, both their birth certificates, their marriage certificate, Dad’s driving licence. Both passports and NHS cards. I sobbed, and I sobbed. All those years of denying Dad the reassurance of going through this box with him. The box I had laughed at. The box he had put together with such love. The box which was all I had left of him, to guide me through the maze of the next few days and weeks. When I was younger, my father had known everything. I relied on him for all my understanding of the world and how it worked. Of course, as I grew older I realised how much he didn’t know of the world, and I was the one who explained things to him… But Death? What had I known of Death? So in the end, my father was the same man he was at my birth. The man who held my hand and guided me… I honestly have no idea how I would have coped without that box. Mum dying in a hospice, me alone in their flat. But not alone. My Dad was with me, supporting me and helping me, and oh how I sobbed as I touched the paperwork he had touched…
So, with all the correct paperwork in my bag, I sat in the reception area, waiting with a young couple who had come to register the birth of their first child…and I was there to register my Dad’s death… When it was time for my appointment, I went in only to find that the Registrar was the passerby I’d stopped to ask for directions! Very efficient, sombre and human, she talked me through what had to be done… She took my money – death is not free! – and I signed a good many forms… I had to hand over the Medical Certificate, stating the Cause of Death (Pancreatic Cancer), signed by Dad’s consultant, which I’d picked up from the hospital at the weekend… I had to hand over my Dad’s birth certificate. I’d never imagined Dad as a baby… I don’t have any photos of him before he worked on the railway, and I think until that very moment I had never really thought about him ever being a baby… She then handed me the Death Certificate, plus the recommended two extra copies… And that was it. Last week I’d had a father…This week I just had a piece of paper proving that he had lived and died and was now gone from this world…
TEXTS: 8 Dec 2014 – 20.43:
Mum: Good night god bless luv you xxxx
Me: Good night and God Bless… See you in the morning… Love you, Best Mum in the entire history of the World! Xxxx
“Because death is the only thing that could have ever kept him from you.”
― Ally Carter, Out of Sight, Out of Time
“There’s something like a line of gold thread running through a man’s words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself.”
– John Gregory Brown