babal-on

My father passed away on Wednesday 1st August. The Celts celebrate that day as the fruition of the crops and a time for sporting celebration.

How ironic.

My father did not pass away peacefully but fought for eight solid days against failed kidneys and the slowly collapsing dominoes of his other internal organs. We stayed by his bedside day and night, and undertook a gruelling lesson in the value of Euthanasia; something we do not have access to in this country. Doctors slowly incremented the morphine in tiny doses, for fear that antiquated British laws that might find them guilty of deliberately killing him, so instead they said they would up the dose in stages, only when his discomfort became apparent – which was most days.

They killed him anyway – he was nil by mouth for that entire week.

Watching someone you have known all your life slowly die from dehydration is not a humane nor a dignified path to death. Even if they are pumped full of drugs that are supposed to place one in a ‘relaxed and dreamy’ state or supposedly numb down the pain (by how much?).

What they do not tell you with their brief, dull ‘information’ leaflet at the start of this process, is that the person undergoing nil by mouth will slowly start to turn into a living skeleton: a death rattle gurgle develops as internal secretions start to fill up their lungs and throat, their breath turns to sewer stink, and their mouths, hoarse with lack of water, have to be regularly swabbed and daubed with moisturiser to stop them cracking. Regular writhing fits of pain and anxiety accompany when it becomes apparent that the latest incremental dosage is no longer effective.

Apparently someone in this state is supposed to only last two to three days.

The doctors found it unfortunately surprising that my father lasted well over a week due to the fact that his heart was unusually strong and outlasted every other organ in his body.

I wish our family had been so robust.

Stress turned to frustration and anger, we turned on each other, snapping, arguing, placating, flailing; short of sleep and decent food, because my mother insisted on playing the dedicated wife to her darling husband, and so the children had to in turn support the mother who seemed dead set on a dramatic meltdown of sleep deprivation psychosis (which happened twice).

I say this ruefully, because she seems to so easily forget that darling father dearest was not an angel by any stretch of the imagination. Death in it’s finality seems to wipe the slate clean for many people – and in a sense I can understand why. My mother wanted to believe in a cause – her cause was the dignified end for her idealised husband.

I chose, in a quiet moment alone with my unconscious father to say to him, that despite our severe differences over the past years and a troubled father – daughter relationship, that as far as I was concerned, we were calling it quits. I’ve chosen to let go the violent memories of past years gone by and become the better woman. I’ve chosen to let it go, and in turn forgive a flawed and angry man because why hold grudges against a dead man?

Death is transformative for the living too. My mother had to care for my father in his long term illness for twenty years. She’s now going to have to get used to the idea of living her own life independently. I’m going to have to get used to the idea of having one parent, and no longer blaming my slow burn anger on things that happened with my father thirty years ago.

I get angry at injustice. I see that the lack of a right to choose a dignified, quick death is an injustice that is all too common and deftly hidden away within silent hospices and hospital wards and cold medical terms.

There should be a definitive right to informed choices about your own death and the impact it will have upon your family. An ending that should come quickly, without pain and with dignity. A right to euthanasia.