Aftermath

I went to Venice for 24 hours in the end, although I had packed for 5 days. I arrived on Sunday afternoon, and Monday morning my daughter called to say my father had died: the hospital had called her just as she was about to leave the house to go and visit him. We had been in the habit of going at lunchtime to visit, but on Sunday my sister had gone in the evening, and told him how everyone was, what everyone had been doing right then.

Every time we spoke to the doctors we seemed to be told something different, but we were planning to bring him home. It was becoming increasingly clear that he could not recover, whereas the first weeks he fought so hard we had hope.

My father was 92 (the age he was convinced he would die). He grew up in the East End of Glasgow, the adored baby of his clever family. He was a man who could do anything: he worked in insurance, in advertising, for Oxfam and the UN, until he ended up in education, a boy who left school at 16 and took his degrees in his 40s. He met my mother when she was 17 and he was 19, and always thought she was the best and most interesting person he had ever met. He was a man of immense wit and charm and kindness. He loved us, and he loved our loved ones and all of our beloved friends.

For the five weeks before I had got on the train to Venice, life had stopped. Hospital, work, being with my mother. How many of us for meals, and what to eat? Bless Sally, who cooked for all of us as well as her family, so that there was an endless supply of delicious food.

My sister and my daughter told me to go to Venice: we were expecting the next stage to be hard. Even though I was hardly there, just going cleared my brain a little. I managed to pack, to get the train and then a vaporetto and then find where I was staying: not nothing, between the brain fog and my lack of a sense of direction. When I unpacked I realised I hadn’t forgotten anything, even though over the past few weeks I lost my wallet for three days - and so also every document I have - left my phone at home, forgot to charge my watch twice, lost my water bottle in the room where I knew I had last had it, poked myself in the eye with the corner of a laminated sheet of paper, spent many long minutes walking in directions for reasons I promptly forgot. On my way to Venice I stopped thinking about what to do next, what I should do, where I should be. I left everyone else to deal with that, and also incidentally to deal with the rain coming through my roof knocking the electricity out.

When I heard the news I was standing on a bridge in Venice, and what I really wanted to do was to walk to the old customs house and look out. And possibly if it hadn’t been Carnevale I would have, but the thought of pushing through the crowds to get there was too much, so I went back and booked a train home and packed.

I bought the most expensive ticket so that I would have a seat to myself, and the train took two hours longer than it should have. My daughter and son outlaw had come to get me at the station and had to drive around in circles for an hour with a sleeping child in the back.

At one point I thought desperately: “But there are so many people to tell!” (even though we were splitting them up between us, and relying on those messages to be diffused) and then I thought, but that’s a good thing, to be so beloved in life that there are so many people who will care that you have left it.

Through all of this - this saddest and rainiest of starts to a year - the rain has trickled through my roof. Chunks of ceiling fall down in the living room. The electricity refuses to go on. Eventually we have some sun and someone eventually inspects the roof and concludes that yes, it does actually need to be redone (!!! not just my imagination then) and puts a temporary seal on it. My son outlaw spends all day in my cold apartment with the electrician isolating all the various elements, expensively.

The next day he is waiting with me at midnight as we wait for a technician to turn up and tell us the box downstairs in the basement is fried. He replaces it and can’t guarantee it will won’t happen again. While the electricity still works, I empty out the fridge again with a dehumidifier running in the damp bathroom.

All of this is an added anxiety but at the same time it’s muffled. The other shoe dropped, what could have happened happened.

My father died of old age, and he lived a rich and fulfilled life. He died having seen all his loved ones, knowing that everyone was taking care of my mother, and each other. I like to think that he let go, knowing that, not fighting his body any more. We were lucky, we had time to say goodbye, to start to grieve so that in the end we were devastated but also relieved that he went before he had to live on helplessly, dependent on others for everything. We are so sad, and so grateful, so aware that others have not had our privilege.

I keep remembering that my father is dead; I have to keep reminding myself. And at the same time, it exists along with everything else. This train is late, and my father died today. People are waiting for me at the other end, because my father died today, you know. The rain is coming through my ceiling and my father died. My electricity won’t work and my father died yesterday. These things matter, but not as much as they would have if my father hadn’t died.

I don’t like euphemisms for death. I think you should say someone died, not passed on, or passed away, but what I find myself saying to people is that he is gone. The world is emptied of him. There’s a space where he should be, but at the same time, he’s still with us, not gone at all.

My niece Isi said it all.

G