As Christmas Approaches
I shot myself in the foot this year. Massively.
I'm currently writing Christmas cards. Which I've done every year for years and I've tended to write them to the same people. Or, at least, have people in mind when I'm writing them in case Mum and I both do one to the same person with both our names in it. This year is different though. This year is different for a number of reasons. Firstly, I'm writing most of my own cards now. So I get to decide who gets them and who doesn't. Anyone I don't really know the address of or who I don't think would benefit from having one from me is for me to decide.
Secondly, I've starting to write cards to people who are no longer with us. Or, I started to write them before remembering.
This year, I went to a funeral for the first time. Then I went to a second one in a week. And, then, I went to the third funeral in as many months. I don't know what kind of drugs 2016 has been smoking but I suggest we collectively confiscate them and banish this year to the annals of history. Very few good things have occurred this year and, let's face it, those good things are going to be in our personal lives, not the public consciousness.
But I felt the need to explain this on a blog before I end up crying on my bed for the upteenth time over this.
This story stars early this year when my Mum and I discovered my great aunt, Phyllis, was diagnosed with stomach cancer and, because she was in her early 90s, she'd refused chemo. So she was terminal. We all knew her death was coming, it was only a matter of time. But it was how she would end up going which still makes me upset.
Back in May, Phyll was admitted to Salisbury Hospital after bringing up some black vomit. (This was later found to be down to a number of things, the cancer included). She was sent into hospital and put into an isolated room in case she had Norovirus. (A pointless fucking exercise if you ask me because she didn't have Norovirus). Anyway, she was promised a bed in a hospice soon after she was admitted but this sadly never occurred. She spent the rest of her life in that isolated room, shut off from other patients.
I went to see Phyll 3 times before she passed away. I didn't intend this to occur, it just kind of happened. But, as they transpired, I did this for a number of reasons.
1. I always thought a lot of Phyll, despite family quarrels, and I figured that, considering I hadn't experienced a close death by this point, the more I saw her before she died, the easier her eventual death would become.
2. At that moment in time, it was easier for me to get to Salisbury and make the time than it was for my Mum and my Nan (Phyll's sister).
3. I like being of assistance. So I went to help Phyll's daughter and grandkids if they needed it.
The first time seeing her was fine. She was a little shattered but, hey, hospitals. She didn't recognise me at first but then when she realised who I was she seemed happy I was there, as she was happy with everyone.
The second time was a little more tricky. By this point, she was starting to deteriorate rapidly. She wasn't keeping solids down, she wasn't keeping much fluid down either. And her morphine had been increased. So she was starting to come in and out of consciousness.
The second time was hard for another reason.
Long story short, my maternal grandfather, Donald, died in 1981. This was hard for everyone in my family to cope with. And he's continually talked about. Obviously, being born 13 years after his death, I never met him so I only know him from words and stories. No video footage exists so I don't even know what he sounded like.
During the second visit of mine, Phyll started to see various people from her past. (And, as it turns out her future! She saw her great-granddaughter as an adult apparently). But, at one point, I was standing at the foot of her bed. She looked at me for a moment, then looked to the side of me and smiled more. Before saying "Donald...Donald Frampton...what are you doing here?"
I couldn't help but feel my heart break a little. I ended up telling Mum on the way home. It was weird watching someone deteriorate like that.
The prelude to the second and third visits were somewhat weird though.
I was in my room one day after seeing my girlfriend off home. She'd been ill the whole day and her dad had come to get her so I was on my own. 10 minutes after she left, I got a phone call from my Mum. I answered it and heard her crying. I assumed that Phyll had passed away that day.
"When did she pass away?"
"It's not Phyll..."
"Then what?"
"Uncle Sandy died this morning..."
"..."
Uncle Sandy was Phyll's and my Nan's younger brother. He'd had dementia for a couple of years before he finally passed away, but given we were all expecting Phyll to go, Sandy was the first.
In my own head, I'd mentally prepared and accepted Phyll's death to be first. Sandy's death, in my own personal life, was a complete blindside. My girlfriend text me to tell me she was home and my response was near enough me asking her to come back and help me because I'd been crying uncontrollably.
I suppose, in a way, Phyll was too out of it to realise Sandy was truly gone. Which might be a good thing? I don't know. But it was how he suddenly died that caught everyone off guard.
This also led to the third visit, the tuesday of the following week, a little weird. Phyll, by this point, was more or less gone. She was out of it most of the time.
The only coherent conversation I personally managed to get out of her was her telling me how she liked the Beatles. Oh, and she asked why I wasn't there with my Mum or Nan.
But there was one thing about that third visit that still gets me to this day and I still feel completely stupid for it.
Mum told me, when I started visiting, that the best thing to do in that situation is to not draw attention to what's going on. Act like everything's normal. Which pissed me off in a way because these were exceptional circumstances and I didn't see the point in acting normal. Anyway, I took Mum's advice.
When I was leaving, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and I ended up saying to her "get better soon!" To which she just smiled.
I felt stupid the moment I said it and I still feel kinda stupid now.
Why am I telling you this?
Both my mother and I nearly ended up writing Christmas cards for them.
Also, without going into too much detail, one of my best friend's dad's died suddenly in August. And I'd be lying if I didn't nearly write his name in their card instinctively.
The death of Phyll in particular has affected me most out of the three. Probably because I took the time to see her before she died. I still catch myself getting upset about it. And, tbh, if I hadn't just trolled my girlfriend in Arabic on Facebook asking her Syrian hamster to shit on her t-shirt again, I probably would've cried throughout all this.
So why have I written this?
Catharsis. I'm not going to really think much about Phyll, Sandy or my friend's dad over Christmas. I don't really see why I should in real terms. But it's just the fact that it is still weird. It only occurred to me the other day that I didn't get a card from Phyll because she died nearly 2 months before my birthday. It's little things like that that make the whole thing weird.
Mind you, one funny story that I think Phyll would've funny.
At her funeral, we found out she'd decided to have a wicker coffin instead of a big box. I was asked to be one of the the pool-bearers and I accepted the honour. However, I've never done it before. When the coffin was lifted up and put on our shoulders, we suddenly felt something give inside the coffin. I still don't know to this day what it was, but I was convinced that Phyll was going to make a guest appearance in the chapel!
I still don't know what I'd have done in that situation but all I know at the time is that I'd decided that, if it had happened, I'd look at my Nan (who'd probably horrified) and nervously go "ta-da".
Yeah, my sense of humour needs work.
So the moral of this?
Don't dwell on the dead. But spare a thought now and again. Christmas will be difficult, especially if you lost someone this year. I also know someone whose Mum passed suddenly so I don't pretend to be the expert but it will be weird. Especially for the kind of exposure we went through with Phyll.
Merry Christmas either way. I probably won't make another blog post now until 2017 so I wish all of you a merry Christmas and a very happy new year. And live life now. If this year has taught us anything, with deaths that are public and deaths that are private, you never know when things might just suddenly stop.
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