I think about something that she used to say to me when Olly was a baby, ‘I just want to make sure that he gets a happy ending.’
She was a bit of a romantic, my Beth. Well, I’m pretty sure that the only way to give a happy ending to Olly and his family is to give them all a new beginning. So that’s what I’m going to do.
OLLY
Today is my father’s funeral.
I knew that this day was coming. We all did. The grim reaper has been hovering at our door for weeks and with every passing day we saw Pops slip further away from us, closer to that bugger. I find it incredible that an event that I knew was inevitable still has the power to wound me, spear me, surprise me. I want to run away from today and all its responsibilities. I’m not sure I have the strength to say goodbye.
I’ve often lamented my only-child status, but none more so than today. The weight of being his only child feels intolerable. So I’ll stay, I’ll help carry his coffin and I’ll watch them send his body to be burned. And somehow or other I’ll get through it.
I was with Pops when he exhaled his last long breath. I’m grateful for that. I was determined that I would be the last person he saw, before …
I hope he knew I was there. At the end, it was fucking crazy. We’d been warned that his breathing would get shallow in those last moments. Erratic. At first his exhalation was longer than his inhalation and, as morbid as this sounds, it was fascinating to witness. The gaps between each breath started to get longer and longer. There were periods of no breathing and this part freaked us all out many times. Almost comical. That’s awful, isn’t it? His family laughing, with more than a hint of hysteria when we’d think he was dead, then suddenly he’d bellow out another breath and we’d all jump sky high. Pops would have approved of our laughter, though. I fancied I saw a glimmer of a smile on his lips at one point when we tried to stifle our guffaws.
Evie, our resident encyclopaedia, told us that scriptures state that you must always ensure the individual is on his right, like Buddha was at his death, and this will give them a happy, peaceful mind. So we propped Pops up, telling him what we were doing and why. It made Evie happy, so Mae and I went along with it.
We took turns sitting with him, making a pact never to leave him on his own in his last days. Even Jamie joined in our unofficial, unspoken rota when he wasn’t in school. Although he was never alone with Pops. Evie on the other hand got to spend a lot of time solo with him, at her own request. She told us that she wasn’t scared, so we respected her wishes and let her do her turn.
In the end, it was on my watch when that last breath was exhaled and Pops left us. And you know the weird thing? I was as unprepared for that moment as I had been for my mother’s untimely demise. I’d thought about the difference between their deaths a lot over the past few months. Wondered which would be easier. With Mam there was no warning whatsoever, but of course we all knew what was headed our way with Pops. Well, now that both my parents are dead and I’ve experienced each option, I still don’t have an answer to that. There is something I do know for sure, though. Both options suck, both hurt like hell and both I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.
On one hand, the last few months before Mam died were pretty perfect. There were no shadows on our time together, we just got on about the business of living. And loving. And, boy, did we have a lot of love!
And I suppose in that alone I’m lucky, or at least luckier than most. Although she was taken so abruptly, I have no regrets about anything. Because nothing was left unsaid before she was snatched away from us. In our family, when I was a kid, ‘I love you’s were abundant and spoken every day. And that’s how we roll in my own family now too. I tell the children often how much I love them. My parents taught me well.
I push aside the fact that I can’t remember the last time I whispered any endearments to Mae. Or her to me.
While the last few months were tortuous in so many ways, watching Pops fight his illness, at least I got to say goodbye to him. I got to hold his hand and kiss his head fifty times a day, whenever I felt the need to do so. And towards the end, I won’t lie, that need was pretty much always there. When I wasn’t in the room with him, I fretted and missed him, so I would find myself making excuses to go back.
Another wave of grief assaults me as I ponder a life without kisses to Pop’s forehead.
The silence in the room mocks me. I expect to hear Pops say something smart. He always had this knack of knowing what I’m thinking.
I miss his voice. I’d do anything to hear it one more time. He’s not been gone more than forty-eight hours and already it feels like forever.
At least he died at home, surrounded by the people he loved most in the world, exactly as he wanted to, and for that I’m grateful. He had a smile on his face in those last moments. Maybe his faith hooked him up with Mam again as he said it would. I close my eyes and picture her in her blue dress, pulling him into her open embrace. Then, holding hands, leading him away from us to wherever their next adventure was about to begin. Tears blur my eyes.
I need to right the emptiness in the house. No matter which room I walk into, his absence is palpable from the silence therein. Even here, in our bedroom for goodness sake, where he had no business being, feels wrong. Mae said to me yesterday that she couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t in the house with us. And she’s right. We’d go off on our own sometimes, but when we got back, he’d be at the front door waiting, the sound of the kettle in the background whistling, ready to wet the tea.
The thought of being just the four of us scares me. I’ve never been here without him. I’m forty years old, but I feel like a child again, when Mam died and left me.
The urge to run is back. Fuck responsibility. I can’t do this.
The crushing reality is that I am just a fool standing in an empty room, looking for a man that is no longer here. And he’s not coming back. I collapse onto the edge of our bed and take several steadying breaths.
‘Come on, lad, pull yourself together.’ His voice whispers through the air towards me.
I close my eyes and lie back onto the soft pillows. I’m so fucking tired – bone fucking weary, truth be told. The last year, with the constant hospital visits, the chemotherapy, the cleaning up of sick and piss – it’s all taken its toll. And I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to that. Goodbye to the never-ending cancerous groundhog day, which had only one inevitable outcome for Pops.
And here’s the thing. I feel relief. And shame that I feel relieved of the burden of his illness. So many emotions mixed up amongst my all-consuming pain. It’s just … the man I long for is the healthy, vibrant Pops of last year. Not the shadow of a man he became in these past few cancerous-ridden months. Fuck me! The pain he was in! Nobody should have to live like that.
So yes, damn it! I’m glad he’s gone, if living like that was the only choice. A blessed release, that’s what Father Kelly said. And he’s right, it is a blessed release for him. For me too. It’s not just my heart that is in half today, it’s my whole body. What I’d give to climb under the heavy duvet and allow myself to sleep through this day.
‘How are you doing?’ Mae’s voice pulls my eyes open and I watch her walk into our bedroom. I sit up and lie, saying that of course I’m fine.
‘Do you need some help with that?’ She points to the tie that is hanging loose around my neck, waiting. She doesn’t wait for an answer, but walks over to me and places it under its collar. Over and around, under and over and she’s done, the perfect knot.
‘You look tired, Olly,’ Mae says, looking up at me. Her hand hovers beside my face, but she doesn’t touch me. I look at her and see the pain that