PRETENDING INTIMACY by Liz Davies

I was so relieved when my father died last October, and I am glad that I wasn’t present for the last few days of his life.

My sister Carolyn had called me from England on the Friday evening before his death, saying that the medical staff at the Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford had suggested that next-of-kin should be advised that his time was probably drawing to an end. My sister never calls me to talk; it had been clear for a very long time that we had nothing to say to each other, nothing in common, no common interests. She only calls in emergencies.

I was in my little house in Kerhonkson. I had just driven up from the city that Friday night, after work, as I was working full time then. I panicked, my heart started pounding. I told her I would immediately jump on a ‘plane and fly to Oxford. Then about thirty minutes later, my nephew Robert called, my sister’s oldest son who is now managing the Probate for my father’s estate, and from whom I have heard absolutely nothing since his cremation, when Robert was notably absent. Robert’s excuse was that his car had broken down on the way to the Banbury Crematory. He didn’t show up either for the food and drink that Carolyn had prepared at our father’s house, for all family and friends, after the cremation. Carolyn told me that he said to her he didn’t think it was worth it, to come just for the family gathering.

That Friday night last October, after I spoke with Carolyn and then Robert called, he said, Stay put, the doctors are telling us that it could change in the next 24 or 48 hours, he could rally, there is no point in your rushing over. So I breathed a deep sigh of relief and stayed put.

He died two days later, peacefully, in a coma induced by respiration pneumonia. He had fallen in the house a week previously and, because he was living alone – as no-one could stand being with him for more than a short period of time because he was so difficult and demanding – he had been lying helplessly on the living room floor for several hours, before help came, inhaling his vomit and mucous and emptying his bowels and bladder.

I prepared a speech to give at the cremation. Carolyn, in her usual very efficient way, had arranged for a Secular Humanist to preside at the cremation because Roger, our father, said he wanted nothing religious, and only close family and friends present. I emailed my speech to Carolyn, who gave it to this nice lady she had hired. I wasn’t sure that I could read the speech so Carolyn said that if necessary, the Secular Humanist would read it for me. Carolyn hadn’t prepared a speech. She had simply prepared an outline of our father’s life, most of it based on my speech, so that this lady could give the Eulogy.

At the cremation ceremony, after the Eulogy, I went up to the Podium and started reading my speech. After two sentences my voice broke, my eyes filled with tears, and I started sobbing. I had to sit down. The Secular Humanist lady, trained in these sorts of situations, said take a minute, I know you can do it, take a few deep breaths. I got up again and tried once more, but my voice was gone, and I once again broke into sobs, so she read it for me.

Nobody else wanted to speak; and so then the ceremony was over and we all embraced each other. Actually, not all of us, just my other nephew, James, Robert’s younger brother, and his lovely Moroccan-Jewish wife Natalie, embraced me. James and Natalie and I hugged each other and cried. My niece Sarah, Carolyn’s youngest daughter, didn’t embrace me, or anyone else. Robert wasn’t there to embrace me. And Carolyn just walked ahead and gave instructions to everyone to return to the house, for food and drink, which she had dutifully prepared.