Bereavement

An orphan, by the simplest Collins English Dictionary definition, is a child whose parents are dead. So at 51, I became an orphan. An awful thing to say but if the situation had been reversed, and I had croaked it prematurely due to illness or "Death by stupidity", while my remaining parent was still alive... I am convinced dear old dad would have been far more interested in what assets I owned and what money I had left in the bank.

Death does funny things to people, of that we can be in no doubt. When mum died, thirty-one years earlier, in some ways, I felt like I ceased to exist. To anyone phoning dad's house when I was there, I was like the "professional human voice" of an answering service. In the interim time before mum died, people were happy to speak to me because I had something they wanted: information about what was happening, which dad would not tell them.

After mum died, where dad was concerned, it was as if mum had never existed. Yes, people have said to me over the years "that was his way of dealing with it". A piece of history obliterated, "like the chapter I edited out of your book". Only in the last few years of dad's life, and a few years after his second marriage dissolved, did he ever start talking to me about mum.

"It's not easy for him" a few people kept saying to me at the time. "Stupid people" is what I want to call them. To use a cliché phrase, it was not easier for us as surviving children. Well actually it was, but only in the sense that losing your parents one day is fairly inevitable. Maybe I did not expect mum to be gone quite so soon. A quote from the lyrics of Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen, the dreadful spoken word song, suddenly come to mind.

However, if you think about it, all deaths are unexpected regardless of how well prepared you think you are. Nobody knows when someone will finally pop-off. I am reminded of Dawn French, playing the nurse in the BBC drama Tender Loving Care. Describing the elderly patients in the hospital ward, that she was bumping off, she says "they can't go on forever".

Obviously, nobody expects to lose their children or siblings during their own lifetime. The caveats being the aforementioned death by stupidity. But if the child was born poorly, then you know their life expectancy was always going to be short. Alternatively, you might outlive your children by reaching an advanced age yourself. Little old lady who lived next-door-but-one to me used to have an old boy visit her. One day I noticed he had stopped visiting. "He was her son" another neighbour told me, "and he died". If she was at least 103, by the time she went into a care home, what age was the son?

Compared with mum, dad lived to "a significant 84" and as far as I know had otherwise been healthy until 80 plus, with the exception of a few predictable grinds and bumps en-route. But Mum died three months past turning fifty-seven. An age thankfully I have exceeded, just in case history was going to repeat on me.

Feelings of anger towards dad do still exist. Not so much because dad left, there is no denial about that. He was old and ill. A diagnosis made two years before he died meant, at his age, the prognosis with treatment was not great. A heart attack requiring a stent, in the year before he died, was reportedly caused by chemotherapy treatment. A treatment, it was known from the outset, only had a 50-50 success rate due to his age. I was more aggrieved by affairs he left me no means of dealing with. My lack of knowledge coming from his often repeated response ,"that does not concern you". People assume you know everything about your parents and their affairs, you might not!

Other "stupid people" tentatively pussy-footed about contacting me with the "I really would appreciate speaking to you about your father". Having that conversation for at least the fourth time from someone else who thought I did not know what was happening, or assumed I was just comfortably sitting on my backside doing nothing, does get tedious. For one who sat and lamented about dad's health situation before I knew, I said "I don't know, why don't you ask him". With another distant relative I had neither sight or sound of for years, got the same short shrift I apply to business clients. Anyone coming to me with their lament "I keep trying to contact you, but I can never get through", as this relative was bleating, does not garner much sympathy. "Then you haven't been trying very hard, have you". I hasten to add, at that stage, dad was still compos mentis.

Unlike mum, who went downhill very fast, and from diagnosis to death was approximately two months, dad was around for longer. Although the time after his apparent loss of faculties before he died was short. Indeed the last two occasions I phoned the care home, where dad spent his last ten days, "he's just lying in bed listening to Classic FM". But on the day he died, "he's been hit over the back and was being petrol bombed". I have no idea where that event took place on the mental time continuum, or if that event really happened.

Dad was not like "Nanny", the paternal step-grandmother and only grandmother I knew. She went further downhill after asking why grandad had not been to visit her in hospital. After it was explained that grandad had actually died two months earlier, I was told, she suddenly seemed to have been catapulted into a different time zone. "Shall I hit you?" she said to a few visitors in hospital. That statement was made in the era when uncle was a little boy. When dad was admitted to hospital, prior to his final weeks, I hoped I would not have to answer questions about why mum had never visited.

Many people have told me in their last hours with parents, "they said everything that needed to be said" or "there was nothing they needed to say". My final question to dad while he was still "with us" was "Is there anything you want to tell me now?" "I've written you both a letter" he said, referring to my brother and I, and sadly this did not tell me anything confessional. It was written three years before he died and was more about identifying his financial assets at that time of writing, so not an up-to-date account. Sadly, no family secrets were finally revealed. Of course, now, there is nobody else I can ask. When talking to auntie once [dad's sister] about events with mum, all she could say was "I didn't know any of this".

Certain situations mirrored how things were when mum became ill. I was out of touch and out of the loop, as indeed were some other family members. Everybody was phoning us when we were staying at dad's home and dad was not about, because dad would not tell people what was really happening with mum. They got his stuck record response "everything's fine; everything's fine; everything's fine".

Despite dad not naming me as a next of kin, or power of attorney, somebody was giving my name and phone number out quite liberally. "Is that Malcolm ______?" I was asked, answering the phone one day to someone who assumed I had the same surname as dad. "Well, I might be, it depends who's asking". The humour was lost on them, in same way as it is on any unsolicited phone calls I get.

I had no ill-effects or illness this from bereavement. Contact from friends of dad's was more about returning phone calls, on his behalf , while he was in hospital for the last time and about winding up of his affairs. After dad died, I did get fed up with some of the people who kept ringing me using their break-in question "I just phoned to see how you were..." followed by the boo-hoo-hoo noise. Some of them needed telling, quite sharply, "I think it's going to be better if you don't call me me again". After all, they were not my friends, they were dads.

It still annoys me how many people, it seemed, would have been much happier if I had been sat blubbering all over the place "at this sad and difficult time". But to be harsh, and to plagiarise I cannot remember who, sitting around feeling sorry for myself was not an option. Besides, that is just not me. To the people who needed a harsher rebuke, I would have said "Falling apart was not a luxury available. Some of us have to live in the real world and just get on with life".

From where I worked at the time I got, "Oh that's terrible, I'm really sorry to hear that, you need time to get over this..." and in the next breath "please tell us you don't need any time off work". I had taken some short-notice annual leave when dad got taken into hospital for the last time and one day of compassionate leave for his funeral. That is all you get! I do not know how many companies really give open-ended compassionate leave in these circumstances, as one unhelpful person told me I "would be able to get". Unlike sales directors and commercial directors in the company I worked for, "plebs" like myself at the coal face are much lower down the pecking order. Knowing the kind of company I worked for at the time, prior to Dad's funeral, I was just gearing up to bite off anyone's head if they dared to call me with the question "I know you have compassionate leave on Friday. Is there any chance you would cancel it and work instead?" That would have got the company my resignation faster than they actually got it.

Oddly, I feel as if I had more bereavement symptoms reading someone's Facebook account of a black cat they rescued, in the United States. "I named Jason, found him on Friday the 13th. Took him to the vet, too late to help. He was an old, sick, stray cat. Nobody cares about him or will remember but me. He just sleep and rest. Not on the street. Not in the cold. Not alone".

When mum died, I felt as if I was never allowed to deal with it. It was kept confidential, the only time something at work ever was and colleagues just thought I had been sick that day. Other than having a day of compassionate leave for her funeral, it was not the done thing to have time-out from work for recovery. Plus doing so would have extended the end date for my nurse training. Having said that, I am not sure how taking any time off work would have been helpful. I no longer lived at home and was going back to my own life, such as it was, straight after the funeral. A life neither parent were a part of, which was helpful in moving forwards.

There were subsequent occasions after mum died where I felt as if Dad was only trying to project the illusion of "happy families", for the benefit of other people. Of course at 51, my age when dad died, my life was very different to how it was at 20, when mum died. "Stupid people" who said, reference widower dad, "I'm sure you're an enormous support for him" amongst other diatribe. "No, you have no idea what the dynamics are... he's barely spoken to me". A sillier comment came from a much older cousin: "If he got married again, that'd be the best thing that could happen to him". I responded to that with "From where I sit, I don't agree. But someone else might not put up with the nonsense mum did".

When dad died being an executor was, in some ways, a bit like being "an identity locum", if such a thing exists outside the plot of my first novel. Alternatively, like being in Quantum Leap, but with a solicitor instead of a side-kick guiding me. You literally "step into that person's shoes" and deal with their affairs, and whatever mess they left behind, as if you were them.

Dad must have retained almost every bank and credit card terms and conditions, since the beginning of time. Dealing with clothing, is it possible to own so many long sleeved blue shirts? Dealing with the mail? I spent a whole day phoning companies and saying "deceased - please don't send anything else". To deal with junk mail, experience has taught me, those mailers need the shock factors before they take any notice. I returned stacks of mail labelling it "Return to sender. Recipient is DEAD! DO NOT send anything else". Then of course there was a lot of "naïve question of the week" from the solicitor. "Have you got your parents marriage certificate?" [NO!] "Have you got your mum's death certificate?" [NO!] "Have you got your dad's second marriage certificate?" [NO!] "I seem to be missing a lot of share certificates. Have you got any of them?" [NO!] So many of the things I was never privy to. Perhaps the lesson from this is, "keep your paperwork in order, somebody may need to find it when you are no longer around to answer questions".

House clearance, which was only superficial in the end, really was "streuth!" It was never said to me "One day son, all this will be yours", because I would have said "That's what worries me". I knew the day would come eventually. Belongings? I never knew how I would feel. I raided the loft for some of my things, when dad first went into hospital, just so they did not disappear. In the end with family assistance, before professional "hump-it and dump-it" came in, every time someone said "this is nice" or "I like this", I just said "take it". "Stuff" that in the end did not mean anything to me. Although with every last visit to dad's house I seemed to bring another carload home, without I hasten to add having acquired anything much of substance. A few bits and pieces I passed on to friends, or friend's children, knowing the items they could make use of. A friend who made costumes had mum's sewing machine and sewing box, as she put it "a spare sewing machine is always useful to have". As I imagine is a machine that had not performed a very active life before.

After death some people excel. Because they have been such a part of involuntarily being a carer, and "having no life", finally all that pressure is gone. Others I have seen not cope because now their dilemma is "what am I to do?" They have lots of time to brood or reflect on where the predicament has left them. But bear in mind for some people, not coping is their way of coping!

Death is odd. Is life predetermined? A few friends that have "croaked it" I caught up with again just prior to it happening, that is after years of lost contact. Does anyone else wonder, were you being given an opportunity to say goodbye to them in person, even if you did not actually say it? For John, who I lived next door to, his daughter reported him saying "Oh yes, I still hear from Malcolm. I always get a card from him at Christmas". You may never know the impact you had in their life or what importance it had for them.

Yet in my world, now, it feels like certain related people, and the part of the world where I lived for thirteen of dad's last forty-six years, have all been switched off. People and a part of the world that no longer exists, at least since selling Dad's house the year after he died. I have no other family or any friends still living in that location, so the area is no longer a part of my life. Hence I have no reason to visit again.

Having worked in hospitals, sometimes I have seen serious illness bring families together. Having said that I've also seen relatives, who were never interested before, suddenly coming in like vultures. The gangster-like little old lady I knew in London, from volunteer work, "yer gran'muver" as she referred to herself forever after, was a good example. There had been an episode, after she was widowed the second time, where she was going out and staying in hotels every night. Allegedly, she "couldn't cope" with being in the house alone overnight. It is worth noting that "gran'muver" was not much more than a carer to her second husband of three years. He left everything to her by way of grateful thanks. Certain members of her family got "very interested" in her activities and "very concerned" about how much money she seemed to be spending. Well, it was her money. Was that genuine concern, or just worry about the enhanced inheritance they might not get.

When Mandy Rice-Davies died it was reported "she takes no secrets to the grave. Everything is out". With dad, I wonder if he was any less of a mystery to anyone else? He admitted to me in his last year about National Service being one of the rites of passage and how more people were enlisted than the army could make use of. "If any of you want to join the army again in the future", he reported everyone being told, "you will be welcome to do so". At the exit gathering and handshakes, when asked "and what are you going to do when you leave the army?" dad told me he replied "I am going to be a Radio Officer in the Royal Navy". "Well in that case" he was told "we definitely won't be seeing you again".

Now, one day someone will have to do all these processes for me. Is it better to start the chucking out process now? Leaving paperwork in a more logical order so it can be found. I have six plastic storage boxes behind the settee, containing "stuff" unpacked, repacked and repacked and left in this dormant state for almost as long as I lived in my house: I refuse to start filling up the loft. Which person that I leave behind, or future historian on their behalf, is going to be interested in "the history of Malcolm and the lives that came before him?"

I do not know how many secrets either parent took to the grave. One oddity I discovered was a collection of empty pre-stamped addressed envelopes. Handwritten by dad; stamped with ordinary stamps; addressed to me at his house and using my birth surname. What was that about? The only other clues to the unknown parts of my parents lives are a stack of letters mum and dad had written to each other when they were "romancing" in the 1950s. Those could easily have got slung. But now I know about issues with the land their first marital home was built on; the strip of spare land at the bottom of all the gardens, which home owners all ultimately bought, and the lilies growing through the floorboards in their bedroom. So assuming I can decipher their handwriting, and mum had awful writing, there is more to look at on another day.

RIP Mum 1927-1984

RIP Dad 1931-2015

RIP Jason Kitty 2019