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.
Cultural Cuckoo 