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Monday July 2nd 2 Jul 2012

Just over a week ago I used to wake up in the morning thankful he was still alive.? Now I wake up hoping he?s died.? He?s been through enough.

 

 

Sunday 1st July 1 Jul 2012

Dad is barely responsive now but when he is those moments of lucidity are all the more treasured ? and heartbreaking.

 

I slept over last night, sleeping on the sofa in the room next to his with the door open. I was woken at 1am by his calling out. He goes through periods of restlessness but those are also the times when he surfaces from the deep.

 

I seized the moment to tell him how much I loved him and how proud I was to have him as a dad. I dug out a couple of his lead-dressing tools and placed one in his hand. He clutched and I asked which tool it was. He correctly identified it. I also asked what it was made of and he said Box-Wood.

 

Then he shakily reached up and stroked my face and said, ‘My best brother.’ I let the confusion go. Suddenly he asked, ‘What happened to my brother?’ I told him Bernard died more than 20 years ago. He nodded and said, ‘Heart attack,’ which was what killed him. So the memories are still there, coming to the surface at random.

 

He said my name and I asked for a kiss. He pursed his lips and I kissed him and stroked his head and held his hand.

 

I asked for a smile and he did. By now Mum had joined us. He whispered something we couldn’t make out. He repeated it and it was, ‘I want to go home.’ Earlier in the day he’d thought he was in hospital.

Mum said, ‘You ARE home.’ He shook his head and breathed, ‘No, Cornwall.’ He will. He’d already said he wanted his ashes scattered at Land’s End.

He will go home.

 

 

 

Friday 29th June 29 Jun 2012

I’m staying at my parents’ for a couple of nights.? Now it’s a matter of sitting by his bed waiting for a few moments of lucidity before he slips off again.? Conversation becomes stripped down to those few phrases you can squeeze into the cracks in the wall.? ‘I love you’ and hoping for a reply.? Selfishly I want him to say ‘I Love you’ back because I want reassurance that I am important to him right until the end.? I hate the idea that he’ll die not knowing who I am.? Stupid, I know, but I crave that affirmation that he knows I am his son.

 

I keep looking at his hands, now knuckled claws inside paper gloves.? The veins and arteries stand out in relief against his skin, blue-black deltas of blood tracing down his arms to his hands.? Hands that made and created, that deftly crafted anything from a complicated lead roof to an Indian ink drawing of a steam train.? These hands hit me when I was bad and held me when I was good.

 

They carved a Spitfire out of an unpromising chunk of Messerschmidt propeller blade ? turning one aircraft into a facsimile of its enemy.? (I always found that somehow symbolic of peace; we all have something of others within us).

 

How many things passed through those hands in 90 years?? Now they lie at his sides, unable even to hold a glass of water.? I sit on the side of the bed and hold a glass with a straw to his lips.? He doesn’t even have the strength to suck through a straw so I cut them down to a short stub.? He can cope with that.

 

A man who could tell you in the minutest detail of the workings of an industrial boiler (until your eyes glazed over) now gets confused when you ask him to suck at the straw in his glass of water and blows instead.

Yesterday the only thing he said to Mum all day was, ‘Goodnight darling’ as she kissed him goodnight.? Not much but at least a fleeting recognition.? As I sat by his bed he would grope for my hand and squeeze.? There was no strength in the grip but at least he knew I was there.

 

This morning he suddenly became agitated and start calling, ‘Silver, Silver.’ (What he calls Mum ? Sylvia).? When she came to his bed he said, ‘I haven’t seen your face for a while.’? Hilary, district nurse is here now, getting ready to change his catheter.? He joked she’s the best ‘todger twiddler’.

 

These are the fleeting connections back to reality we hope for.? They are coming less frequently, but when they do they are all the more valued.

 

 

 

Wednesday June 27th 27 Jun 2012

It feels like I am standing on a beach watching a boat drifting out to sea.? At first you can talk easily, then the distance grows.? Eventually there is only silence as it drifts towards the horizon and eventually out of sight.? I can only watch.

 

Today he hardly spoke.? He lay on his bed, now in his pyjamas and not in his clothes, staring into space.? I spoke and there was no answer, not even a flicker on his face; just that still mask of paper-thin skin.

So I held his hand, feeling the bones and knuckles ? large and prominent under the flesh.? Once strong workman’s hands, now fragile and weak ? unable, even, to hold a cup or undo a button.? He knew I was there, but his mind drifted.

Sometimes he spoke out seemingly random thoughts; ‘Offa’s Dyke,’ he said suddenly.? Or, ‘The best-laid plans.’? He asked, me to name some summer flowers.? I told him the begonias and buisy Lizzies were blooming outside.

 

It is something I have seen before; their mind follows a train of thought leading to a question or a few words and so they speak, unaware that they have been silent and we weren’t party to the thoughts.? The conversation has only been in their head.

When I left I put my arms around him and he rested his head on my shoulder.? Again, I could feel the bones, unprotected by layers of muscle and body fat ? like cotton draped over a frame.

 

I kissed the top of his head and left, wondering for the first time if this would be the last time I would see him.? No phone call so he is still with us.? But the phone will ring soon, if I am not already with him.

I said before I was ready and I would accept it.? But I’m not ready.? I don’t want him to live like this.? But I don’t want my dad to die.? He’s my dad, it’s just wrong.

 

 

 

Tuesday June 26th 27 Jun 2012

He is beginning to get confused.? I must admit I hadn’t thought about ‘losing’ him before he died; he is vague and struggles to maintain a conversation.? Today I thought I would be able to engage him in a conversation about our plans to re-style the bathroom.? As a plumber he would’ve talked for hours about it, coming with endless ideas and suggestions, until I would begin to regret mentioning it.

 

When I told him of our plan he just said, ‘Oh,’ and then stared into the middle distance.? I had more success with a second attempt when I said I wanted him to do the job.? He laughed and said he’d better get his tools together.? When do you want to start? he said.? I told him straight away and obviously he needed to get a move on because time was running out and I didn’t want to be stuck with a half-finished bathroom.

 

He laughed and then almost immediately seemed to forget the conversation and he gazed into space.

 

I naively expected him to be alert until the end and then slip away.? But his mind is beginning to wander and he mumbles half-formed thoughts.? His mind is like a lighthouse; it shines briefly and then dims before coming back again.? You have to grab those brief moments of lucidity before he forgets.? You think you’re on a conversational roll, you say something and then he’s gone again.

 

I held his hand and gave him a hug.? Simple physical contact is replacing communication.? It’s probably the effect of the morphine rather than a mental deterioration.? That’s the trade-off we have to accept; he is free of pain at the expense of his mind.

 

A once-powerful man, who had a flat stomach into his 50s and a muscle definition I never inherited is wearing out.? His hands seem huge as the knuckles push up against paper-dry flesh.? Ironically his thinning face give him a happy expression as the lips recede into a smile and the cheekbones give him an almost-cheeky twinkle as the underlying muscle dies.

 

That’s the dark humour of cancer; it sculpts the face into a papier-mache parody of what was there before.

 

I think days now.

 

 

 

Talk to Your Dad 25 Jun 2012

Monday June 25th.

 

I cried about Dad for the first time today and it was over something so sloppily sentimental I almost feel guilty it wasn’t something more ‘serious’. I’m putting together my playlist for when I present Drive on Stroud FM?on Wednesday and I was listening to Everything I Own by Bread.

 

It’s about losing your Dad and the words describe that feelling of wanting him back. There’s one line about how you hated him when he gave you the best years of your life.

 

So true.

 

I was such a fucking know-all in my teens and 20s. I had a degree and I was of the late 20th Century, while he was from Cornwall in the 1920s and 30s. What did he know?

 

And I was convinced ? absolutely convinced ? I wasn’t the problem, he was. Jesus, I needed a slap. We only really loosened up after his triple by-pass in 2003. That’s when we both became aware of his mortality. We’ve only been hugging each other since then and saying we love each other.

 

Until now I thought, at least I came to my senses until it was too late and I won’t lose him with regrets for lost opportunities. But now he might only have a week left I realise that nine years wasn’t long enough. Forty years were wasted before that and I’ll never get them back. The past decade is something, but only a fifth of the love I could have opened myself up to and given back.

 

I love my dad. And if I say it a million times it still won’t make up for 40 years of coldness on my part. Even when I was being a complete git, and even when he was pissed off with me ? he still loved me.

 

Love your dad. Tell him you love him. How often do we phone home to speak to Mum? Dad is the rhythm section of our lives while Mum is front-of-stage playing the melody. Music is formless without beat.

 

There should be a Talk To Your Dad Day. Forget the commercial crap of Father’s Day and its feeding frenzy of cards and cliched gifts. Just talk to him. That’s all. Hear what he has to say.

 

Tell your Dad you love him. Do it now. Don’t wait for a reason to call. Pick up the phone, or go round and see him ? NOW.

 

Me and Dad today, Monday June 25th.

Facebook post:

 

 

 

 

Cornish Cliffs by John Betjeman 24 Jun 2012

Dad was born in Cornwall, on May 22nd 1922. Gerry is going to read this at his funeral;

 

Those moments, tasted once and never done,
Of long surf breaking in the mid-day sun.
A far-off blow-hole booming like a gun-

 

The seagulls plane and circle out of sight
Below this thirsty, thrift-encrusted height,
The veined sea-campion buds burst into white

 

And gorse turns tawny orange, seen beside
Pale drifts of primroses cascading wide
To where the slate falls sheer into the tide.

 

And in the shadowless, unclouded glare
Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where
A misty sea-line meets the wash of air.

 

Nut-smell of gorse and honey-smell of ling
Waft out to sea the freshness of the spring
On sunny shallows, green and whispering.

 

The wideness which the lark-song gives the sky
Shrinks at the clang of sea-birds sailing by
Whose notes are tuned to days when seas are high.

 

From today?s calm, the lane?s enclosing green
Leads inland to a usual Cornish scene-
Slate cottages with sycamore between.

 

 

 

 

Supermarine Spitfire by 1317390 Corporal FM Vincent, 162 Squadron RAF 23 Jun 2012

There is no better testament to Dad’s craftsmanship than the Spitfire he made in 1944. He was serving with 162 Squadron in Libya. Whilst advancing to a new base they came across some German aircraft which had been shot up. Among the wrecks was an ME109.

 

Dad sawed off one of the propeller blades and for the next year he carried it around with him. A propeller blade is big and heavy and not the easiest thing to take with you as part of a rapidly advancing force.

 

 

 

 

A New Bed 22 Jun 2012

Friday June 22nd.

The bed that Dad will die on was delivered this week. Mum made the observation. She sees it every day and it preys on her mind. With a dark neatness, it is just a few feet from where I was born. The front room was a bedroom in 1962 and I was born exactly where Dad’s armchair now sits. So I was born and he will die within a few feet.

 

It’s in the middle room – a hospital bed with motors for him to raise his back and legs. He no longer has to struggle upstairs and it means he can sit in his armchair in the front room and retire to the next room when he wants to lie down.

 

Yesterday I took Jill Rundle to see him. Jill is the humanist celebrant who will conduct his funeral service. It’s good that she will be talking about someone she has actually met and it was nice for Dad to have a say in the service.

 

It was a light-hearted conversation; there were laughs and jokes – and that’s just what he wants. Mum finds it hard, though. Every day the end of 57 years of marriage comes closer.

 

She is with him 24/7. She sees him when he is particularly unwell and she is the target of his anger when the pain gets too much. She dresses him in the morning, changes his urine bags, sits him on the loo and cleans uop after him.

 

I just swan in a few times a week and sit laughing with him and making dark jokes about death. I know he likes it that way, but it’s also hard for mum to hear.

In May last year we gave him a flight in a bi-plane for his 89th birthday. I remember worrying if he would be too frail to go up. Watching the DVD yesterday I was amazed at how well he looked compared with now. I didn’t appreciate that, ill as he looked, there was still a long way down still to go.

 

Here we are, 10 days after the District Nurse said it might not even be a week. I can now see the decline every time I visit. He’s not even consciously hanging on; he wants to die, but his body just keeps ticking over.

 

Soon he will climb into the bed he will die in, a few feet from the room I was born in. It will be in the place formerly occupied by the dining room table, where we ate on special occasions. Where, before that, there was an armchair from where I watched the 1974 World Cup final on Black and White tv. The bed occupies the patch of floor where I used to lie on a rug next to the electric fire on winter days before we had central heating.

 

The bed is next to a chimney breast where we used to hear the flapping and scratching of trapped birds which had fallen down the flue before we got the damn thing capped. It’s on the spot where I snogged Sally Tindle, where I used to rub our Old English Sheepdog, Mutley’s, tummy.

 

It is where a photograph was taken of me in a crib in 1963. It’s where I bounced around on a Space Hopper one day when it was clear of furniture whilst rooms were moved around. The bed is where I held teenage parties, where I broke up with Rachel Gould, where we sat in the dark during the power cuts in 1973.

 

On that spot so much life passed by, mundane moments which now have an un-earned poignancy as memories simply because they happened where my Dad will die. His life will end where all those things happened.

 

After he has gone the bed will be taken away and the dining table put back. Just another ordinary room.

 

 

 

Mum and Dad 22 Jun 2012

 

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