December 23rd, sometime after 5am. The care home is closed, so I have to key in the security code. Downstairs, the living area is dark, except for the flickering fairy lights on a nativity scene in the corner. Mary is kneeling beside the baby Jesus in his manger. Upstairs, my father is dying.
It’s been almost a year since we made the most difficult decision of our lives: that we could no longer look after my father at home, and that he needed professional, round-the-clock care. In that time, I’ve grown used to our new normal. Dad’s name on his bedroom door beside a memory box filled with photos and a miniature tractor. Bringing him the newspaper. Sometimes coffee and cake. Showing him photos on my phone, trying to make him laugh.
But this time, we’re here to say goodbye. In his room, dad’s eyes are closed and his breathing is ragged. I tell him that I’m there, and not to be frightened. I don’t know if he can hear me.
At some point, a priest arrives. He begins to read my father’s last rites while my sister, my mum and I hold his hands. My husband stands behind us with his hand on my shoulder. Eventually, the priest says, “I think he’s gone.” He tells us that, in the hundreds of deaths he has overseen, this is only the third time that a person has died so serendipitously mid-sacrament. I bury my head in the blanket next to my father’s arm, still holding his hand. I wonder how long it will be before it turns cold.
I stagger out of my father’s bedroom into the hallway. I don’t know what time it is, but it must be after 7am because the sun is beginning to rise, painting the care home in the milky light of dawn. I try to catch my breath but I can’t. An elderly woman, one of the residents, is sitting on a chair in her nightie. She says something to me but I can’t remember what. It must have been kind, though, because I try to say “thank you”. She smiles at me.
My husband leads me downstairs to get some fresh air. Outside, my legs give way. Everything feels heavy; the air around me like lead. He picks me up like a child and gently carries me to a bench, cradling me as I wail into his chest for what feels like hours. He tells me it was only about 10 minutes.
When we return to my father’s bedside, my mother is stroking his hair – a beautiful head of thick, white hair that never showed any signs of thinning, even as the dementia thinned almost every other part of him. Soon, the coroner arrives. The care assistants and nurses line the corridor with their heads bowed, as my father leaves the care home for the final time.
It has been 58 days since my father died, 22 days since hundreds of people filled the chapel to pay their respects at his funeral, and a number of years since we noticed the first terrifying signs of dementia. During the seemingly endless months of navigating anticipatory grief and then bereavement, this is everything I’ve learnt. I hope it might help anyone else who finds themselves there too.
There is no ‘right’ way to grieve.
Healing is not a linear process and grief is highly idiosyncratic in nature. Some people can’t talk about it; others can’t stop talking about it. Others, ahem, write about it for a bunch of strangers on the internet to read. You might not like or understand the way a loved one grieves, but everyone’s journey is unique and deserves respect. As counterintuitive as it seems, collective mourning can easily fracture relationships. It brings all kinds of unprocessed emotions and regrets to the fore. Learning to be patient with the people around you and knowing when to let things go will save you even more heartache in the long run.
You will feel guilty for being happy.
48 hours after dad died, we had the family round for Christmas Day. We made lunch, pulled crackers, and opened presents. A few days later, I was laughing until my sides ached playing board games with my best friend. In those fleeting moments of joy, grief will find a way to rise up into your chest like bile. It will tell you that you’re a really shitty person for laughing because, in case you forgot, your dad just died. In fact, grief and guilt often go hand in hand – an incapacitating symbiosis made even more fraught if you experience quiet feelings of relief when a terminally ill loved one dies.