In recognition of Dying Matters Awareness Week, some colleagues of Freeman Brothers Funeral Directors have shared their reflections on death and dying. Today, Jennifer from the Crawley office considers her earliest experiences of bereavement..,
We didn’t have any pets growing up.
It’s often said that pet ownership for children at an early age is good practise for developing life skills like responsibility and caregiving, but also to build resilience to some of the harder life experiences that we all, at one time or another, either suffer or witness others suffering through. For most, the death of a pet in the early stages of life – while hard to work through – can be an excellent opportunity to begin conversations around the life cycle, death and grief. For me, this wasn’t to be.
It wasn’t until I was firmly enmeshed in the spottiest, most angst-ridden phase of teenage-hood that we got our first pets. Because of this, I wasn’t allowed the opportunity to rehearse the loss of a loved one, or to feel (on this comparatively minor scale) the conflicting barrage of feelings that often accompanies a bereavement, so it’s little wonder that I didn’t really know how to behave or respond when it happened oh-so-unexpectedly one morning in spring.
My beloved grandad died in the early hours, sitting on the toilet. He had been staying with us for a few days (‘Because he’s not very well’ was the limited explanation for this unexpected but very welcome visit and, to my 5-year-old brain, this was enough) but our sleepy household was none the wiser when he finally collapsed – alone – onto the carpet tiles.
Whether I had woken up naturally or it was the sound of his boxer’s body hitting the floor of the room next door to mine that had roused me, I can’t be sure, but I vividly remember creeping quietly out of my room and heading for the loo, only to find I couldn’t get through the door. The painted hinges gave just enough for me to see that Grandad was inside, but not far enough to get to him or inside the room. I pushed a couple of times, but to no avail.
I remember being angry.
Not at the loss (my childishly pleasant thoughts weren’t open to the idea that he was in trouble or hurt, much less lost to us) but at the perplexing fact he wouldn’t let me use the toilet when I really needed a wee! I went straight to Mum and Dad: “Grandad won’t let me in the bathroom – he’s holding the door shut.” Had I been older or wiser, the look on my parents’ faces might well have clued me in to the tragedy that had befallen, but as it was I was oblivious. Oblivious to their hasty reactions; oblivious to the terrible news I’d just broken to my mother about one of her own parents; oblivious to the gaping hole that was about to be left in our family.
I often think about that morning and the events that followed: it wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I learned there had been criminal proceedings brought against the GP that attended him, or that my parents had been contacted by the school after the funeral to ask about a drawing I had done of the hearse that carried his coffin. I have no memory of these things, shrouded and sheltered as I was by my parents’ guardianship.
Eventually, I must have come to accept the realisation that he was gone, but I couldn’t tell you when, why or how. In some ways, I cringe at my own innocence at the time: the way I approached the whole event as an excitement – a party, and an opportunity to see family members who lived a long way off. But I’m also grateful. Distasteful as my behaviour could well have seemed at the time, I don’t recall being chastised, remonstrated with or dismissed – my reactions were accepted as normal, and a natural response for such a small child. I was even allowed to miss a day of school for the funeral, important as it was considered for me to be there, and now – looking back – that’s a great comfort.
Fast-forward 15 years and the next time I was forced to face such a great and terrible loss, when my own father passed away much too young and much, much too soon.
It should have been easier. Thinking logically, with the 20:20 benefit of hindsight, all the clues were there and the groundwork laid – he was ill, and had been for many years. He’d taken a turn for the worse and had been admitted to the local hospice (whose praises I will never stop singing, by the by) for treatment – even this did not clue me in and I wished him a joyous farewell as I steamed off for my first year at University, excited and distracted by the thrill of living alone and making new friends in a brand new environment. The call, which came 48 hours later, stopped me dead in my tracks.
In the years that have passed, anecdotes and stories of conversations had at the time have revealed to me just how many signs and subtleties I missed. What I can’t convince myself of (and, in all honesty, regret that I will possibly never be able to) is whether this was though naivety or instinctive self-defence. Perhaps I’ll never know. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
What these two events have taught me, though, is how important it is to talk about death. Yes – it’s a distasteful subject. Yes – I can see that I have benefitted, in some ways, from the comforting protection of others. Yes – it may have led to feeling some harsher, discomforting or even painful feelings sooner in life, but how might things have been different? If I’d had some realisation that these two men – who loomed so large in my formative years – would soon be lost to me, how might I have behaved? What conversations might I have had the courage to start? What experiences would I have made sure not to miss out on?
Talking about death doesn’t always have to be about planning. It doesn’t always have to be about preferences, funerals or treatment. It doesn’t even have to have negative overtones. But what I’ve learned is that an awareness of it; a realisation and an acceptance that it’s coming to all of us – one way or another – may very well save a lot of regret in the long run.
Prompts this week have been sourced via Hospice UK
