Four years, two years

For a change, I read some old blog posts for October 1st, and two from 2017 and 2019 rang very deeply.

In 2017, Mum was waiting to go into hospital fo have her "cabbage" heart bypass, with the warning that this was her last chance and change was needed.

Two years later, I was back at the family home, arranging for it to be cleared after she failed to heed the warnings and one final massive heart attack took her from this life.

There is quite some anger here, epscially from 2017:

2017.

All things must pass.

I have been putting off the moment when I load the car up with my stuff and head north. Nothing bad is going to happen to me when I get where I’m going, it is somewhere else not home. And when I get there I meet the reality of the situation, Mum in hospital, battling for every breath, and next week she will be opened up and her heart replumbed. And she might not survive.

I mean every medical procedure has risk, but this is serious shit.

I am awake before dawn, there is a holy blowing outside, and there is a power cut. I mean you think its dark as night, but when the electricity is cut, it gets really, really dark. There is the occasional flash as power is restored and cut again.

Before the power was cut, it was half five, so it must be nearly six by now. Maybe. So I get up, go down to feed the cats whilst Jools is still sleeping. All three cats are waiting for me to get my act together, open food packets and kibbles tin.

There is time to make coffee. I hear Jools upstairs, so I microwave the milk for her coffee, and put the pot on the cooker. There is soon the smell of roasted grounds.

There is yesterday’s football to watch, then pack, have breakfast. And then, how long to wait before leaving, when you don’t really want to leave. I am packing the car at half nine, loading the boot with my stuff, and then time to say goodbye to Jools and make my way north.

Up the M20 to Dartford and into Essex. I have been traveling this way for years. I know the route, the landmarks, so I have the radio on to keep my awake. All the time, my mind is going through the different situations that the week will bring, from a long time in recovery to death. Death is a real possibility, a friend lost her Mother in such an operation. This shit is real.

Up through Cambridge, then to Bury St Edmunds, and into the rolling fields of Suffolk. Landscape had changed since leaving the M25 and going up the M11. It is Essex, the suburbs of London, but then the towns thing out, we pass Stanstead and carry on north.

Traffic thins out beyond Cambridge, and again when the A11 turns off towards Norwich. I has been raining, but now has stopped, but isn’t pleasant really, and yet it is a good drive The landscape is littered with flint towers of Norman churches. I would like to have stopped at every one, but if I do, I will have to stop at every one, and I won’t reach Mum before the end of visiting hours.

I am in no hurry, so happy to drive at 50, passing familiar towns and villages. My old friend Andrew lives in Bungay, but we have fallen out, all based on a misunderstanding when I got rid of my old mobile, it really wasn’t all about him. But, he didn’t see it.

I carry on passing Bungay and into Norfolk. Across the marshes and the New Cut at Haddiscoe, taking the right turn through Herringfleet, passing the green banks of rhododendrons, with one summer flowering one, all a riot of pink. I am now back in the back yard of my youth, if not my childhood. I cycled here to Somerleyton a few times in the long hot summers of 75 and 76, now I cruise past in the car, past the school, the hovercraft statue and the church. Nearly home now.

My choice is to go to her house, the old family home first, unload the car, have lunch and then go to the hospital. The key is in a safe outside the back door, I have the code and let myself in. And a surge of stale cigarette smoke hits me.

She was taken away from here by ambulance a week back, so this is what she lives like. The place is a mess, not from the event, this is just how she lives. So I try to clear some space in the kitchen. In a cupboard, I find jars and cans of food years out of date. I decide to start there. I have three plastic bags full of food that unsafe to eat. And there is more in the fridge, and another cupboard yet more out of date stuff.

The fridge is nearly empty, so I put in the little food I brought with me. And I take the crap food to the bins. Elsewhere there is so much junk I don’t really know where to start. I make a brew with the tea bags I brought, have a short cake or two then I am ready to go to the hospital.

It is a short drive, maybe 8 miles to get there. A drive I have done hundreds of times. I am not in a hurry, cruise there and turn into the car park, find a space, and take a deep breath.

Into the hospital, up the stairs and to the Cardiac Emergency Unit, or whatever it is called, and in the last bay there is mum. She is reduced. Withered almost. A lesser person than I remember. Her left hand is totally black, where nurses have tried to find veins.

She is scared, and yet tries to sound normal. But I have my stuff to say, that she is gambling with her health with the out of date food, and with the way she is she can’t afford to do that. And that she has the choice to make, to change or not to change. She has been told there will not be another chance. Probably.

Will she be able to live in the family home? We don’t know. I say something important and she changes the subject, as she always does. Am I getting through? Does she understand? I don’t know, but then I have said my piece, she has her date with a knife next week, and only fate knows what will happen.

I try to tell her about our time in Yellowstone, she seemed interested, and yet after just two minutes of talking, ad she is asking about something else. She is talking about food; that the freezer is full of food. But Mum, there was a jar of Branston in the fridge, use by date was 2006. I cannot eat anything in the house, Mum.

Does she understand? I don’t know. I tell her of the 8 jars of Apricot Jam I found, the similar number of jars of mayonnaise and other sauces. All with the same use by date. She had gone out many times and bough up to ten jars of the same food and all have sat in the larder since. She really does not comprehend.

After 50 minutes we are all talked out. She is not interested in entering into conversation, and I have run out of saying the same thing with her actually understanding. She tells me to take a bundle of papers relating to her time in Papworth. There is a place to stay, but I will travel up each day, ends up being cheaper. She accepts this.

And then I leave. I will return tomorrow. But before then I go back to the old family home, now packed with junk bought by people with the best of intentions, and that she does not have the strength to just get rid of. It is home, and yet isn’t.

And it stinks of stale fags.

Once back I open as many windows as possible, and empty out more cupboards, put the trash in the bin which now is half full of wasted food, costing hundreds of pounds and now fit for nothing but trash. This is her life, buying stuff for no real reason other than the compulsion to buy things.

Such a waste.

I have another tea. Put on the radio to listen to the footy: Newcastle v Liverpool. Sounded exciting, but ends up 1-1. Then it is dinner time, alone in the house, just with the TV echoing around, whilst I warm u the leftover chorizo hash. I can find four containers of utensils for cooking, but not one bottle opener. At least ten wooden spoons though. It must make sense to someone.

The evening is spent with the TV, flicking from a documentary about Russia to Wheeler Dealers, then waiting until MOTD comes on at half ten. I shared the evening with a bottle of wine and some pringles. I had better make sure this doesn’t come a habit. But it helps my mood as I look round the living room, still covered in stuff. I plan to clear the dining table in the morning. It has video tapes, medicines, pot plants and other nondescript stuff that people have brought round.



2019

A new month.

And I am here in Suffolk, sorting out Mum's estate. Starting with her house.

I didn't know what to expect with a house clearance company. But the clue was in the name. More of that later...

I woke at four in the morning, and laid in bed listening to the rain, pondering all the things I had to do that day. I looked round the house, there just so much stuff, and the place was in such a state. I really didn't know where to start.

I get up and mooch around for three hours, in which time I had breakfast, had a shower and made a dreadful cup of instant coffee (no milk).

Mum's cleaner comes round at half eight, and we swap news and stories of Mum. Make sure you take that white tin off the table she says. Why? Because Mum has been saving two pound coins for years. There's close to £400 in it I reckon.

Sheila had lost so much money in the last year when Mum went in hospital, she didn't get paid. So I hand her the tin, saying, you better have this, I have no idea what's in it.

She refused at first, but then accepted. With tears.

The vans turn up, we go through stuff I wanted to keep, but failed to say the obvious stuff, like the address book on the table; don't throw that out.

And the photos of my posting to the Falklands I found that morning. Don't throw those out either.

But I didn't say.

I left to take more food to the food bank, then drive to Great Yarmouth for the first appointment.

The most important one, really, registering Mum's death.

I had an hour or so to kill, so I wander round the town, taking a shot or two. But for the first time, thanks to GWUK, I notice all the alleys, called Rows, have odd names and all are numbered, there is a maze of them.

I get to the market place, where as a child the treat would be to have a bag of chips, but none of the stalls were open, so I make do with a sausage butty and a mug of builder's tea.

Then to find the library where the register's office now is.

I was 45 minutes early, maybe I could get in before the appointment time?

No.

So, I wait in the small room, the three other people all looking in different directions, so not to make eye contact. I check and recheck the sealed envelope I have to give up.

Time passes slowly.

I was called in, and for half an hour the wheel of bureaucracy turned slowly. Questions asked, answers given.

Sign here, pay for the certificates. £11 a pop. And you need at least five.

I hold out £60 to pay; I can't accept more than £50 in cash.

Sigh.

But it is done, Mum is now an entry on a database, a person deceased.

I leave and go to the car to drive back south to Lowestoft where I have more tasks.

First up is the Journal office, where I have to go to post a notice of Mum's death, as you can't do it online. I thought I would have to show ID or the certificates, but no.

From there, I take another piece of paper to the funeral directors, then to the two banks to show them the certificates, they photocopy them and I have another hour to kill before seeing the solicitor.

We g through things, she outlines what will happen, what I need to do, and it seems that closure could be some time away.

Anyway, that done, I drive back home to find the guys have just about finished, and the house is fucking empty. Just one bed is left, so I have somewhere to sleep that night. The stuff I put on the bed so it wasn't taken away is still there, but everything else is gone, and is already landfill, or will be soon. No time for regrets. They leave, and I find they have taken the kettle, all the cups, coffee, teabags, fridge, knives, forks and spoons, pots, pans, tins, chairs, table, armchairs, shampoo, shower gels, my toothpaste and toothbrush. And the box of fucking wine!

Too late now.

I am a bit stunned. But they had left the vacuum, so do the carpets, but the horrible stains around Mum's chair, or where it used to be, won't shift.

I visit the neighbours, thanking them for what they have done over the years.

I realise there was no point in staying beyond tomorrow's appointment with the funeral directors.

Later, I go to Tesco to buy some soap, toothpaste and a toothbrush, then drive to the Blue Boar, a nice place, for dinner.

Sitting on my won, I listen to two men of my age moan about their wives as they nurse their pints.

I have steak pie, in a proper suet crust. Lovely.

It came with lots of steamed veg, which was very welcome. And at £17 with a beer, great value.

So back to the house to listen to the radio, follow the football on Twitter. Noises echo round the house.

It feels cold.

The third dawn in Mum's house, and almost certainly, the last one i would see from the windows of her house.

The family house.

I decided to sleep with just the camber-wick bedspread on, get under that, and all was good until I got under it, and dropped it on my resting body, and a cloud of dust rose picked out in the light beams of the bedside lamp.

You might recall I am certainly allergic to house dust.

So, I took two emergency squirts of nasal spray, and did get four hours sleep, but woke at three, wide awake and congested.

That was it for sleep.

So, I lay there for a while, then got the computer out, dod some stuff, listened to some radio, so the night faded and dawn came.

I forgot the house clearers were due to return to do the garage, but Sheila (the cleaner) was due to come round before nine to collect a key. But with a stack of things to do in town, I was worried there wouldn't be enough time.

So, I loaded the car with the collection of stuff I saved from the house, then sat on the wall until nine, and when no one had come, I locked the house and left.

Once in town, first call was a key cutter to provide a spare set for the solicitor, for when the time comes to sell the house. I then go tot he post office to get a mail redirection form.

Both tasks had taken less than ten minutes, not having enough time was no longer a problem.

I go to Starbucks for breakfast, have a panini and a huge flavoured latte with an extra shot. I sit at a table in the winodw, so I could look out on the street to see if I saw anyone I knew.

I didn't.

And in the three days, I saw no one else other than those I called round to tell about Mum's passing. You would hardly believe I spent the first 25 years in the town.

At ten I went to the funeral directors to finalise the details of Mum's cremation, and fix a date.

We always assumed that it would be well into November. But they felt keeping Mum hanging around for six weeks might not be kind to her, so we agreed a very short time frame, with her cremation at Gorleston on 11th October at ten in the morning. Meaning, we leave from here on Thursday evening, drive to a hotel in East Anglia,. Spend the night there, before driving up in the morning, then driving to London to drop the car off and going to the UJC to spend another night, then on Saturday, travel to Heathrow to catch the plane to Chicago.

Wow.

Meaning we won't be thinking about the funeral when we're away, but the healing process will already have started.

A wise move in the end.

But it is going to be tight.

Once I had chosen the hymn and details, I was asked about the walk out music: both my parents loved Billy Fury, so I said Halfway to Paradise.

And just thinking of it, I began to cry. The first tears since Mum had passed.

Where did that come from?

The lady said that it happens with the emitional connection with music.

That completed, I walk back to the Journal office to put in a new notice for the funeral, but the lady on the desk, about to be fired, simply ammended the previous notice to show the funeral details, so saving me £36.

Take that penpushers!

And I was done.

I could go home.

So I walk down the High Street for the last time, past the charity shops and empty stores.

I get in the car, turn the key and move off, driving into traffic inching over the bascule bridge, then down the spine road t join the A12, and head south.

The sun was shining, it wasn't quite warm enough to have a window open, but my mood lightened, even though I was beyond tired.

Traffic was very light, so the drive to Whickham Market where the good roads start, then cruise round Ipswich, down to Colchester, Chelmsford and to the M25.

All in two hours.

Over the bridge and back into Kent.

My plan was to visit Jen, but the A2 was blocked at Canterbury. So I go down Bluebell Hill, to the other motorway, then cruise down there, pas the usual familiar route markers to Folkestone.

Jen was there with John, and it was good just to talk to people, have a relaxing brew and unwind.

At four I drove home through the narrow lanes of Pineham and Guston, then home. Where there was the usual feline welcoming committee waiting.

I feed the mogs, then make a coffee. And sit on the sofa, not having unloaded the car. Jools got fish and chip on the way home from work, I buttered some bread for chip butties, made brews, so when she arrived home, we just plated the food up, and went to eat.

We walked lots about what had happened, of course, and the details of next week. A hire car was ordered, and so all seems set for next week. I had called my boss during the day too to keep her informed, and that come 28th October I would be able to do some work, then after the two lots of training courses, back to work as normal from the 18th November, with almost all been having done.

So, I had sorted out just about everything in three days. Not a bad job, but I was drained, more tired than I had ever felt before. We listened to Marc Riley, then went to bed at nine.