Fading from Memory

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Thursday 18 December 2008

New phase

This weblog now enters a new phase, as the final act involving my mother took place today.

We had the funeral in the same chapel and in much the same clear weather conditions as for dad's funeral. There were some differences. It is a much hotter time of year now, and standing in the sun in a suit was not comfortable, not for long, anyway. The music was the same as for dad. The flowers were different, slightly, including irises this time. There were flowers from Bob, mum's brother, and from a close friend of mine, also containing irises. The coffin was white, not wood. And three of the family spoke.

Derek's wife Janet read a hymn which had been sung at our grandmother Annie's funeral in 1963, and then talked about her early experiences as a daughter-in-law, and the help and welcome she received from our mother. Then Rachel spoke, and described mum very well, covering her early life, meeting our father, leaving England, raising, in effect, two families and travelling all over the world. And last, I read the messages, not just those that have been received for mum, but also those for dad, most of which came in too late, and which we were just not in the right frame of mine to read back then.

I found it harder to read the messages that I expected. I had read them several times over to myself in preparation, but at the time, after having listened to Rachel's very affecting talk, I heard my voice faltering at times. However, it was good to have made the thoughts of family and friends public. I do think dad deserved it too, even though it was not his occasion today. I think we are all much more in possession of ourselves and able to determine what needs to be done, and how, this time.

There were fewer people at the funeral than last time; fewer from the church, and no family friends. When, mid-reading, I looked up at the congregation I was surprised at how small a gathering it was. We had expected staff from the retirement village to attend but in the event they were unable to.

Rachel has produced an order of service, using a photograph of mum taken on 17th April 2003 - both her 81st birthday and mum and dad's 60th wedding anniversary. For that event, we had received telegrams from Queen Elizabeth and several dignitries, the Governor-General, the Governor, the Prime Minister, the Premier and the local Member of Parliament. I'd presented mum with a bound first edition of the family history. We drank three champagnes, three different whites, three reds, and five dessert wines. But, really, all mum cared about was that everyone was there, all of the family who were there again today.

Afterwards we all went back to Greg and Regan's place, and had lunch sitting out on the deck overlooking the bay. None of us appear to be functioning in any way different from how we normally would. Life really does go on. I was interested to hear Derek reminisce about our mother's mother's funeral, the one I mentioned earlier. Several of our Irish relatives came across from Belfast, and some from where they were living in Southport. They surprised Derek by having no reserve, they were as familiar with him as they were with each other. One grabbed a clothes-brush and brushed at Derek's jacket.

I left after lunch. A bad night's sleep last night and too much wine the day before had given me a strong need to get horizontal. I came home and slept from 3 pm to 6:30. It is now time to start thinking about dinner and feeding the cats, both of whom outlived both my parents - something I didn't expect to happen.

Tomorrow we are all going to a restaurant high on a hill-top overlooking the Pacific. We went there after dad's funeral. Then, on Saturday, we are having Christmas dinner together - the first time since 1992, when Cassie's birth was still six years in the future.

Saturday 13 December 2008

Together

It's odd how things turn out.

Rachel and I met with the undertaker, in the same room, round the same table, as we had fourteen weeks ago. We knew the drill. The undertaker was a different woman, much more matter of fact and business-like. The goal seemed to be to get things done nicely, rather than to mourn, and this seemed suitable to the occasion. We even joked several times.

The funeral is scheduled for 9:45 am on Thursday, and will be held in the same chapel we had for dad, and the service will be conducted by the same minister, who remembers mum from her church-going days. Derek and his family are flying out here again, and will be here for four or five days. Mum's brother Bob sent flowers. I feel very sorry for him; I am sure he would want to be here but he is not young either and has an ailing wife to tend to.

My mood over the last few days has been, bizarrely, quite cheerful. I've had a lot to do, both as a result of mum's death and simply because the rest of life doesn't stop on these occasions, but I've been up each morning, unweighed by misery or sorrow, and able to function quite normally. Yesterday was marked by torrential rain. I had to make several car trips and got soaked several times. It could have been an opportunity to read all sorts of pathetic fallacy into the story, but it was not. I have a real sense now of being able to move on, and I think that, when looked at objectively, this is exactly what this time is: a time to move on.

I am very heartened by the messages that have come in as comments and private emails since my last post. These are from people I have never met, but whose parallel lives have helped set mine in context at times, and whose comments over the years have added new insights into the process that none of us is ever really prepared for. Towards the end I found my preoccupation with our own family's experience precluded keeping a daily check on those of others, but it had always been good to know that someone somewhere understood something of what we were going through.

Our cousins have also been sending us their thoughts. They nearly all mention the timing. It is odd to think of mum and dad being together for so many decades and then leaving so soon one after the other. I am sure that the double blow of this year is not what anyone would have expected, and certainly not hoped for. At this time I am glad it has happened this way. There have been times when I have looked at mum, wimpering and fidgeting in mute anxious frustration and thought that this is just not worth prolonging. We had to do all we could, as her life was as sacred as any, but now that it is over, and we are still dealing with dad's death, it is satisfying that we can think of them as dying together, as they were for most of their lives.

Greg contacted the people at the crematorium, who have still not done anything with dad's ashes, and asked them to hold them until they have mum's too, and then we shall decide what to do about both. Despite my earlier avowed indifference to the matter, I think there is something good about this, too. I am not sure what, yet, but I am sure it is the right thing to do.

Wednesday 10 December 2008

And now mum goes

My phone was ringing this morning. One message was from Regan, to say that mum had collapsed this morning and the staff at the home had asked us to there right away. They suspected a heart attack.

I left right after breakfast and had barely been in the car five minutes when Regan called again to tell me that mum had died. It was a strange feeling, dissociated, calm, already thinking about the numerous things that now need to be done. I spent much of the remainder of the trip on the phone to a friend who I had told, earlier in the morning, about the first call from Regan.

At the home I went to mum's room and found Regan and Rachel there with mum. Greg was still at work, busily trying to rearrange his week so that he can take the rest of it off work. Mum was lying in the bed, her face yellow, still badly bruised. She reminded me immediately of dad, lying dead only a few metres away, exactly fourteen weeks ago.

Apparently the staff had woken mum and got her showered and dressed. She had been put to bed when she collapsed, but it was only ten or fifteen minutes later when she died. None of us got there in time.

My reaction this time was almost completely the opposite of how I felt when dad died. Back then, I just wanted to withdraw and think. This time, I wanted to get cracking, do what had to be done and not spend any time commiserating with myself. I left maybe half an hour later, sent some emails to Derek and our cousins, made an appointment with the undertakers (10am on Friday), and began collecting the information that will be required for the death certifcate. This time I am making sure there is no room for error, I've printed out all the details in exactly the format of the NSW death certificate, and I shall give the undertaker a copy of that.

I am quite prepared for the meeting. This time it is Greg who wants to keep out of the preparations. He said that as far as he is concerned, we can do an exact repeat of dad's funeral, and I am inclined to agree. I said to Rachel that if she wants to do more, that is fine, we just need to know what the differences are to be by Friday's meeting. It might behove us to decide early rather than at the last minute what the death notice should say.

My over-riding feelings are one part relief, two parts release. Numbness too, perhaps. I think it is a release for all of us. Mum may have been content most of the time, and cheerful for quite a lot of it, but we had the prospect of steadily worsening conditions, and constantly lowered expectations. We've been released from that now, and this overlays the realisation that we can now really start to sort things our, rather than constantly steeling ourselves for worse to come. The numbness is due to the fact that it still hasn't quite sunk in that dad is dead.

Dad's affairs are by no means resolved, and now a number of the processes that I had initiated are invalid, as they had involved the transfer of assets to mum. We now need to go back and do things differently, and now things are not quite so clear-cut, as there are four beneficiaries (my three siblings and I) instead of one.

It has been one hell of a year: putting first mum and then dad in the home, clearing the house, dealing with dad's death, its bureaucratic aftermath, and now with mum's. I went back to my blog entries for early January, just to see how things had changed since then. Back in January dad was plaguing me with telephone calls and I was constantly impatient with him. Back then, he was still compos mentis enough to suggest in his garbled way that we go out for lunch together. And we never did.

Sunday 7 December 2008

Mum's deterioration

I dropped in to visit mum yesterday afternoon.

I was in for several surprises. Mum was sitting in a wheel chair, wearing a night-dress, and sitting next to her was Rachel.

The wheel chair caused me some concerns. The background to this is that since her series of falls mum appears to have lost the confidence to stand or walk unaided. The staff cannot be there to take an arm each side every time mum needs to walk, and in any event, mum tends to try to slump down anyway, and make herself a dead weight. the wheel chair is the only viable option now for moving mum. Mum also seemed to lose interest in food. The staff are confident that they can get her appetite back, but they are pessimistic about her walking again. The physiotherapist has been a regular visitor, but walking also depends on the will and the memory of how to do it - and mum seems to have neither now. This augurs badly. Once mobility is lost, muscles atrophy that much faster, fluid collects where it should not, and the circulation suffers. All these factors add up to a kind of attrition against the body - a process that we saw eating into dad increibly quickly. And the end is inevitable. Neither Rachel nor Greg think mum will last another year, and I have to agree with them.

Rachel had been successful in encouraging mum to drink orange juice. She can still lift a cup to her mouth and knows how to regulate her own drinking. The only weakness is that she sometimes seems to become distracted and forget that she is holding the cup, and it will start to tip.

On the positive side of the balance, I noted that the bruising on mum's face has reduced markedly. She still looks bad, with her missing teeth, blearly eyes, wild hair and deep wrinkles, but a lot better than she had done a few days ago.

Oddly, none of us seemed that upset about mum's condition. I don't know if it is because this is coming so soon after dad's death, and we area all a bit numb still, or whether we have just seen so much and recognise the inexorable quality of these slow descents.

We did talk a bit about dad at dinner later, the three of us. I mentioned that I keep having the thought, 'my dad's dead', but that it seems to have no content, to be no more meaningful than saying 'a equals b'. Rachel says she has been experiencing the same thing. Earlier this week I told one other friend about dad's death, and we discussed this point. He's also suffered a bereavement and says that he has thought the same thought every day since, with the same emotional detachment.

Maybe mum's passing will be over before we know it, at this rate. It's an odd thought. I always thought we would all be more affected by losing her than losing dad. It may still prove to be so.

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