May 2024

The vaccine came in 2021. It changed everything and was a relief for most. Families need to eat. People have houses, children, jobs to protect. The vaccines took some lives, too. We mustn’t forget those. They also fell to covid.

No one wanted to manage this country through the pandemic. No one knew what the hell the virus was or what to do. At least, I think no one knew what it was. That question is beyond the scope of this piece.

Anyone can make a mistake, and they did. The lack of PPE. The disregarding of their own rules. Running down the NHS in the first place. They didn’t pay for their mistakes, though. The people in care homes, in hospices, in hospitals, and dying at home, the people standing at a funeral alone with no arm around their shoulder, those people paid. We’ve got a tribunal going. Personally, I don’t want retribution. I want acknowledgement. Politicians. Policy makers. You can do something decent and kind and thoughtful now. You can formally mark their passing. A stone monument to our loss.

Whatever should and shouldn’t have happened. However you caught the virus. I do not, will not ever believe it’s okay for a doctor to withdraw care against a patient's wishes. They should not have been able to condemn you. It sticks in my throat. It chokes me. I think the world of nurses and doctors and all the people battling away in the mess that is the NHS. I care deeply about our health service - that magnificent, shining example of kindness and care birthed from socialism. Destroyed and broken after fourteen years of tory policy. I can’t imagine the hell it was during the pandemic for the hundreds of thousands of lovely, wonderful people. The volume of deaths, the hopelessness, the battlefield conditions. I’m amazed there is a single person still working for the NHS. That we can call an ambulance and pretty much expect someone will come and help us is testimony to the commitment, decency, and care of NHS workers.

But this ability to deny treatment. I can't accept that doctors have the supreme ability to know what is right.

Denying you dialysis is what killed you. Covid is on your death certificate. But it was the toxins building in your body that finally stopped your huge, pumping heart.

You asked them not to stop dialysis. You were lucid until you lapsed into unconsciousness two days after coming home. A week after your last dialysis. And it still took another week for you to finally let go of the spark of life you embraced. And you did embrace life, didn’t you? You painted, and you made toys for the grandchildren, you saw your friends, and went to the theatre. You had loving relationships. You had a life to live for.

I can’t imagine what it is like to come to the decision to end a life. Is that where that awful phrase comes from? End of Life. “You are at end of life, Mr Claxton.”

Oh, to have been with you when those words were said.

“We are not going to dialyze you anymore. It will do more harm than good.”

Are you sure about that? It did untold harm to me that they refused to keep treating you. Was it kinder to let you die the death I watched you die? Because you didn’t go easy. There was no going gently into the good night. As unconscious as you were, you thrashed in the bed, moaned, and called out, your great, strong, and tender heart pumping fit to burst. Until, at last, it did.

I will never know if that was kinder than dying on the dialysis table. I do know you weren’t granted the respect of making the decision for yourself.

The days don’t get easier without you but I’m getting used to the absence of you. I guess I am more grown up. I’m moving through the grief. I try to be like you. The best bits of you. And when people say I look like you or sound like you it’s a funny, small kind of comfort. It doesn’t help that it’s all so bleak. War, poverty, everywhere people are hurting, people are scared. You were always there to guide me. We’ve lost a generation of people who’ve lived through as bad or worse. A scythe has cut down our wisest, most experienced generation. It’s the first world war in reverse. We’ve lost our greatest skills and knowledge. I can’t come to you anymore to get your take on this new and scary thing. You saw bombs drop over London. You always had something helpful to say.

I’m better than I was, but I still can’t deal with stress. Any little stressful thing is far more stressful than it warrants. I don’t know if that’s the pandemic, the way you died and what came after, or whether that’s just grief. There is no twin of me living in a parallel world without covid.

This writing is healing. I want to publish this piece, but I wonder if there’s a point. The internet is awash with words. If this piece comforts one person in some small way there’s a point to me sharing. Misery really does love acknowledgement, if only for the mind to know the madness of grief is quite natural and usual and needs to be so. It’s all a process.

We will be a long time unpicking the pandemic and its’ bequest of loss. We have our covid wall. Built by ordinary people. Not by politicians. And now is the time for artists, for writing and plays and film. Already, words are appearing. Documentaries are being made. We can create a legacy of words and images and stories that tell the world what we went through.

We who are left behind need that monument. A testimony to our grief and loss. You fought the virus for weeks, Dad. Brave and alone. I would so very like to see your name writ there, somewhere in stone for all to see.

A roll call of all the names, all your names. You, the beloved who went too soon, you who are missed and grieved.

The Fallen of covid 19.