She did it her way...
On the morning of the 10th August 2021, my sister Barbara passed away. She had fought chronic pulmonary disease for many years no doubt caused by the fact that she smoked most of her life. Whilst other health damaging habits after the loss of her husband Dennis several years earlier had been conquered, the continued addiction to nicotine just could not be overcome. And now she's gone...
I've had a few days to reflect on the years and feel proper ashamed that I have little to remember about Barbara. No, I cannot spout on about the fantastical family holidays together, the birthday parties, the growing up or her children and of the many happy times that no doubt happened over the years. Whilst I knew that this year Barbara would have celebrated her 70th it is only this week that I learnt from another sister, Gloria, that her birth day was the 11th October 1951.
Barbara was one of five older sisters. She was probably at home still when I was a very young child. However, I think she was gone and away married by the time I was old enough to form the lasting memories of my childhood. I do though remember the wedding parties as a kid. Not a clue which was for which sister though as all got married around about the same time. Well, to a child a party is a party isn't it?
A trawl through the old family album has unearthed some photos from her early years. Sadly I have nothing later.
1. Four of my five sisters in the 1950s. Janet, Barbara, Gloria and Carol.
Somewhere we lost touch. I cannot say why. She lived not more than 800 yards from the family home so what's the excuse? It's impossible to find one. I have none. Her marriage to Dennis gave them three children. Nicola, Sarah and Simon (aka Sid). The marriage also brought with it 2 other children - Kevin and Karen from Dennis's earlier marriage. I've not seen Kevin, Karen, Nicola nor Simon (Sid) really since they were young 'uns and of late only more of Sarah who has done an exceptional job of looking after her mum in the final years. No doubt so much more than I will ever know.
Last year I started to see Babs again after getting a phone call out of the blue. She'd been encouraged by Sarah to call me. 'Hiya Babs how are you?', was how I tried to start the conversation only quickly to hear the words, 'I don't want to be here, Wayne'. After a bit of gentle digging to find out what she meant, worryingly it was that life was of no more use to her and she wanted to be gone. Perhaps back to Dennis who had died several years earlier; a man who so much defined and set and controlled the path her life would take. For sure it was any place other than here.
I visited her the next day. I was struck at just how she was the spitting image of dad in his final months. Thin and gaunt. But it was her eyes. It was like looking back 30 years at the face of my father just before we lost him. The overwhelming impression to me after that visit was that her life in its latter years had been and was still pretty isolated and lonely. Get up early, watch TV from the sofa, go to the kitchen table to roll and smoke, perhaps with a coffee or a tea, then back to the sofa, back to the kitchen table, back to the sofa, etc.. Oh dear God, how did it ever get like this? Sarah of course had for some time been looking after Babs. I cannot say what anyone else was doing. Sid was still in prison but he did ring every single day to see how she was and to tell her than he loved her.
How might I help? Might she like to do something. A bit of baking perhaps? After all she told me how she made the best quiches and absolutely loved apple crumble. The oven was broken so I fixed that but no, with all the encouragement in the world, the things that I did with my uncle Con in his latter years were of no interest to her. Nothing really was. Except for the TV and the smoking.
Whilst I live alone I do my best to do things, to help folk, to find interest and enjoyment in my life. But I promised her that I would not treat her the same way as I did dad when he was hurting himself with the booze. It made not a blind bit of difference other than I suspect he thought I was a b****** for being so harsh as I poured his half finished bottle of rum down the toilet. I did it because I loved him and saw the damage he was doing to himself. I didn’t want to lose him. But it was not the relationship I wanted to have with dad in his final months. Sadly the booze, especially towards the end, I now think was helping him to cope with his cancer. I just made things harder for him.
So no I would not do that with Babs. I started phoning, visiting, fixed things occasionally, chatted, took her out occasionally but as hard as one might try to gently cajole anyone in to doing something different, the sofa, TV and kitchen table cigarette routine did not change. Whilst she was still sprightly enough to get up and walk around the house with some gusto, the ambulance calls and the trips into hospital were starting to become a regular routine. Smoking had of course destroyed her lungs and so over time the oxygen level went down but the most problematic thing was that the lungs could not remove the carbon dioxide from her blood. So the trips to the hospital for several day stays to get the blood gasses settled, and perhaps suffer the uncaring idiots and the hospital food, became too regular. I hate York 'Teaching' Hospital. My opinion, like for everyone who gets admitted to that place, is that she was given poor care. She was eventually sent home but without any equipment to help keep her there so of course the trips back to the hospital became as frequent as the trips between the sofa and the kitchen table.
For sure it has been hard for Sarah. Trying to work shifts as a carer, being a single mum looking after her young family and on top of it all looking after her mum. She's been an angel.
Babs, as she told folk, had ‘taken to my bed', in the living room downstairs. It's as though it was all planned out in advance. To stop doing that, then start doing this kinda thing. This is how to do it. This is the way... She needed no help on her intended journey. Trying to get her to eat was becoming difficult. Skin and bone has no energy.
She knew where she was going. 'So Babs, is this it?', I recall asking her only a matter of weeks before the end. 'Well Wayne, you know how it is', was her gentle reply. No Babs I do not.
I had already arranged the coast to coast cycle ride from Blackpool to Scarborough with London Alan and my blues brother, South Side Mark. Both guy's arrived at my house Monday night. On Tuesday morning - the morning of our departure for the train another sister, Sharon, rang to tell me that Babs had passed away quietly and peaceful in York District Hospital that morning. Nonetheless, I decide we go on the ride. There was nothing more I could do. My sister Gloria who was very upset insisted that I go. More to write about that journey when I have the energy and interest to do so.
We arrived in Scarborough some 190 miles later last Friday afternoon. Just as I did before setting off from Blackpool I planned to splash my hand though the surf. To connect both seas through me. The tide was out so it was a bit of a gentle push of the bike through the wet sand to the water's edge. There’s no weight on the bike yet it dug in to the drying grains to make sure that the final yards were no easier than the rest.
I'm all alone in the sunshine on a broad wet sandy plain and suddenly burst into uncontrollable tears and sobs. I say my goodbye's. Scarborough was a regular and important summer destination as kids for all of the family so a great place to say so long. I turned and gave the guys a hug at the waters edge for a job well done and blamed the teary face on the fresh wind and the salt laden air.
The bike ride is done. Alan and Mark were all gone and back home before Saturday night. It's the first night I'm alone again and I’m tired so am away to bed before 10pm and quickly fall asleep. I'm suddenly awake at about 1:30 with the feeling of cool air across my shoulders. I lay in bed with the light on. I swear I heard a faint quizzical 'Wayne?' called in the distance. Sounded like Babs in her earlier years calling to check if I was there. I finally go back to sleep with all the house lights on. I'm again afraid of being all alone in the dark.
Babs may have done things her way. Well most of us do don't we? The opportunities God gives to everyone differ so much person to person and family to family that it results in so many decisions and scenarios. None of us can ever foretell the tangled paths through time and space that our lives will take to our final destinations. The Universe is like an infinitely large pile of spaghetti. Pick a strand and suck on it. We don't know where we are going until we get to the end of it. And somewhere on route I'm sure all of us have bumped into the occasional meatball or two.
But we all get the opportunity to look back later in our lives at our paths long trod. Only then we can say if we are satisfied or whether we could have done better. Not enough sauce and too many carbohydrates on my journey perhaps. For sure I've run into way too many meatballs for my digestive system to handle, which is saying a lot, and I have jumped between and over the odd spaghetti strand or two for sure. Ive watched from afar journeys undertaken through the s’getti pile by others and how the decisions they made have impacted their lives. Four of my sisters have always smoked. Two are now gone due to pulmonary disease. The other two are fighting the good fight against the same. For sure I always have proper hated cigarettes, especially now for the damage that they've caused and continue to cause to my family and friends.
For sure this last year has been perfectly planned out by Babs. She knew where she was going. Where she wanted to go. To perhaps be with Dennis again. And being a Tyssen, Babs just got on with it. No complaints to me nor anyone. No whimpering nor crying. Just matter of fact let me show you, this is the way to do it. She was the epitome of a person with a strong will. She has reminded me of this line in the Lords Prayer :
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..
For sure it was God’s will for her to go…
Rest In Peace, Babs.
With all my Love
Wayne x
Aw Wayne I've got my mums phone and so glad I finally opened it.
ReplyDeleteI will never forget the time and care you gave to us both.
Your words are so true and meaningful and will stay in my heart forever.
Thank you for everything uncle Wayne xx