The Delineation of Death

A bestie’s dad died today. In talking with another friend we were discussing whether we should go and see her straight away (she lives some hours away otherwise we wouldn’t be having the discussion, we’d be there). We asked her and of course she said no, but that’s her all over; not wishing to put anyone out. So do we ignore that and go anyway? But what if the vague feeling we both had, that perhaps she just wanted to be with immediate family today was right and we got ‘in the way’?

I started wondering about the protocols of it all. Recently my daughter’s beloved dog died and she asked if it was weird to ask to hold the body. My brother (having gone through the same only a short while ago) said, “There’s no right or wrong in grief”.

He’s kind of right of course; we all pretty much go through the Kubler-Ross model of Five Stages of Grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance but Norman Bates’ version is taking it to the extreme- you have to let go of the body sooner rather than later.

It became a question of degree to me; the delineation of death really. If it was her child or her spouse, no question I’d be in the car now, enroute. I’d camp out in the garden if I had to. But it was her father. It is expected, that if all goes right, you will bury both parents. This is known Kahleesi.

When my mother died 5 years ago it was a complete shock. I guess it always is, even if you are ‘expecting’ it. I think it’s human nature to always hope; hope that the cure will come in, that the drug will work, that the prognosis was wrong, that the miracle will somehow materialise, that your prayers will be answered no matter how feeble your attempts and poor your personal relationship to Jesus or Buddha or Yahweh or the Galactical Gobbler.

I had seen her that afternoon and was told she was simply suffering from anxiety and shouldn’t be in the hospital. I’d cruelly dragged her out of bed and crossly bade her to get moving, threatening her with the old people’s home if she couldn’t get about unaided. So when the call came some four hours later to say she was dead, it was with disbelief and guilt that I drove back to the hospital. I do understand the shock. She was ill, but as Spike Milligan used to say; the tombstone should read; I told you I was sick. But she had claimed that for many years and like Peter, finally after the umpteenth trip in the ambulance we ignored her and went back to our crossword.

In effect, I probably killed her. The Roman punishment for matricide was the Poena cullei, where you were sewn into a sack with a  monkey, a snake, a dog and a cockerel and flung into the Tiber. It’s pretty universal that to kill one’s parent is a heinous crime. So I have had to come to terms with that as well and the claws can bite deep.

I didn’t know. I was acting in good faith of the medical profession in charge of her case. No one said anything of a life threatening condition that would shortly take her; I thought that it was what it always was, more debilitating anxiety that must be battled and overcome, not the Reaper himself hovering above her with his deathly swathes of ethereal existence winnowing around her frail head.

I know the death of a parent is a devastating and for many, a complicated experience. They are complex relationships these familial ones. From whence we came can be a curse or a blessing. Ultimately along with our choices, it makes us or breaks us. The grief can be enormous and enduring.

So what do I do? Weigh up how much she loved her father and decide that that will judge whether I go to her immediately or not- how upset will she be- were they estranged, close, only so-so? Is it a matter of judging the level of grief the mourner will suffer as to whether you will offer your support immediately or later? And really, how the hell can you gauge that?

Or is it a matter of degree of your own relationship to the mourner? I guess it must be because if it was my boss say, I would drop in in a day or two with flowers, same for a neighbour or vague acquaintance. But for a friend? There are degrees of friendship too.

I remember when Anna lost her husband in the Blackhawk crash in 96, I went straight around there because I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t so close to her as John, but I knew (as an army family) she would be isolated without close family there yet. So I went and I waded through the quagmire of grief that clung to the floors like sticky tar, leaving  you breathless and frightened, to the sofa where she lay in her despair, deep down in the abyss of disbelief. I shared with her the disappointment of  the left over meal he never got to eat and the poignancy of his guitar propped in the corner that he would never play again. I waited by her side til the family arrived from around the country and took over the mop up of the mourning.

So in that instance it was not because we were close friends that I went to her immediately, but because I knew she’d be alone. Just as I’ve decided that my bestie is best left to her family tonight and I’ll visit her tomorrow. I guess each time it is an individual decision. I try not to be a coward and leave it to someone else; pretending that it was out of courtesy and not wanting to be in the way that I didn’t go.

I understand the fear of mourning. Grief is a palpable thing. It is the darkling beast that has form even without existential existence; the shadow of it cloying and crushing. You encounter a physical wall; one moment you are in the sunshine and the next all light has vanished- you are not in darkness but all lightness has disappeared. Where a moment before  you were walking carefree, now you are bent into a deliberate treading; entering a vault of the sacred where the physicality of overwhelming human emotions etch deep and painful furrows into the doorway leading to the hallowed ground of the other world.

Do you help someone facing this? Hell yes, in what ever way you can. Even just the silent comfort of your presence can keep a mourner tethered to this world. Some take flowers, meals, offer services… I remember reading about one woman whose father died and a neighbour came in and took all the family’s shoes and cleaned them all. Weird? Maybe, but a poignant way for him to say I care about you- I don’t know what to do or how to show that so I’ll do this little thing for you.

And that afterall is what it’s about. No protocols. Just acting from the heart and letting someone know you see their pain and you care.