Wednesday 10 October 2012

Tea and cake with total strangers


Well, I drove past the grey, rain-soaked stones of Stonehenge again yesterday and - as always - felt privileged to live so close to them. Some people actually fly from the other side of the world just to see them, and all I have to do is make my way down to the A303.

The door was opened for me by a rather attractive, 38 year-old woman, and when I went into the living room, a group of elderly and middle-aged people stood up to greet me. I wondered who they were, and surmised that they must have been visiting my brother-in-law and his children, to give some support in their time of grief and loss.

I was right, but it wasn't until I understood that the 70 year-old woman who I was embracing was - in fact - my elder sister, and the middle-aged people were my other nieces and nephews, that I realised how long it had been since I saw them last. I must have had a temporary bout of relation-blindness too, possibly caused by the anticipated stress of the event.

The thing is that - since before the kids had been born - I gave up family Christmases, and my elder sister's birthday falls on Christmas day. It doesn't help that she belongs to a religious group which doesn't celebrate Christmas or birthdays either, and sometimes I think that her nativity date was a big factor in joining it.

Then I was reminded what bloody awful cooks my entire family are, when the surviving Sis handed me a piece of cake to go with the cup of tea. I asked who was doing the cooking now that other Sis was dead, and who had been cooking in the run-up to her death when she was in hospital. Nobody owned up, but niece confessed to a liking for supermarket ready-made meals which could be microwaved.

After a bit of hysterical chit-chat, the other half of the family left to go home, using the excuse that they all had dogs waiting for them which were probably eating the curtains as we spoke, so I was left with the bereft, and things settled down to a much more realistic tone of conversation.

As my niece spoke to hospitals and registrars on the phone, her father, brother, sister-in-law and me pawed through old family photos, trying to work out whose baby was whose. Another thing that didn't help was that older Sis was once a staff-nurse in a children's hospital, so there were plenty of pictures of her as a young woman, holding up totally unrelated babies.

I heard niece ask for the name of the mortuary assistant who she was due to meet that afternoon, and watched with incredulity as she wrote down the name 'Gaylid' on the page of the notebook she was using to remind herself of all the little details and duties one has to perform upon the death of a loved-one.

I asked if she was absolutely sure that his name was 'Gaylid', as I would have even been surprised if his name was the much more common 'Gaylord', so she asked the woman on the other end of the phone how to spell it. She crossed 'Gaylid' out and replaced it with D.A.V.I.D, spelt out letter by letter, as dictated by the hospital registrar.

So it wasn't just me suffering from temporary sensory deprivation caused by the stress of the situation.


16 comments:

  1. I shall be informing my good friend Gaylid what you said about his name.

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  2. It cannot be a nice time for you, Tom and I am sorry.

    During his life, my father would never speak of his mother who, he said, died in hospital during a bombing raid on Liverpool during the war. I met his father only once in 1964 when he visited for an afternoon bringing us boys a pair of roller skates each and my father occasionally spoke of a younger half brother called Trevor who he once carried to safety during an air raid on Liverpool. He had an Aunt Alice who we visited in Rainford a few times but that was all I knew of his relatives. Then he died. The church was packed with dozens and dozens of relatives I never even knew existed. His half brother, the one I really would have liked to have met, wasn't there and no-one knew what had happened to him.

    To this day, I wonder why he never shared them with us.

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    1. gaylid sounds better...
      its one of those post bereavment things that will make everyone go slightly hysterical when you talk about it.
      chin up
      x

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    2. To Hippo (grrr, thanks again John... grr... just use the right effing buttons): He probably didn't share them with you because he thought you were a cunt. I hope that helps.

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    3. To John (grrr again): Yes, I think you are right. I have been around enough peacetime corpses to know that this is true.

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  3. It's a bit of an awkward time that week before a funeral and meeting family members that you haven't seen for ages.....something that is part of the grieving process and supporting each other even in the smallest of ways......it all helps but sometimes feels rather odd.
    .....and how are you coping through it all Tom ? XXXX,

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    Replies
    1. I'm fine, thanks, Jack@. If anyone needs any sympathy, it is my niece, not me, but thanks again for asking.

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  4. Coming together for these family occasions is always tense and false somehow Tom. I hope you get through the next few days and weeks unscathed.

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    1. It's not false, only tense, Weave. I soon get rid of the falseness - you know me, one strategic fart or inappropriate comment and all the dignity goes out of the room in an instant. That's my job, sad to say.

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  5. I might post a few more things up about my sister, but please understand that - because she was not rich and I am not expecting any sort of rip-off from her lovely family - I am not expecting these posts to be a lazy request for sympathy from anyone.

    The whole point of my blog is either to be entertaining, humorous or informative, so I hope that you receive any other offerings in that vein. I don't need any sympathy, but I greatly appreciate all your offering it.

    The next stuff about Sis will be as funny as I can make it, including the funeral. Her hero was Pam Ayres, so you will understand my motives.

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    Replies
    1. Something that you succeed in doing on a daily basis Tom, is being entertaining, humorous and informative.

      Sadly not on this blog but I'm sure you are in the real world...x

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    2. Take care of your chickens, and let God take care of you.

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  6. I noticed at FIL's funeral how some of us have aged. And not all of us well. As i looked around at the faces, i realized that although we are related by marriage, i'll most likely never see most of those people again. In truth, the thought saddened me for only a few of the faces i saw there.

    Even if yours is not a demonstrative family, please give your niece a few attagirls and heartfelt hugs. One of my tresured memories from a chapter of grief came from a quiet man who was a man's man sort. He simply enveloped me in his arms and held me. No words were exchanged and even on bad days now, i remember just how supportive that hug was.

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    1. Do you really think that I have not already done that, Megan? Where do you think my head has been at for the last few weeks?

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  7. I didn't mean to offend, was just reminded of times where i lost loved ones and how hugs helped get me through. And the ones i recalled most were the ones given by those who were typically not demonstrative. I didn't doubt for a moment that they weren't concerned about me and my loss (when my mother and brother died), but to find them willing to hug me was quite outside the norm for us, and it meant a lot to me. That's all.

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    Replies
    1. I know, Megan. Sorry it's taken so long to find your comment, and thanks again for it.

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