We never choose when we enter this life.
Someone else makes that choice and creates your entrance. Although we are the makers of our own destiny, the key point in one’s life is always at the discretion of others.
I would like to think that my parents sat down over the kitchen table, after a few deep and meaning full thoughts they embarked on their next decision to create a life. I shall now remove my rose tinted glasses and stare reality in the face. However the decision was actually made, I did not choose it. My parents did, and unless there is some radical movement on assisted suicide, I shall not choose my exit either.
I can of course take my own life and create my own exit at any point I wished. I won't because I'm too much of a wimp and I believe in destiny.
For someone who isn't suicidal, I have thought about my own death a lot. How? When? Where? What will be my last sight and sound? I shall save my the morbidity of this for a another post.
I have lost two very dear people to me within the last 7 years. I have witnessed the last beat of their hearts and watched them drift from one life to another.
First it was my Grandmother. She was a fine Scotswoman and spoke with a harsh Glaswegian accent. Her hands told a tale of hard work and her cheeks showed the route of many a tear.
She had Alzheimer's. I watched her wicked decline. My family could not care for her, a born and bread Scots woman can be quite demanding, never mind with a twist of Alzheimer’s. We found her a sweet little nursing home in the Northamptonshire countryside. She seemed quite content. At first it broke my heart when my beloved grandmother did not recognise me. I had clung to her apron only 18 months prior. On occasion, when I was feeling mischievous, I would make up a character and regale her with tales of my 10 children and my wayward husband... we laughed for hours and drank many cups of coffee. I would visit her every Sunday with a flask of coffee and Tupperware of cake. We would sit and she would explain to me how the Germans had planted the TV in the dayroom as a bomb and the silly 'feckers' watching it would soon learn!
Sometimes I cried to her, I told her of my relationship breakdown with my mother. The words did not register in her mind but she saw the sorrow in my eyes and squeezed my hand.
She slid deeper into the grasps of a lost mind. Eventually she refused water and food and I knew the time had come.
I knelt down at her bedside, held her hand and sobbed occasionally muttering ‘not yet Gran, I'm not ready.’ She hung on for a few more days; I once again knelt down beside her, stroked her tired and wrinkled skin and began to sing. I'd heard this song twice on the radio that morning so it was on repeat on my internal jukebox. 'bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum....Mister sandman bring me a dream, make him the cutest I have seen' I sat there for over an hour eventually making my own lyrics up, in my head I heard her wail with laughter.
'I'm ready', I whispered as I left that night.
I hadn't even reached home, a 30 minute drive when I got the call to say she had gone. I pulled in to a lay-by and howled with pain.
That was my first experience of loss. Knowing my grandmother, if she could of, I believe she would have chosen of her own exit.
My second was equally painful, my grandfather.
I was his princess.
This is my father's father. They only had one son and that was my father. They longed for a daughter but my grandmother couldn’t conceive again.
I was born on their wedding anniversary. They treasured me like a jewel. In my grandfather’s eyes, I could do no wrong. I would go into his garage and tool shed, re tune his wireless and mess his ever so organised tool tray. He would just ruffle my hair and say 'you little scamp.' We would race down the A14 in his little Peugeot listening to country and Weston.
When I was 15 I went to live with them for a while as things with mum and dad had ventured into something out of a fiction book.
I loved living with them, however this didn’t last long. I had met a boy and he wasn't good enough for my grandfather’s princess. Relationships grew taught and I moved out at the tender age of 16.
I hurt him.
We didn't speak for some time. We were both very stubborn.
I got the news that my great uncle had passed away and I was required to attend his funeral. Although feeling a little sad for my dear Uncle Doug, I dreaded the feeling of looking my grandfather in the eye after a few years of silence.
I arrived at my grandparent’s house and went bounding in through the front door. I was greeted by my grandfather yet it didn’t look like my grandfather. This man had white hair, White, White as snow. My grandfather had decent head of jet black hair with grey stripes. I asked, 'what’s happened to your hair.. ''it's all the stress you caused me, you little scamp!' He proclaimed.
My father took me to one side and told me my grandfather had cancer. He had been having intensive chemotherapy and radiotherapy but to no avail. They were unsure of how long he had left.
The entire 2 hour journey to Uncle Doug’s funeral I sat in silence. I felt angry. Furious. WHY? Why had no one told me? They used the excuse that they were trying to protect me.
On the way home, I once again plunged myself into dark silence. I was breathing him in. He had a particular scent. An unhealthy mix of old spice and washing powder. I never want to forget that comforting smell.
A month later he was admitted to a hospice and three days later he passed away. That night, when my father went to take my grandmother home. I refused to move. I knew the time was close. His fingertips were blue and cold to grip. We listened to Eva Cassidy and tears fell on to the cotton sheets. I told him how sorry I was and how I loved him dearly.
At 1:35am December 2nd 2005, I went outside for a cigarette, my first in 8 months.
At approximately 1:40am, He died.
I believe he waited until I left the room before embarking on his journey. I also believe that had he a choice and was more informed, he would have made his own exit with a little more dignity.
Both of my grandparents did not make their choice of exit as their exits were depicted by some of the most vicious diseases known to man.
We have many choices in life, white bread or brown, tea or coffee, one lump or two? Obviously there are many more, many more important ones that carve our life path, but the most important ones are out of our hands and it is for that very reason, we MUST live each day as if it is our last for our exit from this life is not in our hands.
Never let words go unsaid, If you love someone - Tell them.
