December 2020

They rang today and said they don’t expect you to get better. They used an odd phrase. Three words, benign in themselves, combining together to make strange, cold bedfellows.

End of Life.

I sat for a long time trying to understand how the doctors can say this to you? A man so fit and fluid of mind.

I’m not ready to accept that. And I hope you’re not too. It’s childish to believe in miracles and magic, but I am your child, and I believe in you.

It’s been a tough three months. Even you, the strongest, gentlest man I know, must be tired. Oh, why did you put out your bins that day? Fell. Hit your head. Went to A&E. Sent home.

A week later, drama when the dialysis transport couldn’t get you to answer the door. I was driving to see you, to stay over. I was scared you had died that day. But you were still here, completely out of it, confused in your pajamas, on your knees on the bedroom floor. Blood everywhere. From a little gash on your arm. They took you away in an ambulance. Because of covid, we couldn’t follow.

The next four days were terrifying. No one knew what had happened. We couldn’t see you, couldn’t even speak to you.

A stroke, a mini one, powerful for its' size and cruelly effective.

When they discharged you two weeks later, I came to get you, and you rallied, looking forward, determined to recover. D and our child came to stay for half term. And then the weekly swab test at the renal unit came back positive.

Covid.

We got D quickly home to self-isolate alone while L and me took over the kitchen, and you had the run of the living room. I bought gloves and masks and aprons and we kept our spirits up while the family sent food parcels. I missed you in the same house, but we could talk at least. Through doors, through masks. I cooked. You ate. We were doing well.

Until you couldn’t get up out of bed. And then even lifting you got hard. I didn’t know what to do. I know how you hate being in hospital, but I was worried about you travelling for dialysis, that long trip to the dedicated covid positive renal unit. They said, phone 999.

It was pneumonia. Creeping through your lungs.

You, the man who lives on his own, cooking and cleaning for yourself, going to dialysis three times a week and still strong, smiling, looking forward and planning. A man who goes to the theatre with your friends. The child who played in bomb sites during the blitz, the young man who saw your own parents die in their fifties. You, solid and caring, a proper gentle man, one of the last of your generation. Still standing.

Six weeks you’ve been in hospital, and we can’t visit. I can’t rub healing oils into your shoulders or squeeze your hand so that you know I’m there. Most of the time, you don’t hear your phone, and there are a lot of people calling you. The family and the many, many friends whose lives you’ve touched. People who love and care about you. People who like having you around. I can’t understand why the hospital people are saying “end of life”. When did people stop saying "dying"? You phoned me, and I told you I was worried they had stopped your dialysis. When you said: “I’m fed up with people talking about end of life to me,” I laughed.

Hope sparked. There you were, the man I know, battling on. Not giving up.