I think my mum died 27 years ago today, 31st October 1999. I say ‘think’ because I am not exactly certain. It was certainly around the end of October but frankly the actual date doesn’t matter. I certainly remember learning of her death. My partner, our two very young children and I had been away on a break somewhere or other and returned home several days later to find a glut of messages on our answerphone. They were all from the owner of the Residential Care Home in Portishead my mum and stepdad were now living in, imploring me to call him back. I called him back, fearing the worst, that one of them had either been taken very ill or had died. Gently, he broke the news that mum had suffered a massive heart attack, dying instantly. She would not have felt a thing, he added reassuringly. The wave of sadness I might have expected to arrive did not come.
Neeltje Drury, formerly Neeltje Johansen and before that Neeltje Verburg of Leopoldstraat, Rotterdam, and known as Elly to everyone, had been suffering the effects of various smoking-related conditions for many years, terrible pain that was only partly relieved by the most powerful drugs. Her declining health, as well as my stepfather’s Parkinson’s, which was to develop into dementia before long, were terrible to witness. I visited regularly, loved to spend time with them, of course, but rarely if ever left in a happy state of mind. She was 76 when she died, I don’t know how she managed to live that long, but when she died, it was a kind of blessing, a deliverance. Hers was not life, it was just living. Of course, I was sad when she died – she was my mum, after all – but there was relief, too.
The only time I cried was when I rang her brother who still lived in Rotterdam, my only uncle. He never came to visit her, barely kept in contact at all. I was quite emotional, having to explain to someone his only sister had died. He couldn’t have been less interested. My tears turned to mild anger and surprise, maybe even shock. Clearly, he would not be coming to the funeral. In the end, he didn’t send so much as a card to the surviving family. I never spoke to him again. I had some mourning to do, a funeral to arrange. Life would go on.
The funeral was a sparse affair. Barring my partner, there was no other family present, only a couple of friends and barely anyone from her past. I didn’t cry, I didn’t keep her ashes for scattering, there was no grave, nothing.
In effect, I had done my mourning when she was still alive. I had gone through the grief stage during her life, similarly so had my period of mourning. I didn’t actively want her to die, but neither did I want her to suffer any longer. For once, I was capable of thinking clearly. Any prolonged period of grieving would be selfish on my part. Would I really want her to carry on in what was, for at least some of the time, a living hell, a life of constant pain? I came to terms with things very quickly.
We all react differently to death, don’t we? Unusually, I was calm, collected and clear about what her death meant to me. If she had been younger and died what may be considered prematurely, things might have been different for me. While her death was sudden, it was hardly unexpected. It was not a shock. When the death of someone close is unexpected, sudden and premature, it feels different.
And I know that others feel differently about the death of parents in particular. In the natural order of things, parents should die before their children. I try to think that way whenever older folk die. I know from social media that others don’t feel like I do, that they say they miss and think of their deceased parents every day, presumably never having gotten over it. I totally get that. I don’t quite understand the need to tell the likes of ‘Facebook friends’, many of whom aren’t real friends at all, of the unending grief following a bereavement perhaps many years, decades perhaps, but who am I to criticise? If grieving in public helps deal with the pain of death, then do what you think is right. It’s for no one else to judge.
I don’t think of my mum every day. Part of me wishes she was still here, now at the unlikely age of 103, but most of me remains grateful that she no longer suffers.
Personally, it helps me that I do not believe that one survives their own death and ascends to Heaven (or descends to Hell). So no ‘Happy Heavenly Birthday’ greetings from me to the departed. The finality of death helps me deal with the reality, the permanent absence following death. My mum is not ‘Up there with her fellow dead relatives and friends’, she’s where we all end up when life is over, the same place we were in before life started; nowhere.
I loved my mum, always will. She brought me into the world, along with my also departed father, and was always there for me. That part of my life is over now, has been for a long time, and I have to look to the future, however much of it remains. Because this is life, not a trial run. I don’t have enough time to grieve everyone who is no longer here. Today and tomorrow is what matters most. Yesterday has gone and what’s left are memories, some good, some bad. I did what was right for me, others should do what’s right for them.
Thanks for reading about my mum. She’s been gone a long time. Life goes on, as it always does, until it doesn’t. Have a great day, all.
