Dad’s death in Walton hospital
Death is not a subject that people want to hear about these days. We are institutionalising it. We leave to the experts – the medical team, nurses and then the undertakers. I think we should talk about it more.
This fear and silence is a modern phenomenon. Death used to be more common. It was not merely the old who died. Most families lost children. Nobody was immune. Because it was more common did not make it any the less distressing. But even so it was the family who nursed and cared for the dying and it was the family who laid out the body. The body would remain in the house. The Irish wake was a celebration of the life of the dead person and they were present at it.
We have become divorced from the cycle of life and death just as we have from nature. Increasingly we are marooned in an artificial cocoon. The reality of life and death is kept at arm’s length and institutionalised.
My father died from liver cancer at the age of fifty eight. Much too early. He never lived to enjoy his retirement. His illness spanned nine months – the length of a gestation.
He started to smoke when he enlisted in the war at the age of seventeen and it was a habit that stayed with him for his remaining forty one years. I hope he extracted enough pleasure out of those fags to warrant the loss of twenty to thirty years and the life that would have filled those years.
My mum and dad came to stay at Christmas. He was off his food and grumbling of a loss of appetite. Over the course of the next few months I’d phone him at work and he’d say he was fine but he’d been to the doctor’s for some indigestion medicine. It wasn’t until Easter that my aunt phoned and said I should go down to visit him because she was concerned.
I drove down and had a shock when I walked in. My father was so gaunt and thin he appeared to have aged thirty years. He resembled a refugee from Belsen. I could not believe that he was still working.
We had the meeting with the consultant. He told my mother that there was no hope. There was only palliative care. I do not think it sank in with him or her. They pretended it would be alright. He just needed medicine.
My father refused to discuss death. He ignored it.
That summer he grew weaker. He was forced to give up work, then even walking around became too much. He sat and read and watched television.
As summer progressed he became bed-bound. I spent my summer holidays helping care for him along with my mother and older sister. I gave him bed baths and helped feed him. We watched TV together. It was the cricket. He loved cricket and this was Botham’s Ashes. We delighted in the way Ian Botham took apart that Australian team
Dad read one of my books and said he enjoyed it. It was an old typed manuscript. I am pleased that he read it. I look back now and see all the faults in those early books. I have to rewrite them extensively. Dad was an intelligent man who worked for the newspapers in Fleet Street. He would correct and edit the raw stories. My errors must have glared at him but he was too kind to say.
We sat and talked for hours – but it was all trivia. How I would have loved to have talked in more depth about feelings and emotions. But there was a barrier. He knew the depth of feeling without me saying and so did I. That was the way things were then. Yet still it would have been nice to share more. I would love to have heard the stories of his life. But my father was a private man. He did not like to talk about his life and to do so now would have been to admit what was happening. I had to respect that this was not something he wanted. It was hard. It felt like pretence and it was a pretence. We both knew what was being acted out.
He always used to say that he felt alright in himself. I can’t forget that. I do not think he was in any great pain. He merely felt helpless, humiliated, impotent and embarrassed.
In his final week he required medication. They put him on morphine and the decline set in fast. He drifted in and out of lucidity.
Yet it went on. The strain was telling on all of us.
To get a break I went to visit a friend. I came back late evening. There had been a scare. The hospital had called the family in. I went in to see him. He was conscious. I said good night and he said ‘night bless’.
He died in the night.
The next morning I went in. He was cold and as hard as marble. You could sense that he was no longer there. Something had departed.
I remember looking out of the window as people walked by outside. Inside that room I was standing next to the bed with my dead father. My life had changed. Outside life went on as usual.
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Beautiful post, much of which really resonated with me. That wonder that the rest of the world is going on while you have received this cataclysmic shock is very real. I felt much the same when my uncle died after a long illness. I am sorry for your loss. Bronte
Thank you. I’m glad my words conveyed that emotion to you. Thank you for saying.
You look at people and hear them talking/laughing and you want to scream at them “my husband is dead shut up” nothing is real anymore. The biggest shock of my life was when I was told my Father had such little time left I never acknowledged he was ill not inside that is. We play the game with them pretending they will not die, because that is how the Drs want it – we have such little time to be honest. Death can never be good, all we can do is relate to others who have been through it, like you – thanks.
That’s OK Anna. You’re right. It doesn’t seem possible or right that people are going about their normal lives when such a huge earthquake has occurred. You want to shout to them. I felt exactly that.
It took me decades to get over it……. if we ever do.
I don’t think we do Opher, I miss my Father more than I ever thought, I was never sure he loved me until the very end and it’s a shame they could not show love as we show love to our Children all the time, right. I always expected David to walk in the door of an evening, grieved for 16 years for him before I faced up to the truth. I talk openly with the Boys (well Men they are) about my death, times they turn it into a joke but they have seen death at first hand before, maybe that makes it more acceptable.
It’s so important to constantly show that love isn’t it. It was sad that our parents came from a generation that couldn’t do that. Though I know I was loved without any limits.
What you say about David is exactly how I felt. I had this telephone number. I used to phone my dad regularly at work. He would always pick up the phone. I can hear him now. For years I used to wonder what would happen if I dialled that number. Though I knew it was illogical I half felt that he would pick up that phone. I expected to hear his voice.
We have to keep showing our love. My Father only really told me in a roundabout way before he died, how much he really loved me and worried about me, being shy and terribly reserved and that generation particularly men I feel could not show it, and if they did it was frowned on perhaps, certainly if they were Irish. Mothers and their Sons is something special, I am not saying Mothers have not got their love for a Daughter perhaps it is more difficult, but a Mother and a Son that is something else. She has her own little boy that she can teach to be more loving than perhaps the Father be more open, more tender there is that special bond between a Mother and Son you know that. I look at my own Sons and I think I did a good job but they were both a pleasure to bring up, I loved it so much when they were small. There is nothing I cannot talk about to my Sons, in fact they teach me. I can talk to a man and know that there was not much Mother’s love there and I don’t understand that, all little boys should be wrapped in their mother’s arms and loved there might have been less violence in the World had that been the case. So many men are little boys inside!!
I think it all stems from having to put on that hard exterior. Men are not meant to show emotions. They put on a pretence. They still feel and so bottle it up. It’s not healthy.
Yes – Mothers and Sons – I recently reread Sons and Lovers – it was all about that relationship. More love and more opportunity for men to show their emotions would surely create a better world.
Very sad, Opher. So sorry. My dad died at 59. I was 22. I had already lost my mum at 12. death wasn’t talked about at all then. He was a chain smoker too, since the war. When my only brother died, when I was 32, I kept him in his apartment the whole time, caring for him. His death was peaceful. I worked in the death/dying field for a lot of my career. I made sure families talked, especially the dying person. They all wanted to talk, just needed the encouragement. It was good of you to just be with your dad and not force the issue. It was a different generation.
Mary
Mary, that is so sad. I was thirty three when my dad died and it really messed me up for years. What you went through is so much worse. It must have had a devastating effect. I couldn’t imagine losing my mum at twelve and dad at twenty two then nursing your brother. You are a hero.
Aw, Opher, thanks. I didn’t mean to take away from the death of your father. Death of parents at any age is really hard. Sad as it all was, it shaped who I am now. I did have to do a lot of work in therapy back in the 80s. Since they didn’t talk about death in the 60s, I had a lot processing to do about my mom. My dad and I got to say good bye, but I am a long hard griever. It’s ok, I’m grateful to be a deep feeler. All three about killed me, but it’s all good now. My mom – 1966, my dad – 1975 and my brother, David – 1986. Thank you for saying the hero bit. It’s just sort of – life. 🙂
Mary
Sometimes life deals a heavy hand. Yours was a mean hand. We learn to come to terms with things but these things weigh on us forever. I’m glad you have come through it so well.
I know you don’t believe this, but I believe in pre-birth planning, so it all was part of my Soul contract. And I got a whole career out of it. Since I experienced loss so early, it was before any of my friends, so when they had a loss, I was the one they came to…so I really started learning about grief counseling in 7th grade!
Thank you for your sweet empathy, Opher. It really was hard.
It is strange how life works.
My sister lost her husband when she was just nineteen. They had only just started living together when he developed lymphoma. It was tragic and she nursed him at home. He died in her arms. I saw what she went through. She was very brave. She’s lost our father when she was only fourteen. There is a resonance. I think I am able to empathise a bit even though you can never stand in another’s shoes. I can imagine how hard it must have been for you.
Oh, your poor sister. Wow! 🙁
She seems to have come through it. We all carry our wounds. I guess we have no choice. We have to make the most of the hand we are dealt. You turned it into something positive. That is highly commendable and must have helped you as well.
Opher, I am off now – Happy Easter Sunday when it arrives and “Sleep Warm”.
Sleep well Anna – still smiling from our win against Germany! Back to a bit more editing! Have a good Easter!
I can’t believe it I completely forgot it and so wanted to see it. The Boys never told me, I heard them shouting I thought it was one of those boxing matches David pays for. Who scored and how many? Lucky you. Good luck with the editing and don’t eat too much chocolate tomorrow, I am not having any – diabetes, gone off the taste of choc too.
We won 3-2!! A great game. Great goals from Kane, Vardy and Dier! They looked really good.
I shall reward myself for the editing by eating lots of chocolate. I love it. It is one of my weaknesses.
It’s a shame about the diabetes – to go off the taste of chocolate – maybe that’s for the best.
Touching account, Opher … made me think I might write about my mum’s death.
Thanks Dave. I found it good to write about. Go for it.