Escape

by Barbie Probert-Wright

  In New Hampshire they lived in Joanie’s house, which had been the old fire station and had been converted into a home. It was on a large plot of land, with trees and outhouses, and was a lovely spot.

  On Christmas Eve 1989, Meiki proposed very romantically and Joanie accepted at once. They were both incredibly happy and decided that the following May would be the perfect time to marry. Just as they were toasting their happiness with champagne, the phone rang. It was Joanie’s twin brother, who wanted to wish them a happy Christmas and to share his exciting news: he had just proposed to his girlfriend and they were planning to marry in May. It was a delightful moment but Meiki and Joanie did not want to eclipse their news, so said nothing of their plans to anyone.

  Joanie’s brother Doug planned a big family wedding in Texas, so Meiki and Joanie felt there was no need to have another lavish do at the same time. They decided that they would get married a few days later in a quiet, low-key event at her parents’ home. In fact, they kept it so quiet that they told me only a week beforehand, when Meiki rang to wish me a happy Mother’s Day (in the USA, as in Germany, Mother’s Day is the second Sunday in May).

  After he had told me the news, I put the phone down, both delighted for them and desperate to be there myself. I told Ray and then rang Babette. ‘Your brother is getting married next week – and not because Joanie’s pregnant!’ I said.

  We decided that Babette and I would fly out, as it was such short notice that nobody else in the family could get there and, besides, Meiki had already said that he wanted something small and intimate. We arrived in time to attend Doug’s wedding in Dallas, and I know one or two of the guests were wondering why Meiki’s mother and sister were there. But, as the reception drew to a close, Joanie said a few words and then Meiki made the announcement that he and Joanie were getting married as well – and everyone understood. It made Doug’s wedding an even happier occasion, as we all celebrated the two marriages.

  The following day we drove to Georgetown in Texas, to Joanie’s parents’ home, a four-hour drive through beautiful, empty countryside, with fields and fields of brightly coloured flowers. We drove through a sandstorm too (our second experience of extreme weather, because while we were in Dallas we visited South Fork, the setting of the famous TV show Dallas, and watched a tornado sweep across it, putting out all the lights).

  We stayed with Joanie’s parents in their house just outside Georgetown and I was struck immediately by how the layout resembled the old brick factory house in the Wartegau. There were four wings, each with a double bedroom and bathroom, so that when any of their three children came home they had their own quarters. It was a beautiful place, and perfect for the intimate family occasion that Meiki and Joanie wanted.

  Three days later a judge who was a friend of the family officiated at the quiet wedding ceremony. Babette and I spent hours wrapping white net round the balustrade on the veranda and hanging white crêpe-paper bells all around. When Meiki and Babette were babies, they each had little cuddly toy rabbits, which we called ‘schubbers’, short for Schnupperhase, which means ‘sniffing hare’. Unknown to him I had taken his schubber out to America with me and I hung it among the decorations. Halfway through the ceremony he caught sight of it and his face lit up. I will never forget that wonderful day in May 1990.

  Meiki and Joanie were very happy together. They both loved animals and their house was always full of them. Joanie had an elderly cat and Meiki took his cat with him. They acquired a spaniel, Ashley, who was always known as Crashley because of his habit of bumping into things, and more cats followed. Joanie shared Meiki’s love for motorbikes, although nobody could ever match his passion for bikes, which he’d had since he was old enough to sit astride one. He loved tinkering with cars and bikes, and could take apart anything mechanical and put it back together again.

  Meiki needed to find his feet and a new career. At first, he had lots of different jobs, working in a gun factory, as a painter and decorator, in a gym, as a gardener, in a garage, as a car salesman, to name but a few. He was also a volunteer fireman (appropriately enough, as he lived in an old fire station) and ambulanceman, as well as a trained paramedic, so he soon became well known and popular within the community.

  He was also a talented cartoonist, and we all have hand-drawn cards he sent us at Christmas, birthdays and other special occasions.

  Through his voluntary work as a fireman and an ambulanceman, Meiki got to know a lot of people. A friend asked him if he would like to go to Police Academy and he said he really would. He had to get his American citizenship, but when that came through he started at the Academy, training to become an officer.

  But then the idyll was shattered. We were all devasted when Meiki was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

  Testicular cancer is curable, but Michael had ignored the symptoms. For example, he’d suffered from backache for a while, but he and Joanie had been helping to build an extension to the house, a triple garage with a floor on top, so he thought he had pulled a muscle doing the labouring, or even lifting a patient when he was called out as an ambulanceman.

  I also remember how in the November of 1996, just months before the diagnosis, we visited him in America and I had been worried because after dinner, Meiki would be almost falling asleep, instead of chatting and playing cards, which we usually did. I said, ‘Meiki, are you getting enough sleep? You’re not pushing yourself too hard, are you?’

  With the two volunteer services he was in, fire and ambulance, he could be called by a bleeper at any time, day or night. He was very conscientious and would leap out of bed the minute it went off. ‘No, Mum, I’m fine, really. Just a little tired.’ He smiled at me, so I didn’t go on at him. Other than that, he seemed very happy.

  I wish now, with hindsight, that I had made him go to a doctor there and then. As it was, he didn’t go until the following March, and by the time he was diagnosed the cancer had spread to his spine and lungs.

  It was a terrible time of great grief and heartbreak, but of hope too. We were all determined to help Meiki in every way and he had also resolved to fight it. He and Joanie had been married less than eight years and he wanted many more years of happiness with her. So they tried everything, open to any possible course of treatment. His medical bills were horrendous. Insurance covered the bulk of it, but we had to raise a lot more. Everybody joined in. One of Ray’s firms in the building in Piccadilly had a special fund for hardship cases and they donated generously. Babette and I walked from Piccadilly to Hampton Court, sponsored by all our friends and family. It was twenty-three miles and despite the fact that I am registered disabled because of a back injury I suffered in 1988, I managed it. I spent the next five days in bed, totally kaput, but I didn’t mind in the least: it felt right to share Meiki’s pain just a little bit.

  It is easy to look back and wish you had done things differently. If we had known he would not get better, we could have given him a superb fourteen months of life and pure pleasure, doing all the things he wanted to do. He would not have had to endure the gruelling months of treatment that reduced him to a shadow of himself. But we had to try: if we hadn’t, we would always have regretted it. It meant that Meiki had to endure a very miserable time. The radiotherapy and chemotherapy meant that he could not keep down food, he was constantly sick, and always cold and shivering.

  I travelled between America and home twelve times in the fourteen months Meiki was ill. It was very difficult, made harder by the fact that Ray had to have a triple heart bypass during this time and needed me back here as much as Meiki did out there, and I wanted desperately to be with both of them.

  Meiki was being treated at the Hitchcock Medical Center in the town of Lebanon and there is a famous fish restaurant there, the Weather Vane, where we ate many times when he was well. Meiki loved the atmosphere, all scrubbed wooden tables and enormous platters of fish. One day, when he was very ill, we left the hospital after a chemotherapy session and he said to me and Joanie, ‘Shall we go to t
he Weather Vane?’

  We looked at each other in astonishment, because he hadn’t eaten properly for months. He ordered a clam chowder, then a lobster, which came with a bib because the butter ran down his chin, and he even had a dessert, an iced fruit cup. The portions were, as ever, vast. We sat in the window and the sunlight streamed in on us, as if it were blessing us. He tucked into it all with relish and it was wonderful to see – it was a bigger meal than he would have tackled when he was well. Joanie and I watched in amazed pleasure, so engrossed in him eating that we could only pick at our own food.

  Sadly, by the time we had driven home, three quarters of an hour away, he could not remember eating. He was fading fast and this was his one last good meal and, by some sort of alchemy, it did not make him sick.

  Just a few weeks before he died he said to me, ‘Mum, I don’t want to be this ill any more.’

  What could I reply to that? I could only put my arms round him and hold him close, longing with all my heart that I could make him well again. When your children are small, you can make things better for them with a sticking plaster and a cuddle. I felt so helpless. I would have done anything to change places with him. Meiki was only thirty-four and had so much to live for.

  My deepest regret is that I wasn’t there when he died. I couldn’t get a flight and arrived a day too late. He died with Joanie and his best friend Steve Marshall, another police officer, at his side, and he knew I really loved him, because we never left anything unsaid.

  How can anyone explain the grief for a dead child? It is unnatural to bury your own children. The death of a parent, a partner or a sibling is very sad, but we know that we have to face these things at some time. The death of her own child is something no mother expects or prepares for, even when she knows that child is dying.

  I would give anything, anything in the world, for one last day with Meiki. I would walk through the battlefields, hear the anger of the guns, hide in the ditches, come face to face with the plunderers and the witch – anything, if I could see, hear and touch my beloved son just once more. The years have passed but time does nothing to lessen grief.

  The Queen Mother said a very wise thing: ‘Grief does not get any better, but you get better at dealing with it.’

  I have gone through all the stages that, I know, others have experienced. There is nothing unique about my loss, except to me. I have cried, and still cry, every day at some memory, some thought that catches me unawares at the oddest of moments. My handsome, kind, generous, loving son, who would by now have been a wonderful police officer, has gone and I can never have him again. It is the cruellest, hardest blow ever inflicted on me by life.

  Meiki’s funeral was huge. The church had a big staircase, and it was lined with ambulancemen, firemen and policemen, all in uniform. Meiki, too, was in uniform, in his coffin. Opposite the church, up the hill, was the fire station, and it was all kitted out with trestle tables and benches, all laden with food and drink. We were presented with a rose and two flags, one the American flag and the other the flag of New Hampshire. I gave the American flag to Babette. There were reports of the funeral and glowing tributes to Meiki in all the local papers. Although he hadn’t finished his police training course, Meiki was given his police badge and became an Officer Emeritus, the first ever in New Hampshire, before he died. It meant a great deal to him.

  Steve Marshall, his best friend, delivered a moving eulogy and Steve’s words explain Meiki as he was seen by other people. I, his mother, loved him, but when I heard Steve’s speech I knew that my son had touched so many more lives and was loved by so many more people than I could guess.

  Steve said that when he asked others for the words they would use to describe Mick, the four that came up all the time were ‘friendly, compassionate, passionate and funny’. The two had first met when Meiki, in his role as a voluntary fireman, turned up to help Steve, who had been called to a dog that was entangled in cable. It was entirely appropriate that they should have made friends over an animal, as Meiki was devoted to his own pets.

  This is Steve’s description of their first meeting:

  I had just started work in the area and was handling one of my first calls, a dog entangled in some cables. I asked for help from the fire service, and the first person to arrive was Mick. Now I had just come from a larger city in the county, and may have had a bit of an attitude that goes with that. And then Mick arrives. I didn’t know this guy who was pulling up in what I later learned was ‘The Beast’ (Meiki’s truck). I knew that as far as I was concerned the truck was overheight, the tyres were too wide and it made too much noise. Then out steps this guy with a buzz cut, earring and menacing-looking leather jacket. Needless to say, I didn’t want this creature on my scene. Then he spoke to me, and I knew at once that my first impression, that he was some gangster from Brooklyn, was incorrect. He said, ‘Need some help, mate?’

  At that point I knew that this was not an ordinary person. Mick reached for the cable entangling the dog and got nipped. But he went on to calm the dog and keep it somewhat peaceful while the cable was cut and the dog released.

  Steve talked about Meiki as he knew him and for that I am very grateful. One of the few privileges that comes with the death of someone you love so much is that you get to know what they meant to others.

  Mick’s compassion for others in the community is legendary. He was out in all types of weather, all hours of day and night, and for any reason. All he needed to know was that someone needed help. A few weeks ago, when Mick was still in relatively good health, I asked him to supervise and advise me in changing the brakes in my wife Karen’s van when I got home from work. By the time I got there he had the tyres off, brakes apart and cleaned. All this during a week of chemo and with a catheter in his chest.

  The passion he had for Joan made many of us envious. They were always doing TV family things: little notes to each other; small, inexpensive but meaningful gifts; spur-of-the-moment trips and events. They always took the opportunity for a kiss, hand squeeze or hug and yes, even the dreaded baby-talk. Because that was the real Mick, and their moments together after his sickness were true and genuine, not a reaction to a tragic situation. Joan was his life, he was hers.

  His passion for police work I am proud to say I got to see more than anyone else. He was so passionate about the profession and the people in it that he worked diligently to learn the best techniques from all the officers in the area.

  His passion for life continued to the very end. As we would take our late-night patrols, we would talk as only partners can in a cruiser. We discussed life, we discussed death. Only once did he tell me that he didn’t think he would survive the cancer. Only once did I see him cry. He did this away from Joan, to protect her, although she knew long before. His only fear in dying was that Joan would be alone, or more importantly he would be without her. But he was more afraid of living and becoming totally dependent on Joan, Mum, me and others. He knew that above all else he did not want many lives changed to prolong his. He was the one people called when they needed help or to be taken care of. It was difficult for him to be the one needing care.

  Mick continued to show his passion for life all through the last hours of his life. As his condition started to deteriorate, he knew death would come. I knew his life was going to end, but when outside forces took control of him, and Joan and I were holding his hands, he looked me straight in the eye. It was a look that said ‘I’m not going to go gracefully, I’m not going to roll over and let it take me’. He was telling Death: ‘You want me, you fight me for it.’ As consciousness left him he still refused to go. Joan kissed him, gave him her blessing to go. When the machines were switched off, he raised his head slightly, turned towards Joan, and Mick was finally in a place with no pain.

  Mick was my partner and my best friend. He was a cop’s cop, a best friend’s best friend, a public servant to be proud of, a husband and a son and a brother to admire, a neighbour to dream of, a person to emulate. I love you and miss
you.

  The words of Steve’s tribute resound through my mind and come to me unbidden at all sorts of odd times. I think mothers always know the child, but don’t always appreciate the man: Steve’s perspective made the grown-up Meiki, the one who lived 3,000 miles away from me, as close to me as the small boy who kicked his football into the flower beds, or the young man who roared around on his huge motorbike, terrifying me with his love of speed.

  Before he left England for America, Meiki had a girlfriend for several years, Angie. They lived together for some time, but split up before he knew Joanie. They remained great friends and I regard Angie as part of my family. She wrote a poem for his funeral and these are some of the verses:

  It was seventeen years ago, for a ride down the hill,

  The day we first met, I remember it still.

  You’d clog down a gear, slam your visor over your face,

  The others in our gang would always give chase.

  Pulling up in Andy’s back yard every night, all weekend,

  Always a problem to sort or a bike to mend,

  Or just hanging around drinking coffee or tea,

  A group of young friends, together and free,

  Determined to be independent, money was sparse,

  But enough for two bikes on the road, six more on the grass.

  You just had to have them, you may need them for a part,

  You couldn’t let them go, you didn’t have the heart.

  When we went our separate ways it wasn’t the end,

  You were entwined in my life, still my best friend,

  You found new ventures, new scenes and new mates,

  But everything changed once you’d been to the States.

  It was hard not to be selfish, I didn’t want you to go,

  You were my confidant, best friend, I would miss you so,