The sad and fascinating process of packing away a life
I’m sitting here in my usual spot, writing this blog post this afternoon. My usual spot being strapped into a seat of a BA plane winging its way back to Istanbul. Finally time to stop, rest, contemplate after what feels like a very fraught few weeks. I’ve been in the UK for the best part of the last month, with the exception of a quick trip back to Istanbul last week to recharge the batteries, and collect the children.
These few weeks have been much harder than I thought they would be. When I first arrived back last month, although I had only been away six weeks, Thomas’ condition had worsened considerably, and it was quite a shock. Whilst no one will ever know how much the radiotherapy helped, certainly Thomas’ right-sided weakness was and is worse, which makes getting up the stairs hard, and his general mobility poor.
The first thing I had to do was organise the wonderful carers to come in the evening to prepare their supper, in addition to the morning visit. Now, this week, we have added a lunch time carer, and next week, the palliative care team will kick in and start their visits. We were also able to organise various Zimmer frames and trolleys on wheels, all of which seem to be helpful around the house.
But there is another side too, and that is how strange it is to watch somebody dying, and preparing to die; to watch them get all the different strands of their life sorted, and ready to pack everything away in neat metaphorical boxes. It is of course tremendously sad, but at the same time incredibly fascinating to watch the process.
Of course we are all different in our approaches, and most people I guess don’t have the time to plan their deaths, but I feel privileged to be in a position to be helping Thomas put all his affairs in order.
One of my more interesting tasks was contacting the Library and Archives Canada, as Thomas has more than one hundred scrolls belonging to his great-uncle, Lord Byng of Vimy, given to him during his time as Governor-General of Canada in the 1920s, which Thomas feels should be donated to the Canadian Government.
There are also inevitably all the boring things like tax returns (is it really that important to make sure it’s in by the due date, given the circumstances?), wills, bank accounts.
But then there is his beloved garden. As Billy and Daisy came with me for this week, Billy was able to help Grandpa with all the physical stuff in the garden, that he is no longer able to do. It took me a while to realise that Billy was preparing the soil for the turf that was going to cover Thomas’ beloved vegetable patch – literally putting it to bed…. Final, finished, no more vegetables.
I took a stool down so that Thomas could sit and direct the proceedings and still be part of what was happening – it was both lovely to see him down in the garden with Billy, but incredibly sad that he was not the one digging away with a spade in his hand – very poignant.
I’m not sure when I will next be back, but it will be a few weeks, and so as I hugged Thomas goodbye this morning, I was very aware that I have no idea how he will be when I next see him.