family – Cultural Cuckoo

April 1, 2026

The Administrative Hellscape Forced on the Grieving

We all know that death is final, finite. That is the one thing there is no coming back from, no second chance, no do-over. We hear stories about regrets and try to get things right. We make sacrifices and work hard not to let ourselves or the people we care about down. And we’re told that loss is hard and painful and can be almost impossible to get over. But what we’re not told is that when someone close to you dies, the world doesn’t stop for you.

Okay, maybe some people do talk about this. Maybe close families see it firsthand as generations pass and they all muck in to work through the reedy swamp of death admin, passing the proverbial machete back and forth to clear a path through the paperwork jungle. This was my first rodeo and I am my father’s only next of kin We were each other’s only close family and spoke every day. Despite the stress of my role as his primary carer following his dementia diagnosis, we had, almost miraculously and with some undeniable ups and downs, been able to retain our relationship – our camaraderie, our shared history and memories and even our silly banter, until the end. I know how lucky that makes me.

Despite his great age (89), I was completely blindsided by his death – emotionally and practically. Death registration, certificates, internment and funeral arrangements, probate process and each tiny legal step that makes up each of these were like a bizarre obstacle course I was attempting blindfolded, all while being assaulted by crippling waves of pain and loss – the hollow ugly emptiness you feel after you’ve been sick, that you’re not quite sure there’s anything left. Making each difficult phone call, including contact with family I’d been estranged from for a quarter-century, was so disorienting I could hardly believe I was in my own body. I made the calls looking in the mirror, to make sure I really was still there, awake and alive. That it wasn’t all some dreadful mistake. Being alone in a different country felt like the universe had really gambled with its Ruvani-shaped Jenga blocks – how much more can she really hold? Shall we risk it? Why the hell not?

Paid bereavement leave should be mandatory. Not just from work, but from the process of death. The stacks of administrative labour, difficult, emotionally draining decisions and communications, and logistical responsibilities constitute a temporary job – liaising with funeral directors and lawyers, choosing and briefing a celebrant, preparing the order of service, photos, music, readings and writing of the eulogy. Locating, organising and delivering legal paperwork, locating account details for bank account and service provider, all of these must be completed by the next of kin. Choosing clothing for the deceased is particularly painful. Then there’s the wake – finding a location, organising logistics including food, drinks and payment. It feels like it’s never going to stop. And none of it is optional – these are legal and logistical responsibilities that must be fulfilled within a set time frame or you are subject to fines and other penalties. The system does not care that you are grieving.

Being a freelancer meant no paid family leave. I put projects on hold and bowed out of what I could, but bills don’t stop coming in and reneging on ongoing commissions is not good for business in a hyper-competitive market where editors can indeed drop you like a hot coal for no reason. So I completed work under contract, even conducting an in-depth in-person interview, splicing my brain in two to be present and engaged, to not let myself down.

My father died just before Christmas and the holiday season also does not stop for your loss. I can feel the nerves in the side of my head twitching when I think about how I somehow powered through the holidays with friends and family, trying not to bring the mood down while composing the eulogy between meal and party planning, grappling with my first Christmas as an orphan while trying to shop for a funeral outfit, learning that nothing will ever, ever be about me again.

I was supremely lucky to have the support of my wonderful husband and in-laws, and my dad’s fantastic carer – all of whom rallied and did everything they could to ease the processes for me. I do not know how anyone could do it totally alone – the brutality of being in that position doesn’t bear thinking about. Nonetheless, all key responsibilities fall on the shoulders of the next of kin, so legally and practically the buck stopped with me. It was on new year’s eve that I finally broke. My body, wracked from bearing the unbearable, went into freefall with a migraine so severe I was prone on the ground and back and leg pains like electric shocks. I have never experienced anything like that level of physical shutdown, but still I had to go on, patched up on painkillers and expensive acupuncturist visits. I have never needed a wheelchair at the airport and hope I never will again.

Back in the UK, as the true reality of my father’s absence hit, I collapsed with a seizure and barely made it out of hospital in time for the funeral. Every moment of that day was like walking on glass. My father’s face on the screen, the coffin in front of me which seemed far too small, faces I hadn’t seen for decades. I fulfilled my role. I greeted and thanked, accepted condolences and offered kind words. My father was always the host, the talker, the life and soul among all his friends and family. I felt like a child walking in his shoes, waiting for him to come and lift me out of them.

And then it was over. And the space, the silence, was even more suffocating than the crowds of well-wishers. Alone with all of our memories – as most of my life was just the two of us. Frightened of losing them and not knowing how to keep them, painfully aware of how dull other people’s stories can be and so deeply distraught at the idea of his life going unremembered, his stories untold. Shanti vanishing forever into the ether, such a rich life full of joy and wonder. Someone who inspired love and loyalty in an effortless way that few manage, a skill almost extinct as the world moves further and further away from the empathy he was raised with.

That lack of empathy is built into the system surrounding death. As time slowly passes, things do not get easier. While the tasks become less urgent, less pressing, they still mount up and must be tackled, however painful they are. Clearing my father’s house of nearly 40 years, my own childhood home, has left me raw. Every tiny trinket loaded with memories, each inch of the space choc-full of stories, all to be thrown into a skip because there simply isn’t need or room for them elsewhere, in places they don’t belong. For me, the one left living, watching each sliver of my own life as well as our collective one enter black bin bags felt like throwing out every part of who I am and how I came to be me. Like my dad, I am a hoarder, so each school project, note passed in class, letter from an old boyfriend and gaudy top worn in the 90s has remained, caught in the amber of Shanti’s house, dusting over decades, now destined to rot in a tip. I feel each item taking a piece of me with them, slicing away until I’m just walking bone.

I ache from walking for the last time from the kitchen where he would lovingly call up the stairs to my room whichever breakfast treat he’d chosen to rustle up. “Pancakes! Eggs and bacon! Bombay toast!” The delicious aroma snaking up his death-trap stairs and under the door of my room, pulling me from my (undoubtedly hungover) slumber. The room he bustled in preparing his signature dishes, spicy lasagna, succulent roast chicken and venison for Christmas, hustling my offers of assistance out of the way. And yet, through it all, I had to keep doing the right thing, be calm, practical and understanding among my estranged family, keep myself together because there was no one else to do it for me, once again.

No one tells you how it feels when not just the person but the space is taken away from you and there is nothing left to hold onto. The agony of being responsible for its demise, clearing away each piece of a life. Everything seems pointless without the anchor of a parental home, a place where you existed in all your forms. That the finality of leaving cements the truth that no one is coming when you call anymore. You are completely alone, without a past because there is no one left who remembers, and whose present is a hellish mush of grief and obedient administration. You can really never go home anymore, but that’s the only thing you want.

The pain and the paperwork are all that are left. The system relentlessly abusive and demanding, leaning as ever on the assumption that you are part of a nuclear family unit and therefore have structures in place to manage the shitheap they pile on your head. No one provides for the loneliness, the disorientation, the chest-tightening anguish on waking and remembering. Instead they make you file forms and tick boxes.

On its own death would be cruel and brutal enough but the world we live in throws in an assault course of brain-scrambling chores that forces you to be the adult in the room at the time when you need to be cared for and cradled most. And when it is over, I assume there will be a time, I doubt very much I will look back with anything other than anger and resentment that the time I should have been able to spend grieving was used up inside a governmental hamster wheel and trying desperately to make ends meet.

All of this happens all the time, and those of us trapped in this nightmare are still expected to carry on, to behave like everyone else, to take it on the chin and get the hell on with it. There are no special privileges, no support resources, no one there to step in and make it all go away. Me, I don’t want to sit in some weepy grief group with people I have nothing in common with except our shared orphandom. I want structured, organised, professional support and financial assistance to allow me to focus on my grief, my pain and on everything I’ve lost, instead of being treated like I don’t matter as a human and I’m just here to do a job for free that someone should be paid to do. As a society, we are failing the grieving and nobody cares.

February 27, 2026

The Weight of Silence

Even as I wake, I do not feel good. Heavy yet empty at the same time. Absence is its own weight. Some days are less awful; I acquire some motivation, some minor inspiration, but it doesn’t last. Being awake is a trudge, a chore, a constant battle to move through actions and events without dwelling on the reality of my father’s absence. The silent phone, empty of the details of his day-to-day movements. The stories and memories no one else will ever care to know. The knowledge that I have lost the only person who knew me my whole life, the only link connecting all the different versions of me, the only person who contextualised my life through the history of his own. I am an orphan now. Rootless and alone without anchor. That knowledge is constant, the fact immutable. How do people live like this? Immobilised in a steel trap of the unchangeable. I am vulnerable in a new, disorienting way. There will never be a safe space, a home to go to. No port in the storm. No one to tell me it’s alright. Nowhere to hide from the world, should the need arise.

The irony is not lost on me; I loathed my father’s house and refused to take refuge there even when I probably should have. But it was there, just the same. A security blanket for the worst, my choice to eschew it at least a partial declaration that things really weren’t that bad, honest. But the door was always open. And now I’ll be opening it just a few more times to silence. No rustle of slippers or blaring television. No cricket scores or canned laughter from old sit-coms. No cork being popped, oven turned on as I crossed the threshold straight into open arms and nonsense jokes, the ancient catchphrases he carried from his own childhood. Just more of the emptiness that follows death.

That silent phone that used to buzz over and over as we shared jokes, made plans, spoke for hours about every silly detail of our days. That would always be answered, even in the middle of the night, even after a bitter row. The only number I know by heart. The number I would call every time I lost my purse or needed help converting pounds to kilos. Now I lapse into myself, waiting for nighttime, when I don’t have to pretend anymore that I’m okay, that I’m myself, because I’m not. Just words and actions to fend off reality, empty conversations because I have nothing to say.

I lost my father piece by piece; dementia chiseling away at the bright, sharp brain that he loved to keep busy. I took time to accept the realities of no more home-cooked meals, no more birthday cards. At least, I thought I did, but the losses seem fresh anew, as if part of me at least held back some hope that one day Shanti would reemerge fully formed, nattering about his latest bargain from Marks and Spencer and the state of the Sri Lankan cricket team, planning his next group theatre trip and organising his cricket club AGM, taking me out to dinner while fielding phone calls about umpiring schedules. That denial is enjoying biting me in the backside. One does not come back from dementia, but while he was alive I could still believe it wasn’t a one-way path. I’d say I was foolish, but actually I’m glad. I wouldn’t wish the reality of his loss upon myself for a single extra second.

We lived in an odd mutually dependent symbiosis, but it suited us, as it suited us to choose our homes based on our own needs rather than each other’s, the phone bridging the distance instantly. The lack of proximity, our independent lifestyles, made our relationship a choice, not an obligation. That was something special. When that fundamental parameter shifted with his illness, I was resentful, as I am now. I had not given consent to let go of how things were, how we were, as I have not in his passing. Something that had been mutually negotiated now out of my hands, leaving me powerless and alone. So very, very alone.

My father was one of the last of his generation, outliving most of the friends and relatives who made up his story. I thought I understood how lonely that was but I don’t think I really did until he left me with my own story rent and broken. Unsubstantiated. What use are memories when only you remember? What use are traditions once there’s no one left to keep them with?

Now, as he has gone, I too am eroded. There’s no one to tell stories about my childhood, no more conversations where we laugh as I correct him about whose class I was in and who I fell out with when. No one to know or remember all our silly little things, like the time my dad got in a huff and stormed off in downtown Colombo, or our nighttime drives down dark winding Wiltshire countryside roads singing along to musicals on cassette after cricket matches. No one will understand our mutual contentment as we sat quietly together reading at the swimming pool at the Mount Lavinia Hotel sipping our beer, or enjoying lazy afternoons at my auntie and uncle’s house. These and their endless array of friends are now consigned to the vestiges of my mind alone. All these things no one will ever know or care about that I’m left to carry.

These things now exist only in my head, they are meaningless to anyone else, boring and irrelevant. The part in the conversation where people laugh politely and move things along. Everything is empty and bleak, a void of other people where I bounce unseen off the sides, clinging to my silent phone, wishing with all my heart for that familiar hand to reach out and hold mine.

No, I do not feel good. It will be a long time before I’ll feel close to good again.

May 21, 2025

How HSBC abused an exhausted, overstretched caregiver

Ten hours of phone calls and all I got was spite and incompetence

Yes, a financial institution can be abusive. And not just randomly abusive (although HSBC are that too), but personally, aggressively abusive in a targeted and manipulative manner. You know when you go on public transport and you see those ‘our staff will not tolerate any type of abuse’ signs? I’m pretty sure that every HSBC call centre that picks up from the UK has an “abuse any customer who exhibits stress or frustration, finds fault with the company or threatens to make a complaint” signs.

Today was by no means the first time I’ve experienced abuse and bullying behaviour from HSBC but it has to rank as the most egregious. As a primary carer my life is, to be honest, nightmarishly admin-heavy and stressful. I feel like I have two full time jobs. Checking in with my dad daily, coordinating his care, cleaning, medication, doctor and hospital visits, paying his bills, staying on top of his admin and keeping abreast of his social calendar are all tiring, time-consuming and not how I had planned to spend my 40s. Looking after him affects my work, personal relationships and mental health. I (like other carers including parents) am now never able to be fully ‘off’ which takes its toll psychologically. Interruptions to my own schedule are regular and frustrating – I can’t even switch my phone off on holiday in case my dad needs something. And of course, like other carers I am perpetually beleaguered by other people’s ‘advice’ on what a terrible job I’m doing.

While this kind of judgmental bullying is frustrating and upsetting enough in person, using a position of authority in a financial institution upon which I, as a carer, depend on for accessibility and transparency in dealing with my father’s affairs is a special low. HSBC have not only been horrendously irresponsible in their management of his account since I took over as POA, they are now resorting to threats and intimidation over the phone when called out for their incompetence. Their atrocious security and account management breaches include sending debit cards and PIN numbers (yes, plural) to the wrong address and with the wrong name on them and offering misinformation and incorrect advice, the consequences of which have cost me hours on the phone (approximately ten to date) to try and resolve. When highlighting their failings and requesting to submit a complaint, the smug, cocky and utterly self-righteous advisor threatened me outright, saying I clearly wasn’t able to manage my father’s affairs and he would request a review of my POA because he “had the power to do that.”

So – this company sent out cards incorrectly three times. The first time involving a fraud offence which I had to report to the police (more carer POA nightmare paperwork). They then advised me that they could update my address for my POA card to a US address – which I did, assuming they knew what they were talking about. I subsequently discovered that not only had another two sets of cards and PINS been sent to the wrong address, but that they put my father’s name on my US address, not mine, so now he is liable for tax as a US citizen (which he has not nor never has been). Error after error after error. Yet, according to this chap, speaking on behalf of HSBC, I am the incompetent one.

It gets worse. This gentleman – whom it has taken me three hours, five phone calls and six different departments over the last 2 days – to reach next tells me this can only be resolved by my father filling in a paper form and taking it to the branch. I explained politely that he has dementia and I’m currently abroad. He insisted that “someone must be able to help him with this,” exhibiting zero understanding or empathy of the complexity of being a solo caregiver living in another country and trying to retain some semblance of a life of her own. My father has chosen to live somewhere he has no family. This is legally beyond my control. This man’s assumption that I can just magic someone up to fix the mess his team made is absurdly arrogant. Yes, I can arrange for his daily carer to do this, but I have to pay for extra time and she has to be able to fit it in with her other clients. We don’t all live in some multi-generational sitcomesque circumstance, you presumptuous prick.

This man also made strong inferences reverting to the base assumption that as his daughter I should be with him all the time or I am an unfit caregiver unworthy of a POA. How much of his assumption may or may not have come from my gender and South Asian name I do not know, but imagine speaking to someone like that in a professional capacity? The utter inappropriateness, rudeness and outright insulting lie has me sick to my stomach. If I was doing such a terrible job, how have I caught all the errors HSBC have made with my dad’s account (including allowing over £1,000 worth of fraud to occur – all of which I did the work to get back) that his enormous team of banking professionals allowed to happen and did not flag? The hypocrisy is enraging.

This is not the first time an HSBC advisor has spoken down to me, tried to undermine me and insulted me to my face. It seems that when dealing with a POA this is their first resort (again, I see a corporate mood board). At the first sign of frustration staff immediately hang up the phone on customers, yet they are allowed to patronize, lie, insult and threaten to their heart’s content with absolutely no consequences as HSBC UK has no proper complaints policy. They have no phone or email for complaints – you must take the time to write and mail a physical letter about the bad things they do because they know no one has that kind of time – and never, ever call back when they say they will. Professional to the hilt.

To return to today’s unpleasant individual, not only did he insult me repeatedly, claiming the address error was not their fault because “it just happens sometimes with POAs – you were unlucky” and saying “you should have known this could happen” when their advisor never gave me that information, he also showed a shocking level of disrespect for my father. I explained his illness multiple times, and that it would be confusing and potentially traumatic for him to have to deal with this, even with help. Imagine being asked to confirm your citizenship and tax status after living the UK for over 50 years if you’re mentally unwell. The ridiculousness and insultingness of the situation is so infuriating and upsetting. I offered to fill in the form myself by email and send it back to them but that wasn’t acceptable to him. Absolute zero empathy showcasing his acute ableism.

This individual and the organisation he represents pose an active threat to the mental wellbeing of their clients, particularly caregivers and vulnerable people. Being spoken to in this way after a long day of doing someone else’s admin can feel gut-wrenchingly cruel. You are doing your best, trying so hard, you know you haven’t done anything wrong but the calculated barb that some pathetic jobsworth chucks at you to cover their own arse still stings, spitefully adding stress to an already exhausting situation. And forcing vulnerable people to complete unnecessary tasks that may be challenging for them due to your own administrative errors is pretty gross and actually quite inhumane.

I suppose if your organisation is that pathetically incompetent insults and threats are all you have to arm yourself with. Nonetheless, HSBC is not a safe place for carers or those being cared for. Unfortunately I can’t move my father’s account – at least for now – but I’m getting mine the hell away from these bullying, intimidatory people and I highly suggest that anyone caring for someone vulnerable (or actually just anyone) do the same.