Tis been a while between posts. I had a thing to be with. My life was surrendered to the loving of my father for his last few months of life, as well as assisting my daughter to head off for a 5 year adventure. Please, forgive my absence, but it was well worth it.
My father had abandoned me, my 3 siblings and Mum, when I was an 11 year old. During the last 35 years I have known little of his life, his world. Only snippets that would show me he was deeply controlled by his wife, a woman the rest of his family could not fathom either. He spent one year studying up the road from Mum’s house, so he created a fake class to put on his schedule so that for three hours each week, for two semesters, he came to our home, hung out and taught me to drive a car. I was 27.
For the next 20 odd years we saw barely anything of him, till about a year ago when his wife recognized, finally, that her children (same age/older than as him) where not interested in caring for Dad. As his Alzheimer’s progressed it became time for some intervention, directing traffic on the Eastlink was a thing, so after the 8th time he was brought home by a police car or ambulance they agreed to go into aged care. It was in Melbourne, 4 hours away from me, but they were safe.
Then came the call that Dad had struck one of the staff. He was becoming increasingly combative, he was struggling, this was 6-7 months into the care, this was a change that was not going to get better. From what I gleaned from the nurse, Dad’s wife had finally shown her colours/been seen, and was often observed being very cruel and verbally abusive towards Dad, even though he was obviously quite ill now. The nurse asked me to take him away from this, from her. In so many ways, this is what the little girl in me had always wanted to do, to rescue him, to love him openly again.
So, I did all the things. I became the legal guardian, discharged him from Melbourne and set him up in Lakes 12 minutes from my home. When he first arrived he was scared. He was contracted and many felt that he had but days left. I was with him 8+ hours a day, for each bed change, for each meal. I held his hand, gave him loads of Reiki and LOVED HIM for all that I am, for all the permission I gave us both. I enrolled every nurse and aid in that incredible facility to love him too. Gently he uncurled, he softened, he smiled and winked and touched the hearts of many there.
We had six and a half weeks together. I got him a special chair so that he could go out in a taxi. I then took him to the farm, three times, so that he could share just a little of my world, Mum’s world too. We went out on a boat to see the magnificence that is the Gippsland Lakes. Shared a Skype call with his brother who he hadn’t seen in many years. In the middle of the third week, Jasmine left for the UK for the next 5 years. That was a ripping open in the middle, but met and lovingly knowing it is for the most delicious time for her!
We did all the things till it was obvious there was no more to be done. We had lost the life we could have lived together long ago, we were but collecting together the ashes of what was left. Precious ashes that I will treasure till I return them to our home, in Powell River British Colombia, Canada.
As I sent away the chair, as I held my Mum and my Sister through our last evening together, sharing stories of how Mum and Dad met, the things Mum loved the most about him, what we each remembered. Everything slowed down to a state that trusted there was no where else to be, nothing else in my life could be this important to me, to my understanding of living, than to be with my Dad in the dying.
I had been bringing in my laptop every day to watch Sci-Fi together. We had watched all of the 7 Star Wars films, we were working through the second season of Star Trek Next Gen. That morning, I forgot my laptop. It was to be a different morning. I got there around 10am. I sat with him. I sang softly. I read him some of my book. I held his hand. I didn’t stop holding his hand. I assured him he was held, he was safe. Around 12 everything deepened, the energy changed. I cast a little circle around us, just to hold us both gently in this moment. I asked for his Mother, my Granny Good Witch, to come and meet us half way. Her delicious sassy self arrived palpably. I sat with my Father, gently holding his hand as the space between the breaths became longer and longer… till there was no breath, just space. A soft and held death, beautiful in so many ways.
I howled. I howled and howled and howled. I kept holding the hand of a Man I never really knew but never stopped loving. My greatest fear for him, that he would die alone, never realized, because I chose to hold him no matter what. I called my Mum, my Sister, and they were there before I told any staff. Time of death was 12.52pm 19th of October 2016. There was to be no funeral. This was all the space we had to say goodbye in. We stayed till we walked the empty shell down the corridor, out into the hearse. His cremated ashes now rest for a while where I can glance at them to inspire my return home, May 2017. There, then, Mum and Jasmine and I will scatter his ashes with his Mum’s ashes on the property where he and I grew up.
We have so much space for our birth stories, and as I have attended about 8 different births I understand how unique each of them are. As I have lived through this last month, I have come to feel that a death story, a good death story is as important to share. Indeed, many beautiful caring and loving friends have shared their stories and it has helped to rest in the knowing of a very human threshold I have crossed, to witness the death of a parent, a next stage of growing up.
This death was a beautiful moment in time, with ALL the love in it I could hold and much more as it cracked me open, not unlike the way I was cracked open giving birth to my daughter Jasmine. So much Love. So much to Love.
I hope this good death story holds you gently.
I am grateful to have somewhere to share it.
