“I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there
when it happens” (Woody Allen)
I haven't blogged lately. I haven't been up to it. Ideas flew in and out of my head. I wanted to blog them but it didn't happen. Instead
a brief tweet or Facebook update here and there which got the idea over but
didn't take much application or concentration. That's because my Dad died four
weeks ago.
He was 92 and ill for months with so many
serious conditions that he was too old and frail to keep fighting and winning. He developed pneumonia, didn't respond to the
anti-biotics and died peacefully and painlessly after a good and happy
life. I spent much of the past few
months in hospital with him because he needed nursing and company. Whatever they say about the NHS not caring about
the elderly was just not true in the case of my Dad. They couldn't have done
more for him but they are pitifully short-staffed.
I sat with him the night he died. Earlier in the day I was led into a nearby storeroom
by one of the doctors to guarantee our privacy. She was a young, glamorous blonde
and when he first met her my father was certain she couldn't possibly be a
doctor. Then one day she appeared in a red dress. My father, cracking jokes to
the end, told her that he had recently read a novel about a girl in a red dress
who turned out to be a murderer. The doctor cracked back that she was not a murderer
but on the contrary she was there to save people's lives. When she and I were alone in the storeroom she
pointedly closed the door and having seen many episodes of "House" I guessed
that the news wasn't going to be great. There
was nothing more that could be done for him and I should expect the worst.
In tears I went back into his room and
really didn't know what to do. He was a jazz pianist as well as an academic and
I sat beside him and decided I'd sing to him. We are very von Trapp as a family - singing at
every opportunity, lots of harmony and uncontained enthusiasm. So very quietly I began to sing the songs that
had been significant to him: his parents' favourites: Alice Blue Gown and If you
were the only girl in the world and I were the only boy". Then other family favourites. He was in the Air Force during the war, though
he was transferred to ENSA because of his musical talents and less than perfect
eyesight, and when we went on family car journeys we always started by singing
The Wizard of Oz, because he told us that was the song they sang when flying
off on a mission to guarantee their safe return. So that was part of my death-bed repertoire. Then
jazz songs, songs from the Great American Songbook, songs he had played at his
gigs well into his 80s: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Lullaby of birdland,
My one and only love, Around midnight, which it was. Suddenly his right hand moved very slowly,
unexpectedly, on the sheet and he started very gently fingering as if he were
playing the piano. He could hear me. I thought perhaps I was imagining it, but it
was happening. I was told later that hearing is the last sense to go, and at that
moment I am sure he could hear me. After
that I held his hand and spoke to him saying silly things like: "I'm still
here Dad. You can't get rid of me that easily". And although I am a non-believer,
I said prayers and sang hymns that I knew he would like. In that extra time, after I thought communication
had ended for ever, I was elated, thrilled, full of spiritual delight and
gratitude. It gave me some sort of closure, allowed me to say
"goodbye". I miss him very
much. He was a majorly lovely man.
And today I feel the urge to blog again,
though instead of the blog I had in mind, the above popped out. It doesn't have to be read but I think it
probably did have to be written.
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