Gladness and grief: Saying goodbye to a loved one at Christmas

Friday, 22 December 2017

OPINION: I woke at daybreak a couple of Sundays ago, couldn't go back to sleep so I made tea and settled into the sitting room to talk to my husband Bill.

At some point two little arms wrapped around me and it was our grand-daughter, Penny, aged five. 'Did you say good morning to Poppa Bill?' she asked. 'Yes,' I said, 'I just did.'

Bill, in fact, had died two days earlier and he was lying in his casket. As I have written about previously, he'd had an early onset dementia, he'd been in care for six years and it was important for our family that after such a long absence he should come home before his funeral. This was the end of a very bumpy pathway.

So Penny and I sat with Bill that morning, and we admired the squadron of paper planes that she and our other grandkids, Henry and Libby, had made for him. Not entirely sure what these were about but they had used stacks of my printer paper in the manufacture. Penny said she didn't want me to be sad and reminded me that this was the day of the Irvine Christmas celebration. 'I'm really excited,' she said.

The Christmas bash for the Irvine tribe is an institution of four decades or more. It is always held a couple of weeks before the big day and we take turns to host it.

This year it was to be at our nephew's home at Huntly. But with Bill having died and then being with us before his funeral, the gathering was relocated to our house and we had a splendid unscripted day of mourning and festive mayhem.

There were little kids and big kids chasing each other with water guns, there was gorgeous food, gifts for the children, and there were tears. At one point during a high-decibel water-fight I found myself channelling my mother's finely tuned sense of decorum. What would the neighbours be thinking of a household supposedly preparing for a funeral but creating a din that almost needed a noise control warning?

Knowing the neighbours, though, I decided they'd be cool about it and I put Mum's social rules out of my head. As Bill's barbecue was fired up and the ham was carved, he was in the sitting room covered by a beautiful korowai made by Kenia, our nephew's wife, who offered it to us for this occasion.

To turn a biblical phrase on its head, in the midst of death we were in life. Four generations of our family held each other tight, and made a memorable time of it.

As the week unfolded, our house was washed by a wave of kindness from friends and extended family. There was food, flowers, warm-hearted messages, visitors, and offers of practical help. The touching rituals of caring for the bereaved.

On the morning Bill left home for the last time, a scrum of relatives came to see him out. Fifteen kids and teenagers from the millennial generation dressed his casket at the funeral with ponga ferns and rata flowers from his own slice of native bush.

He had a good send-off. It was an opportunity to reclaim the man he'd been before he was overtaken by dementia, and many stories were told about his life. But we didn't want to ignore what happened to him, this was talked about too.

There is already too much silence and uncomfortableness around dementia as people with this cruel illness disappear from daily life into care facilities, and their names are often erased from everyday conversation. Our sons and I have deeply appreciated it when people asked about Bill, visited him, and toasted him at gatherings.

They say it takes a village to raise a child and I think it takes a village to support a family with a loved one stricken by dementia. We have been blessed by a network that has looked out for us in big and small ways during these hard years. I think it is one of the benefits of living in the same community for so long. You build relationships that sustain you through the good and the bad.

Life moves inexorably forward, and now we come to Christmas. On Monday we'll be remembering Bill and missing him, and we'll follow an old family practice of turning down a glass at the table for a treasured absent friend.

We'll make it a happy day, he'd want that, and I truly hope you have a great Christmas at your place too. Warmest wishes to all readers.