Thursday June 18th 1998
I’d left my mobile phone at home.
I stopped at the services near Arundel feeling cheap and second rate. Gorged on tuna sandwiches listening to a problem solving quiz programme on the radio. Felt even worse and crashed out in the car.
Dozed unpleasantly. Woke and drove home. As I walked up the path to home I thought to myself I will never be the same again.
Picked up three messages from Rosy, on my mobile. The first said that she was going to the hospital as her father had worsened. The second said she was going for a sandwich but would be back in the hospital shortly. The third said call her at the Coronary Care Unit.
I had been to see Alec, my father-in-law, the previous evening, calling in on him after work as I was near the hospital. He was dozing as I walked in, but woke and recognised me as soon as I sat down. He was quiet, but looked young and well in the ITU ward. A monitor indicated what seemed to be a steady heart rate. He had a couple of Car magazines on his table – Rosy had brought them earlier. They remained unread.
We said very little. I found the silences discomforting, yet they happened. We talked a little of the grandchildren. He chuckled occasionally. He looked comfortable. He asked for a cup of tea and offered me his sandwiches and shortbread. I asked him if he knew how long they would keep him in. He looked at me as if over his glasses, although he wasn’t wearing any, and said ‘They’ve rather pointedly not said anything to me,’ and raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘Draw your own conclusions from that’. He may even have said it, I can’t remember.
After about half an hour I felt that perhaps he had had enough, there were more visitors for other patients in the ward, it was difficult to talk. I said “I’m going now.” We said good bye, and as I did so I held Alec’s left shoulder and looked him in the eye.
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I now rang Rosy at the hospital and apologised for the fact that I’d left my mobile phone at home. We agreed I should come down to the hospital.
I parked at the front of the hospital in the Pay and Display – buying four hours of time on the basis that I would be there for a while. I believe I even thought, will he last four hours, or a thought like that was lurking, if not recognised.
I walked up through the hospital buildings. A couple were getting into a black car surrounded by large bouquets and wreaths, getting better and leaving, or leaving and grieving. I didn’t know. I took the lift to the seventh floor and asked at Reception to see my father-in-law. The Receptionist didn’t seem to know the name, and acted as if he wasn’t there. After looking around on her desk, she went off to get someone. Then Rosy appeared, looking sad but calm. I followed her through to the ward where Alec’s bed was now curtained.
He was supported by what seemed like a fan of four or five pillows round his head, but was probably only two. There was no monitor above his bed. His feet were sticking out from the bedclothes past his ankles. Rosy had loosened the sheet and blankets as he detested his lower limbs being constrained.
His left hand was clutching tightly to the lapel of his pyjama jacket. He was breathing in deep sighing breaths that pulled his chest to his chin and his chin to a taught jut of resolution and firmness. His eyes were closed. He was unconscious.
Afterwards Rosy told me that this breathing is called Cheyne-Stoking after the man who had described it. The breathing sounded very like Chain Stoking as though a fireman was shovelling hard to keep a fire going.
Rosy and I talked between tears about what was happening. It seems Alec must have had another heart attack in the morning and had deteriorated rapidly. When Rosy arrived he seemed to be disturbed, plucking at the sheets. He recognised her and her sister, who had gone home to look after her daughter. He said he was in no pain. He calmed and slowly lost consciousness.
I think I was deeply shocked because I had last seen him at least chatting, with a spice of wit even then. Now his feet and hands were cold to the touch. Rosy and I sat either side, she on his left and me on the right, leaning over him, holding him. I could see a single tear running down his cheek from his right eye. Rosy caressed her father with great love and tenderness and in extreme pain that was almost unbearable to watch.
Alec’s breathing became more laboured still, and a guttering cough seemed to be drawn up between the breaths. Then the breathing shut down, and he fought for one or two gulping breaths with long breaks between. His eyes began to slide open but unseeing, misty, askew. His mouth opened and the teeth slid apart leaving them offset and ajar.
A couple or more heavy breaths maybe and Alec stopped breathing. His breath seemed to leave his body like air from a Lilo, and his body sank flattened into the bed with only the faintest twitches of muscle. Looking at him, my mind played tricks on me and I kept thinking I saw him move. An inanimate face is such a contradiction.
Now Alec is no more. Now in the memory, beyond touch, beyond conversation, out of presence. There’s a terrible ache in me.
This was my first death.
I said to Rosy at the foot of his bed’ ‘Death seems to make me angry’. In her special way she identified for me with far greater discrimination what I failed to see – ‘It just leaves me confused and bewildered,’ she said. Is it the bewilderment creates the anger?
As I looked at Alec in death I think I went into a childish panic, mentally muttering fragments of Christian liturgy and blessing – into thy hands I commend…..Father, Son, and Holy Ghost…..Great Protector…..on this voyage…..gateway… - bewildered by the experience and my own response.
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