A very great friend of mine – fifty years and counting – is going through the inevitable difficulty of watching a parent die. In this case the physical decline is manifesting itself in his dad talking absolute bollocks in a loud voice until the efforts wear the poor fellow out and he sleeps for a while. Apparently the failing organs hog all the blood and oxygen, this then leads to the brain being bottom of the pecking order and therefore a little fuddled, having been starved of the ‘good shit.’
Ah, I remember it well from being ringside during my father’s sad endgame. The patient dredges up the oddest and most disturbingly surreal memories: my last conversation with my father went something like this…
‘Hey dad, how’s today going?’
‘Go under the stairs and get the gun from the box there, get the gun, tell my mother and father you have the gun. Get the gun. You have to bring the gun.’
I wasn’t particularly thrown by these precise instructions; almost wishing I could have blasted down the M4 to the house (he must have meant the one in St Davids), got the gun, presented it to him and asked, ‘righty-oh dad, what now?’
In this fantasy outcome he would have said: ‘Idiot boy! I was fucking with you! I’m dying not a sodding mentalist…’
The reality was replying ‘yeah, of course I will’ and trudging outside to have a fag with the nurses.
My chum is getting the strange verbal onslaught every day now, and he’s guiltily pleased his father has broken his phone so the calls to ‘get me out of here’ every hour will cease… until he gets use of the ward landline. I hope the old fella keeps his dignity as he wrestles with the unimaginable turmoil of knowing you’re gonna die. My father lost it somewhat by calling the female nursing staff ‘bitches,’ this was rather tricky to deal with – I just purchased them shit-loads of champagne and said sorry.
I’d smoke outside with the indomitable nursing staff, in awe at their saintliness and beautifully rounded gallows humour. They’d lean back with a Sovereign Blue Superking (they don’t get paid enough to buy proper fags, but you know that) and one said…
‘Hey, dying is alright.’