A daughter's love

A daughter’s love shares with you the time before and immediately after my dad’s death. It has been developed from my memoir, ‘A Life of One’s Own’ to bring you a greater insight into that devastating period in our lives. As I remember more, as I learn more, so will I add more. It is like much of my writing, a work in progress.

I was in Howarth when I received the call that was to change my life forever. I was at my favourite spot overlooking the beautifully green and luscious Worth valley. I was struggling with life. I needed peace and solitude. I needed space to collect my thoughts. To find the energy needed.

My dad had been admitted to hospital. I wasn’t too concerned at first, he had been frequently admitted, having suffered several mini-strokes. But when I arrived, this time things were different. This time my dad wasn’t sat up in bed; he was unconscious. His GCS score was 8. A situation which indicated devastating brain trauma. GCS is a common abbreviated for Glasgow Coma Scale, a scale which measures level of consciousness. My dad was in a deep coma. He’d had a stroke. A catastrophic one. Ultimately diagnosed as a subarachnoid haemorrhage. A poor prognosis awaited. We just didn’t know it. Or perhaps we did. We just refused to accept it.

There was no ICU bed available in the hospital nor in the immediate area so he was transferred to another. This just happened to be in the same hospital in which I’d trained as a student nurse; in the same intensive care unit I’d nurtured my skills; to a bed in which I’d cared for others. As I got into the car with my family ready to make the journey across town, I prayed my dad wouldn’t die in the ambulance. We all did.

We arrived a few minutes after my dad did. We had to wait. Being unprepared, for the horror that awaited I walked into ICU with my family and witnessed a scene I’ll probably never forget. The doors of hell had just opened and I’d walked in.

My dad, my lovely, imperfect dad, who as children, with mistletoe in hand, had waited eagerly for that first Christmas kiss; who’d sung Danny Boy, often the worse for wear; who could make me disappointed in myself just by his lack of disapproval; who never judged me, only loved me, lay in an ICU bed, vulnerable. His life in the lap of the gods.

Being a nurse did not prepare me for what I saw. With half his hair shaved off, with a probe positioned strategically to aid with ongoing assessment, he no longer had his teddy boy quiff. I stood there trying to hold it together. Fearful of what might happen if I lost control.

He was alive. There was hope… But then; there wasn’t.

On the night we arrived, I said I would stay. And told my family to go home and get some rest. I stayed with him all night. Just me, his eldest. His first born. It gave me time to tell him how much I loved him. I wish I could remember what we shared in those last few moments before our lives changed forever. But I can’t.

I always knew I would have to ring mum to tell her she had to come to the hospital. And that’s what I had to do. I remember using the pay phone and a woman asked if she could use it first; she needed a taxi. There was no urgency. I told her my dad was dying. I like to think I behaved impeccably at that moment, but I didn’t. I spoke to her with a steely-toned voice and an equally steely-toned look. I was trying to hold it together. She took the huff. Whatever!

I have thought about this moment many times since he died. Strange isn’t it. For me it reflects the surreal nature of the world in which we live. In any given time, in any given moment, for some life is irrevocably changing; for others, it is just a normal day.

Like when we went to register his death. We were crushed by the enormity of what has just happened, barely able to stand up, whilst others are simply going about their everyday lives. Their everyday business. For them time is normal the tick, tick, ticking of the clock is at a normal pace, a normal rhythm. For us it had stood still.

We had to register his death in the town in which he’d died. Just another reminder of my student nurse days. When we told the registrar what had happened, she told us she had never heard of anyone living so long with a diagnosis of subarachnoid haemorrhage. My father had fought hard to live. He was brave. I was proud. Life had not been easy for my dad, nor my mum, and now he was no more. At least, not in the true sense of the word. Not in the flesh. He lives on though in our hearts and minds. In the ticking of the clock, hands now freely moving. Time no longer stands still. If it ever did.

A blood clot had become embedded in his leg. His left I think. Not that it matters. It was the blood clot that was the problem. It was cruel; sadistic, without compassion. The consultant would not operate and rightly so, my dad would have died in the operating theatre. No family by his side holding his hand, saying goodbye. Instead surrounded by four clinical walls, stainless steel instruments, nameless masked faces in sterile scrubs peering down at my dad. Compassion perhaps, but no love. We didn’t want that. My dad wouldn’t want that.The cards we had all been dealt made it impossible to win. The staff waited until all the family arrived. And then he walked in.

‘I won’t let this man suffer any more.’ He said loud and clear, as he reached to turn off his life support. His bedside manner perhaps leaving a lot to be desired. We didn’t want my dad to suffer either. Was he suffering? There had been no outward signs. We were distressed beyond compare.

So, his life support was switched off, with his family by his side. Wife, three children, brother and sister. The beeping of the machine told us he was alive, but not for long. His illness incompatible with life. I put my hand on his chest. I couldn’t feel him breathing, and then he was. But it was a battle we knew he could not win. We could not win.

Eventually, the inevitable happened. My dad, his face calm, with no outward signs of pain, died with his family around him on 31st July 1999. It was 7.30. And with it the pain exploded. My poor dad, like his father, dead at 57.

I would never speak to him again. Never hear his voice again. Never see him smile. I would never hug him, watch him grow old; entwine his future with mine. I needed to embrace these last few moments before we walked away. Before he left our lives forever.

My one regret that fateful day was I never asked about organ donation. I wish I’d had the courage, but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if mum could have coped and so the fleeting moment passed. We were never asked, so perhaps it wasn’t possible, but we will never know. Some good may have come out of dad’s death; if only I’d had the courage to ask. But that day I was my father’s daughter; not someone’s nurse.

Dad was cremated on 6th August 1999 and his ashes placed under a yellow rose bush in the church gardens, where my first husband and I married. The grief, and the numbness that ensued was unbearable. It stole my soul. My very existence… At least, for a while.

Anyone who has ever lost a loved one understands the deep sense of shock that prevails. It’s like a numbness. Time stands still, as though holding on to time itself. No tears; not always; just a deep defining moment when you know your life, the life you knew, has gone forever. It’s hard to describe, but those who know; know.

True grief is universal. It threatens to overwhelm. It erupts like the crashing of the ocean. It threatens to steal your breath. Tears when they do come are intense. No holding back. Breathing for a moment becomes impossible; breath literally snatched away.

Your heart is breaking and you know it… Such grief is a consequence of love. You don’t grieve for someone with the same degree of intensity, without having tons of love for them.
You know, deep down, your life has to continue. But how easy will that be? There’s a yearning; a disbelief. This isn’t happening… It can’t be happening… It is happening… It really is happening. It strangles you. It kicks you in the teeth. Function becomes near impossible.

Ruminations, could have; should have, threatened to crush my very soul. What if…? What if I’d been there when he collapsed? I might have been able to save him. But I knew enough to understand this was not possible. Such thoughts didn’t gain a foothold. I gently let them drift in and out until I dismissed them completely.

I dreamt about my dad for a while, but those dreams soon faded. They were trying to tell me something. To look after my mum.

Much later, a friend told me I wouldn’t have wanted him to be a vegetable did I? I knew what she meant, we didn’t want him to be in a vegetative state, a state where the chances of recovery are extremely unlikely, but not impossible. No, we didn’t. Yes, we would still have dad close, we would still feel his skin next to ours, see his face, but that was for us, not for him.

I’ll never quite know how we all got through that devastating time. Although as they say, life has to go on. And it did. As with all families, death is inevitable as older generations make way for new. And my generation is no different.

I met M… my now husband, three weeks later. It was challenging, but we got through it. I have come a long way since that fateful day in 1999.

Today, life is calmer, made possible through the love of my husband and that of my family. It all happened a long time ago. The rose bush, for me at least, no longer represents where my dad’s ashes are buried. Instead I have created a beautiful place in my garden, where all those who have come and gone, can be remembered. It is a place of peace and tranquility. It is where I hold time and space. It is where I am me.