GROWN UP STUFF

My father died on Wednesday night. Not a surprise; he was in hospital, gravely ill and we'd been warned.  Hospitals are careful to put the afflicted on a sliding scale these days. They believe it is helpful to the family to be kept au courant, so you have stable, seriously, gravely and dead.  As my father was a retired GP, it was difficult not to regard his final days as some kind of Busman's Holiday.  I know how this must sound, but his professional life had had death at its core - mainly its avoidance or prevention, you'll be relieved to hear - but death nevertheless. He knew death intimately, and was never frightened of it. I know this because I once asked him, and he said no, not death, and certainly not dying, and with all the palliative coshes you can get these days, well, hahaha, no, I'm not scared of dying, and neither should you be. I was about 14 at the time.

I wasn't there when he died; I'd left his side about half-an-hour previously, and now I feel strangely guilty, and a bit cheated in an odd way.  For the last twenty minutes of my final visit, I read a newspaper and wondered what to have for dinner. To think that I should have wasted these precious moments on such trivia astounds me now; I should have concerned myself with his fate. Because no matter how much I would have willed it otherwise, fate was obviously on its way to meet him.  I am left with an unbearable ache, because he was an excellent father in every way, and I really don't think I told him that often enough.  Just after Christmas, I had a charming little speech prepared in my head which would have told him how much I loved him, and how much I had always respected his example. I hope he guessed it, but experience tells us that saying these things aloud works much better than leaving them to be deduced. 

Goodness, it's tough. Death, and paperwork, and funeral directors.  Grown up stuff.