Walking Forward, Looking Back

by Dinah Latham

  “The next person who says ‘are we nearly there yet’ gets no ice cream today.”

  Mum would then pass a large bag of freshly picked peas on to our laps in the back of the car and we would spend the rest of the journey popping the pods and eating the peas. The busy hands made for a quieter journey.

  That little old standard eight seems to have gone right through my childhood, becoming progressively more dilapidated. That old jalopy would frequently break down on these unauthorised trips, and we either filled the radiator from puddles with our flask cups or held the fabric roof on as we bumped home. The whole journey was punctuated with somebody returning from behind a hedge in various stages of undress with cow parsley protruding beneath a skirt hem, held fast by an elasticated knicker leg.

  I remember always being worried that we would get lost and not be able to find our way home. I still struggle not to panic when I can’t find my way… a frequent occurrence exacerbated by a total lack of any sense of direction, combined with a total inability to read a map.

  Mum went quietly about her duties throughout it all, making sure Dad was comfortable. Much of my mother’s time and energy seemed to be about ensuring my father’s comfort. I remember watching her as she put the sugar in his tea, the cup sitting in the palm of his big steady hand, his other hand resting on his knee, while she stirred. I suppose we girls all grew up learning that men were to be waited on and that, as wives, it was supposed to be our mission in life to serve our men.

  Our home had an easy feel that resembled a patchwork quilt: nothing matched anything but it had a homely, lived-in feel about it; an ambiance I think I have copied now in my own small resting place. I like the chaotic warmth I learned from that home setting.

  I was surprised to find that after I divorced and moved to my much smaller house, my choices in furnishings and colours were very different from those I’d lived with while married. As I look back, I think I took very little part in choosing things then. Now I’ve discovered I prefer a somewhat jumbled décor that looks ‘lived in’ rather than the regimented, very tidy one I had become used to in my married years. I find I’ve got pictures up of mine that were previously put away because they weren’t somehow approved of. I really like them even though the colours don’t actually match the interior decoration.

  My childhood home was an appropriate backcloth for Dad’s traditional jazz music, and many evenings resounded with loud jazz rhythm; my dad on the guitar and Mum, of course, on the piano. I can still recall my father’s black and white ‘correspondent’ shoes that he wore when his band was off on a booking at some village hall. We should have had a jazz band at your funeral, Dad; you’d have liked that!

  My mother suffered badly when all her daughters left home, which we did more or less together – my eldest sister got married, my middle sister entered the police force and I went into a nursing career in London at Charing Cross Hospital in the Strand. The gentle goodness and strength she had given us so consistently meant that she had developed her happiness around us and had pursued very few interests of her own. Her life focused almost entirely on Dad; his wants, his needs, and his requests. As his demands multiplied, her servitude intensified, permitting further pleas from him for more attention. By the time he died, he was quite a tyrant and my mother somewhat downtrodden.

  3

  FAMILY DYNAMICS

  We walked home this morning across ‘Harriet’s garden’, the triangular patch over the road that passes our front door. It’s a much bigger piece of ground than the usual triangle in the middle of three roads. This one is probably about half an acre in size. It is glowing with the yellow buttercups dancing on their long stems. The grass around them bordering the woodland copse is lush, while further in, under the trees, some bluebells are just finishing; their brightest blue colouring has faded and the flower heads are over blown. They are scattered in clumps with the wild ramsons, with their garlic scent seeming to have bedded in around them.

  The war memorial embellishes the corner nearest home. I try to make sure Harriet gives it a wide berth, discouraging her from sniffing too enthusiastically around the stone base. It somehow feels disrespectful to allow her to trample around in front of the engraved names; no poppy wreaths there just now but it’s still a place of reverence, a state of deference never practised by Harriet.

  I pick a few buttercups and put them in a thin tall vase. Their stems stand straight and lofty with the delicate gold flowers accentuated against the clutter of books on my dresser behind them.

  * * *

  The good memories were still happening over the years: walking again over those meadows with Mum and my own children, her grandchildren; watching my auburn-haired toddler’s delight as she plunged her fingers into my mother’s button bag, letting the brightly coloured buttons cascade from her hands. I could physically feel the pleasure I had felt doing the same thing as a child. We walked through the bluebell-carpeted woods that were always in bloom for my mother’s birthday, with my children picking Nana a bunch to take home. I don’t think I’ll ever stand in such a wood again, with the bright green beech leaves overhead and the dense blue blooms beneath my feet, without an uncontrollable yearning for my mother – to have her by my side again, to hear her laugh, to smell her ‘Bluegrass’ cologne.

  I’ve asked my own children to scatter my ashes in a bluebell wood when my time comes.

  My mother grieved terribly for my middle sister, who moved away at about the time I got married and deliberately never contacted my mother again; no row, no great reason, she simply refused to respond to my mother’s longing to see her. It was a huge cruelty. Right up to the day she died, my mother’s heart ached just to hear from her, ached for her return, never understanding what she had done or why she had been so forsaken by her. Mum always felt guilty, saying she thought my sister was paying her back for when she had left her in the hospital aged three years old. She’d been quite ill and in those days parents weren’t allowed to do more than look through the oval window in the ward door at visiting times. Mum felt that my sister had always been determined to return what she perceived to be this abandonment by her.

  I remember from time to time, maybe it was on particular dates, birthdays and suchlike, Mum would put fresh flowers in my sister’s bedroom with a note saying ‘Love can wait’.

  I’m not sure I have any explanation as to why, but I made almost no effort to intervene, to contact her, to try and repair the relationship between my sister and my mum or to maintain any relationship with her myself. I saw her on very few occasions, I think twice, and when I attempted to talk about how much Mum wanted to see her she said that she’d never really liked her, didn’t want to see her and had no intention of doing so. I suppose I knew she wouldn’t. She had never been willing to do anything she didn’t want to, ever, so I think I accepted then that she wasn’t going to change now. She had always behaved as though all members of our family were less than she deserved, as though it was a huge wrong that had been visited upon her to be born into our family. Many years later we learned that she revelled in telling stories about how the family had disowned her. Maybe it was that untruth, that duplicity, that led me to do nothing more. I have always found both deliberate cruelty and lies intolerable ways of making or fostering relationships; when those two attributes become bedfellows they are a force for evil that scares me. Maybe it was fear that held me back. She had always been a powerful force within the family; perhaps, despite my mother’s longing, I was relieved when she left.

  An added sadness for my mother was that she was so pleased to have had three girls, often saying how wonderful it was because we would always have each other after she and Dad had gone. In fact, we were none of us able to forge really close relationships with each other. I don’t think at any point in our lives could we have been described as close sisters. I remember saying this to a cousin once and he confirmed my thoughts, commenting that of course it could never be so; that he knew no other family where sisters were all s
o very different with such disparate personalities and aims in life and that it would be impossible for any of us to ever be close friends.

  My eldest sister and I accepted our differences. I’m not sure we ever really understood each other but we cared about each other, we lived close and always remained in contact. We looked at life very differently but were able to allow one another to be the way we were without malice or forethought, just knowing what we wanted from life was fundamentally different but always accepting that as okay. I sometimes think that maybe we would have learned to understand each other better in my retirement years, had she lived longer. Maybe we would have shared some walks with Harriet. Neither of us believed that a deeper understanding with my middle sister was a possibility, or even something we wanted to contemplate; neither of us made any meaningful attempt to make it happen.

  It occurs to me now, only as I labour to articulate my feelings surrounding these family dynamics, just how much of my working life was spent, at very intimate life stages, with so many varied relative groupings; having, and enabling, difficult conversations between close family members at very stressful times. Also, how often I was able to battle on a patient’s behalf for what he or she needed or wanted and yet I failed to step up and even try to accomplish what my mother wanted – to have her other daughter visit her.

  In my professional life I became known for managing these complex, demanding interactions with families competently – moving families through stages of mutual pretence; a situation with each side keeping up a front for the other that all would be well. This pretence was so often played out by partners, each pretending that things were getting better when each knew, but was unable to share, that there would be no holiday together next year despite the deception of planning for it. Breaking down these barriers often enabled precious last weeks and months of someone’s life to be spent close to their loved ones, rather than both parties struggling with the loneliness that develops from the massive distance that grows when everyone, including the health professionals, play the game of ‘don’t let’s talk about it’.

  Did I go on to make happen in my career what I had been so incapable of performing at home?

  It has to be that we learn what we live. I think I learned about ‘waiting for love’ from my mother. I learned to serve the man I married, somehow believing I had to earn the right to be loved. As the years went on, the denigration of me increased while I struggled to ‘do better’ and to ‘wait for the love’ that would surely follow if I could prove I was good enough.

  I never filled the gap my missing sister left in my mother’s life but, as I grew older, we seemed to share a companionship that I cherished. I was, for much of this time, very unhappy in my own marriage, bewildered and frightened, yet with a dogged determination to make it work that must have come from my mother.

  * * *

  Harriet seems to be enjoying this morning’s autumnal walk as much as I am. It’s glorious: the colours magnificent, the row of trees tracking down Rectory Hill have changed colour, forming their own private spectacular rainbow, ranging from bright yellow through gold, all the reds and russets ending with the browns. Autumn: so beautiful, yet so fleeting, somehow emphasising the bitter sweetness of it.

  * * *

  Dad died and my marriage disintegrated around me. That autumn, the falling leaves seemed to take on a new meaning as I scrunched them beneath my feet. It was my favourite season of the year but now it seemed to symbolise my life tumbling about me and I no longer felt strong enough to hold on through it. With its harsh, cold winds, one by one my dreams were tugged off my tree and lay scattered around me on the ground… they were trampled into the mud as I fought to rescue some remnants of anything. I felt buried under them, in danger of also being trodden into the mire.

  As autumn expired so did my marriage. There was a desperate need for me to pull the threads of life together again; to make life happen once more for my beautiful, innocent children.

  Mum ached for me as mothers do. This frail little lady was there for me again, although I dared not lean on her. Her support for me was absolute: no judging, no criticism. She began to put her own life together without my father as I began to rebuild mine, and we shared glasses of her favourite dry sherry and precious talks in her new diminutive ground floor flat near me.

  But it was really all too late for her. There wasn’t enough of her candle left to burn brightly anymore; it fluttered and flickered frequently with ill-health and, at times, became very dim and in danger of being snuffed out by the latest bout of pleurisy or pneumonia. Each took hold more quickly and every time recovery took longer.

  There was the night she was dying, when she asked me to leave her at home and not send her into hospital again. She had laid out all her documents, pension book, deeds to the flat… I climbed into her single bed with her, cradled her in my arms and waited for her to die. As the first morning light came I could see that the pneumonia wasn’t allowing her to slip away as peacefully as she wanted. She was now in heart failure, restless and gasping. I decided to transfer her to hospital in the hope of some sedation rather than allow her to struggle to an unpleasant end. You should have died that night Mum, it was what you wanted and I would have felt I’d done the right thing by you… being there when your candle went out.

  After several weeks she came home but was unable to rally to full health and strength again. She needed more care from me than she found acceptable and she was impatient with my interference. The loss of independence was intolerable for her and she fought me at every turn. This tiny being, defiant to the end, tossed her head in the air and refused to accept that maybe she needed help. She could never adjust to the changing role of me looking after her instead of her looking after me. Bloody hell, life is cruel to the elderly: they teach us everything we know and then we turn round and tell them we know best. I tried hard to get it right, but I don’t think I made it.

  We had a lovely Christmas: my eldest sister was a wonderful cook and Mum had her seven grandchildren and two of her daughters around her. She carved the turkey as she’d always done and partook in a frail way in the jollities. My eldest son, Mum’s grandson, took great delight in furtively sneaking her favourite whisky tipple to her on the quiet behind my back. She became quite tipsy while I played the game and pretended not to notice as they shared the conspiracy together like two naughty children.

  There was a sudden cold snap early that following January. Snow fell fast over the first weekend of the New Year of 1983. I took her meals and settled her in the warm. On Sunday morning I had a phone call from the hospital to say she had collapsed in the snow, out on her own, and was ‘dead on arrival’ at the hospital… would I please go and identify the body.

  Eleanor Latham; you once again left home against advice… this time to die. Did you have to take your right to independence that far, Mum? Maybe it was the last decision you could make for yourself. Perhaps it was right for you.

  The open grief I felt at her death felt too deep to ever recover from. Even now, so many years later, there are times when I struggle to pull my feet free from the mire of memory so that I’m able to see the clear sky above.

  I have a picture in my mind of Mum standing in front of her full length mirror, in her outrageously high heels, feet apart, hands in pockets at the beginning of the day, holding her head high, with a determined air, just about to ‘gird her loins’ for another day.

  4

  WHAT NEXT?

  Within just over a year, both Mum and Dad had died and my husband had left. It felt as though anyone who’d ever cared for me had disappeared out of my life. I felt enveloped in an unresolved litany of grief from which I couldn’t escape.

  * * *

  A sudden gust crept through a cluster of trees at an exposed corner on the edge of the big wood and caught both of us unawares. Harriet’s shaggy coat flew in all directions as the wind caught it and as she pounced on the crisp golden leaves as they danced. The threat of winter hung in the gr
ey sky but it was as though autumn was trying to hang on to her mellow fruitfulness for just a little longer. It was a lovely season that leant itself to reminiscence; we had been out far too long, it had been a long walk and my thoughts had meandered even farther than our feet… but then Harriet did have four and I have only two. I guess my memories extended over more years than hers and, therefore, while she had managed to keep focused, nose to the ground, my head had gone on a separate journey to my feet. We were quite a way from home as my head and feet connected. There was a decided chill in the air; I turned up my collar and quickened my step. She seemed to sense my deliberation, along with my bitter-sweet recollections, and came to heel, coming so close she brushed my leg with each step as if to remind me that I was still loved and needed.

  * * *

  Mum’s dying taught me that love doesn’t die at death; there is a space between those last happenings and definitive death. Somewhere in the silence of that intermission, the relationship changes, the dimension relocates, it modifies, but it does continue; its strength lives on. I never had any experience of her after she died; no hallucination like those of many after losing a loved one, nothing that substantial, nothing so easily explained. But there was a strengthened feeling of certainty about life following its predestined pattern. While she was now on the right side of the tapestry and clearly able to see the pattern, I was still working with the rich colours on the reverse of the work, weaving all the threads into position. We’re working together on the same piece of work: all we have shared, all we have experienced, laughed about, talked about; the love we have shared goes on. It is all part of the same journey, death being part of that journey. Nothing that ever happened between us, nothing we ever said to one another is lost – it’s still here, it still lives on.