17th December 2014: Email from the Minister who was conducting the funeral…
“I cannot begin to imagine how you are coping with this double tragedy for you but know somehow you are being given strength to get through the days. I realise your mum has left some thoughts on what she would like for a service and am happy to include whatever her wishes are – and yours too. I am out first thing doing communion services and hospital visits but hope to be in later afternoon – would that be a good time to phone you?
You are in our thoughts and prayers – as are your dear mum and dad – together forever.”
I spoke to her at length – she was incredibly kind and caring – telling her about my parents, and said I’d write a little more in an email, so she could get a feel for both of them and the unusual circumstances of their deaths. It summarises those three long, precious weeks, which are still as clear in my mind as if they happened last month.
Email to the Minister:
“I started to reply with a short email but it has ended up being a long and, as it has turned out, very helpful – almost cathartic – email …helpful in that for the first time I have started to put down in words what has happened in the last month, and both the difficulties and the love I’ve encountered. I want you to know what happened because no-one really knows the chain of events, and what it says about my wonderful parents, their love for each other and for me. If at the start I’d known the eventual outcome, I would have found the events easier to mange. I feel I’m in shock right now, as much by what happened and how it happened as by the fact that they are actually completely gone, wiped from my life, which I still cannot quite believe.
The whole thing feels like a dream… Like a Sunday afternoon drama… I still feel that if I were to pick up the phone and dial their number, they would reply… I’d hear their clock ticking in the background, as always…
The worst part of that first week in hospital was that they were separated. Married for over 59 years and they’d never spent more than a few days apart. For me, this was traumatic because I (stupidly) thought I could influence the situation, and get them together. All my life they’ve done everything they can for me – you will never meet more devoted, generous parents who were a huge influence in my life but who always encouraged me to live my own life and not anyone else’s expectations of a life… So, I felt I was letting them down in their hour of need by not being able to wield any influence at all; they were ill, frail, helpless. I am capable, often persuasive and usually mange to take control of situations… but I was helpless, too. So, Dad pined for Mum and it broke my heart seeing that and putting on a brave face for him, while all the time subtly battling with the system, trying to get him moved closer to her. He was dying, they told me. Had just days left… so I had to explain this to Mum – a very difficult conversation to say the least. Mum found she could no longer eat or drink anything at all, and was told her tumour was too high in her throat, so usual way of keeping her throat open wouldn’t work. She was fed through a nasogastric tube and, typically, adapted stoically and with no complaints – except for an itchy nose! This also broke my heart – she was always so very brave – imagine, feeling rotten, having an unbelievable sore throat, constant cough….. waking up from a restless night and…..not being able to have a cup of tea… Not even a sip of water… They were not talking of her dying, but of her living. There was very serious discussion over her having a PEG fitted, so she could be fed directly into her stomach. For the rest of her life… The implications of this possibility were constantly in my mind, worrying how she would cope. John and I were thinking of how we’d squeeze a bed into our tiny spare room, so that she could come and live with us. Contemplating my mother living without my father being alive was as hard for me as imagining her living without ever swallowing food or liquid again… The tumour had also suddenly weakened her voice, and it became quieter each day. I was constantly worried that she would suddenly be unable to breathe, like that fateful night before she was taken into hospital. No doubt she felt the same fear multiplied, but she never showed that fear.
After a week, finally, they moved Dad closer to Mum, but that week was traumatic in other ways… Dad seemed to “stabilise” in such a frail state that I constantly – and I mean every minute – expected to have a phone call saying he had died. I spent my days at the hospital torn between visiting Dad on the ground floor and Mum on the third. My mobile was constantly in my hand, but the signal in the hospital, and in their flat, was dreadful, so I never knew if someone was trying to call me. What surprised me was that so many people in the hospital saw it as “tragic”, a very sad situation for all three of us and yet, no-one helped us deal with it. In fact, despite many conversations, it was only when I threatened to make a formal complaint – which I did – that my parents’ home telephone number was removed from the front of Dad’s file and finally my mobile number was written in its place. Imagine… Both parents in hospital and the doctors on Dad’s ward had Mum down as the person to contact in an emergency! Mum who was struggling to breath in the same hospital! I pointed this error out every single time I visited Dad, I watched them change the information, but by the next day, Mum was yet again listed as the person to call. It was also stressful deciding what to tell each of them (about their own condition/prognosis and the other’s) how to tell them, what to keep to myself…
Then out of the blue I was told by Palliative Care that Dad wasn’t as ill as they had thought, but that Mum could potentially be moved into a hospice. I’d had no idea Palliative Care were considering Mum for such a move; until that point, I didn’t realise she was so ill that she might be entitled to a place there herself. I knew, but wasn’t told, that she must therefore have less than two weeks to live. No-one had explained this to me. They said they were going to put Dad on a “fast-track” discharge list, and that I’d have to find a nursing home for him… Only a few days before they had been talking about giving Mum radiotherapy on her throat, to try to shrink the tumour, to ease the symptoms and give her a “little extra time”. In memorable conversation with two doctors, when I asked, terrified at this prospect, and bearing in mind my Mum was over 80 years old and had Angina: “Isn’t radiotherapy on the throat very painful?” One of them callously, unprofessionally, replied: “I don’t know, I’ve not had it done myself.” I had been worrying that my Mum would have this done just because the hapless doctors were suggesting it, and then she might well die suffering and in pain from the side effects. Hearing, almost by accident, that they were talking of a hospice instead was both a relief and devastating news… Every day was full of these sorts of conversations; from one minute to the next I never felt either of them were safe and I was constantly worried that I wasn’t asking the right questions or speaking t the right people. That I was letting my parents down…
Then, in one miraculous telephone call, everything changed. I was told that Dad had deteriorated, and was dying after all – so they could now both go into a hospice if a place could be found. Also, joy of joys, that he was about to be moved into a room next to Mum. I have a most treasured photo of my parents lying with two beds pushed together, holding hands, and looking as happy as any young couple on their wedding day. Dad no longer looked like my Dad…. He was skinny beyond belief, but at that point I’d grown accustomed to this 2nd Dad, my elderly, frail Dad, and recognised the sheer joy on his sunken face… I decided to return that evening instead of waiting until morning, and arrived at 9pm to see them still next to each other, holding hands and settled for the night. Dad died at 5am the following morning. If they’d waited until the next day to move him he would have died alone because I’d deserted him to avoid talking to the consultant about discharging him. I’d deserted him because they’d told me he wasn’t poorly enough for hospice even though he couldn’t sit up/roll over unaided, couldn’t drink unaided, could barely speak. I am thankful every day that Dad and Mum were together when he died because he always drew strength from Mum; he adored her.
Mum’s faith has always been so very strong, but I was completely in awe of this tiny old lady, as she sat, brave and unflinching in her hospital bed not 6 hours afterwards, as the nurse withdrew the tube which was keeping her alive. She was moved to the hospice the following morning, a day after Dad’s death. She was my Mum and we’ve had our moments throughout my life (lots of arguments!) but I will tell you now, if you were to spend eternity looking, you would never meet a more dignified, humble and loving person . Her faith was always unshakeable, and in the last week of her life I spent many, many hours with her and I felt as if I were half living in the spiritual world, alongside her. I’m aware that this might sound exaggerated, fanciful, but in the times we shared, between the crossword puzzles and her familiar, comforting TV programmes, she was quiet, serene, and so very strong. We talked about the funeral, about my future, and about her life with Dad.
And now they are together again – both are at the same undertakers. Mum felt very strongly that Dad was already in Heaven, waiting for her while sitting on a bench and that thought/belief comforted her.”
“To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”Oscar Wilde