A DEATH TO DIE FOR

by Geoffrey Wilding

  It was important for me to make things as easy as I could for Helen after I was gone and although I was sure that family and friends would look after her I didn’t want her to have to spend the rest of her life on her own and be lonely, it was a hard subject to broach and I made a real ham fist of it by suggesting that I set her free of her marriage vow to me so that she would always know that I had been comfortable with the thought of her sharing her life later on with someone else.

  How wrong could I have been, this suggestion was met with firm disparaging comments and I was told in no uncertain terms that there would be no-one else for her and she moved away from me and to emphasise her disapproval and stayed quiet for some time.

  Eventually she broke the silence by saying that it was not death itself but the thought of losing me on the other side that gave her the greatest upset and invaded her sleepless nights, she had always hoped that when we died that we would go together but now that I would be going first she didn’t know how or where she would find me when it came to be her turn.

  I hunted around for an answer to her torment and after a while said that I remembered from a reading that I had done for a friend’s daughters wedding that there were three things that could last forever, faith, hope and love and that the greatest of these was love.

  I said we knew our love was a strong and that if we held fast to it then we would always be able to find each other, I made a play of tying an imaginary cord around her waist and said that it was an everlasting golden cord of love which could stretch forever so that she would always be able to find me no matter how far I had travelled on the other side, I pretended to test the knot by stretching the cord between us and then following my example Helen did the same.

  Almost on cue the sun came out and a reflected warm glow shone into the room.

  Although all this had lifted the mood, Helen still looked very drawn and tired from lack of sleep and so I asked her to lay on the bed beside me, at first her hospital training made her a bit reticent but I managed to persuade her and after drawing the curtains to the corridor window she sat on the edge of the bed, kicked off her shoes and lay back.

  Luckily hospital beds are reasonably wide so we lay there both in a foetal position and it wasn’t long before she fell sound asleep, this was the closest we had been as man and wife for nearly two weeks and although I couldn’t feel much with my left arm I was just happy to hold her.

  I was enjoying this moment of closeness when there was a quiet knock at the door, it opened and Gordon put his head round the jamb, I didn’t want to say anything as I was determined that Helen should not wake and as I could not use my useless left arm to wave him away I lifted my head from the pillow and shook it, luckily he caught on straight away and ducked back out of the room closing the door silently on his way out.

  I did feel a bit sorry for Gordon as this was the second time that he had tried to visit and been unsuccessful both times.

  The late afternoon sky slowly lost it’s brightness, there were no lights on in the room and the curtains filtered the corridor lighting so that the room gradually became a dark quiet warm cocoon and Helen continued to sleep soundly.

  She woke about 5.30pm, she turned her head and smiled warmly although somewhat surprised that I had let her sleep so long, I said that I had not wanted to disturb her earlier because of the enjoyment of having her so close and knowing that she needed to sleep.

  A little concerned that folk would be arriving at the house for the weekend tired and hungry after their journeys she said that she had better get home, I reluctantly agreed so she got up and put her coat on and kissed me goodbye but as she left the room she turned and gave a tug on the imaginary cord we had tied earlier.

  I lifted my hip in response pretending that I could feel her pulling on the other end, she smiled, winked her eye and then disappeared from view.

  About an hour after she had left Andy and Sue called in to visit on their way to the house, he told me that there would be quite a few people coming again at the weekend which I said I was grateful for but that really what I wanted most was to spend as much time as possible with Helen as we had no idea how much more time we would have together particularly after I was moved to the Birmingham hospital, he said that he understood and that he would try to pace the visits so that we could have our own space as well.

  It had been a long emotional day that thankfully had finished better than it had started so I was quite happy to have my medication and get some sleep ready for the weekend ahead.

  Weekend - Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th December 2005

  This weekend started much as the last with the noise of the hospital coming to life after the stillness of the nightshift and as this was going to be my last weekend to be able to say goodbye to those folk who came to see me at Hereford hospital I wanted to look my best so after I disconnected the NG tube from the food pump I headed to the shower room.

  On the way I checked my mobile and clicked through the good night and good morning texts and found one from Helen saying that she would soon be on her way.

  So after a dodgy shave, tricky shower and a messy attempt at dental hygiene, I applied some deodorant, got dressed, combed my hair and was quite pleased that with one arm I had managed to make myself reasonably presentable.

  When Helen arrived I could see that she too had made sure that she looked her best to face the day and with Andy marshalling the troops again visitors arrived and departed in small groups of two, three or four.

  Some visits were more traumatic than others with a lot of tears and sometimes a very strange thing happened, more than once a visitor would hang back as the others left and they would say to me how terrible it was that I had such a short amount of time left and then would go on to say that they needed to tell me something and proceeded to offload some secret of their past which they confided in me and told me that it was the first time they had told anybody about it.

  It was as though they were using me as a confessional in the hope that my impending departure to the hereafter would allow me to obtain some kind of absolution for them.

  Later that afternoon Alan and Sue arrived, he confirmed that his enquiries had managed to locate a double plot on a hillside in a cemetery just outside Winchester and that he had brought the paperwork with him so that we could make an application to purchase it.

  We thanked him for all his efforts on our behalf and then Helen took the notepad from her bag and we spent a good twenty minutes to half an hour with them discussing the funeral arrangements that we had agreed earlier in the week.

  Alan said that we would be able to have the funeral service at the local church as Helen wanted and then just a small family group could escort the coffin for the interment a day or so later, I had a bizarre momentary thought wondering where would I spend the time in between and what I would do while I was waiting.

  They took copious notes themselves and on seeing the strain we were under said that they could finalise the small details later and would leave us and let Andy know not to let anyone else visit for a while.

  For us, each day that past brought the end ever closer and this was being emphasised by all the fiscal, funerary and legal planning we were having to cope with and so it took us sometime to compose ourselves ready to receive more visitors.

  By early evening I had become very tired and the remaining family visitors said their goodbyes. Andy and Helen were the last to leave, she made sure that I was comfortable in bed before they left.

  Sunday pretty much continued as Saturday had left off, the real blessing of the weekend was that no little man came to cover me in steroid cream and in fact the blotches from the penicillin allergy had already started to fade noticeably.

  Several visitors came again to day, some had stayed at the house overnight others lived locally in the surrounding area , Joyce and Albert also visited again and this time it was less traumatic for all of us than the previous weekend.

  As the day came to a close I was left with m
any thoughts about the kindnesses everyone had shown, their concern for Helen and the rest of the family and I felt blessed to have so many loving friends and family, but I also knew that this would be the last time that I would see many of them.

  The realization that they had come to say their last goodbyes and that in all probability I would not be around long enough to spend a final Christmas with the ones I loved set my mind into overdrive about what may lay ahead for me in these last two weeks and by the time the nurse with the drugs trolley arrived I really needed my diazepam to calm me down.

  Monday 12th December 2005

  A strange sight confronted me as I got ready to shower this morning, my skin had started to peel over most of the trunk of my body due to the many applications of steroid cream over the past few days and I was beginning to resemble a half plucked chicken, however the red blotches and blood blisters were now almost gone.

  The second thing that I noticed when I looked in the mirror over the wash hand basin was that my ears were starting to stick out more than usual, at first I couldn’t think what might be the cause and then I remembered that a similar situation had occurred to me about fifteen years previously when I had gone through a divorce and then it dawned on me that much as had happened then I must have lost quite a bit of weight due to my only receiving sustenance from the NG food.

  I thought well at least I won’t be so heavy for the pall bearers now.

  Once I had got ready for the day I sat in the chair and while waiting for Helen to arrive I switched on the telly and plugged in my earphones thinking that I would see what if any of the history channels had to offer, I was pressing the buttons when the screen filled with a shot probably taken from a helicopter, of a massive fire with a huge plume of black smoke streaking across the countryside, it turned out that this was the aftermath of the Buncefield oil tank explosion and huge fire which had started the day before, I thought it funny that no-one had mentioned it.

  The news reporter went on to say that luckily although several people had been taken to hospital there had been no casualties and that fire fighters were still on the scene trying to put the fire out.

  I had previously been avoiding television news programmes due mainly to the fact that I didn’t want to get involved with a story that I may not get to see then end of, however as a qualified health and safety consultant this information triggered my innate desire for knowledge of why and how this disaster had occurred, so much to Helen’s surprise I was still glued to the TV when she arrived, in fact I didn’t really notice her until she had circled the bed and arrived at my side, Kate was also with her but she had stayed at the end of the bed.

  Helen kissed me on the cheek I took off the headphones and flicked the switch to turn the TV off, I said that I hadn’t heard about the fire that had started yesterday to which she replied that neither had she until she got home last night when it was all over the TV news, Kate confirmed that it had happened in the early morning and a lot of nearby homes and businesses had been seriously damaged but no-one had been killed.

  After taking off her coat Helen took a small pile of post from her bag which we opened and went through however there was nothing of significance that had to be dealt with and then while she stowed the dirty clothes that needed washing Kate assisted me with the flask of flavoured ice which today was blueberry.

  It must have been about 11.00am when the solicitor arrived with my last will and testament which he needed me to sign, however he informed me that my signature needed to be witnessed by a notary or other suitable person and he suggested that the hospital office manager would have the necessary gravitas so he went off to locate them.

  While he was away Helen and I had a look through the document he had brought, Kate said that she would leave us to it and she would go and get a cup of coffee.

  It was a good twenty minutes or so before the solicitor returned unaccompanied, he said that he had managed to locate the Office Manager and although they were happy to act as a witness in these circumstance they had just been about to go to an important meeting and therefore they could not assist until the meeting was over in about an hours time.

  The solicitor not wanting a long wait at my bedside said that he had some other things he needed to and would pop back in an hour and get the document signed.

  By this time Kate had returned and brought a cup of tea for Helen and while we were chatting there was a knock at the door and a senior member of my Masonic Lodge came into the room, after general introductions to Kate and Helen he said that as it was the new Masters Installation meeting tonight he thought that he would come along to see how I was holding up and was there anything that I needed so that he could report the matter back to the Brethren.

  With all that had gone on over the past week I had almost forgotten that this big occasion was happening, I thanked him for his concern but said that apart from assisting Helen in the future there was nothing that was immediately pressing.

  I explained that I would be going to the Birmingham hospital possibly tomorrow and therefore I would not expect anyone from the Lodge to drive such a distance to come and visit me there although they would be very welcome if they did particularly if it was to assist Helen with the driving.

  Just before he left he asked me if there was anything I would particularly like to be said at the meal after the proceedings during the taking of the toast to absent Brethren, I thought for a minute and said that I couldn’t think of anything to say but that the one thing that I desired most but was unable to do was have a drink of water and that maybe in memory of me they might like to drink the toast with a glass of water rather than wine.

  He said that he thought that it was a nice idea and was sure that the Brethren would be happy to do so.

  An hour had just about passed and the solicitor returned, he said that he had checked on the whereabouts of the Office Manager on his way in but unfortunately the meeting had gone on longer than planned and that there would be a further wait until she could come to the room.

  We waited, however it was difficult to make small talk about a will and so in between some pregnant pauses we discussed the weather, not that I had had much recent personal knowledge of it myself, some comment was made on how amazing it was that no-one had been killed in the explosion at the oil storage depot, Helen asked after the health of the solicitor’s wife and Kate answered questions from the solicitor on her life in New Zealand.

  As we were searching for a new topic of conversation there was a knock at the door and a lady dressed in a smart suit carrying a file entered the room expressing apologies for the delay.

  The solicitor having now waited for some time, sprang to his feet and moved the over bed table to a position where I could sign the document, he explained to us all the significance of what we were about to do.

  After we nodded our understanding of the situation he produced a pen from his inside breast pocket, I signed first followed by the Office Manager and as quickly as that the whole of my worldly possessions were pledged to another.

  The solicitor gathered up the document, placed it in his briefcase, I thanked him for his help, we shook hands and he lowered his eyes a little as he said goodbye to me, Helen and Kate who then both thanked him and he and the Office Manager left.

  I thought well that’s another nail in the coffin completed.

  Helen had tears in her eyes as she held my hand, Kate was also upset and said that she could do with hot drink, I said if she waited a minute or two the tea lady was due and I was sure that she would let them have a cup of tea.

  Helen said that the tea lady had been a great friend to us over the last couple of weeks, it was her that had provided the cup tea for the abortive extreme tea drinking episode and she had called in twice a day every day except the weekends even though she knew that I was NIL BY MOUTH.

  She always had a bright smile and kind word and if Helen was visiting at the time she would always offer her a cup of tea with a biscuit and having found out about
the ice swallowing she would go out of her way to get a small paper covered block of ice cream for me from the kitchens, the type which as children we were given years ago with two flat wafers as an ice cream sandwich.

  I said to Helen that I would really miss the tea lady in her brown gingham tabard when I moved hospitals, she replied that there were bound to be tea ladies at Birmingham hospital but I said that it wouldn’t be the same.

  Before they left Helen said that she had a long standing appointment in the morning which she really ought to attend, however Jim had a day off college tomorrow so he would keep me company in the morning until she arrived, I said that would make a change but wondered if he would remember to bring in the flask of fruit ice.

  Helen smiled and said that she would leave a stickit on the fridge door to remind him.

  It must have been around 8.30ish, I was sat in the chair catching up on the latest information on the oil fire when there was a knock at the door and the consultant came into the room.