The death of a parent is a huge event. Not only the emotional attachment, the awareness that they had cared, provided and sacrificed to bring you up, but the loss of that bulwark. They were a protection against the forces of nature, holding back death. Suddenly death is real. You are exposed. There is nothing between yourself and death. Your protection has evaporated.
This book was not just about death. It was looking out of that window to see life in its normality. Each one of the people passing had important things to be doing, a life to live. Inside the room normality had disappeared. Inside the room was death.
Extract:
I could tell he wasn’t there the minute I walked into the room. There was no presence. I’m not a big believer in all this spiritual stuff. I don’t believe in gods or heaven and all that indoctrinated crap that they force-feed kids. But life has a presence that you can feel with some sense or other. I only reached out and touched his rock-hard face to confirm what I already knew. He was as cold as ice. The bastard was gone. I was alone in an empty hospital ward. I was in the presence of a big absence – a black hole where my dad had been.
It was over.
All the long days of pretence and acting; all the performance; it was finished with. The chapter was well and truly closed.
The tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t hold them back. I missed him. Already I missed him. I could not quite believe that I’d never hear his voice again, never dial that number and hear his voice. The thoughts and emotions tumbled away behind my eyes as I stared vacantly out of the window at the world outside and watched it going about its business. Nothing had changed out there. I watched the people going about their business. How could that be?
I stood silently and stared out with glazed eyes. I watched those people and sought to connect with them. They were just like me, like the people I knew. But they were oblivious to what I was going through.
In my world everything had changed – the ground had shifted. Nothing would ever be the same again. But out there it went on as usual.