When death has us in his sights
Are we just small furry bundles twitching in the gleam of the predator's eye?
My mum and I have just spent two weeks in the south of France visiting my mum’s side of the family. It’s not a big family: one older sister, Claudie, her son Stef, and his partner Isella.
Because Stef and I are both only children, and he lived in South Africa until I was nine, he’s always felt more like a brother than a cousin to me.
We grew up sharing roast chicken lunches on Sundays and playing in a small park below my gran’s flat in Yeoville. He’d ask me if I wanted a Chinese bangle and, the first few times, I nodded, intrigued. But when he closed both hands around my skinny forearm and twisted in opposite directions, I realised it wasn’t the exotic piece of jewellery I’d hoped for. I still owe him a few!
Now, Stef drives us up the slope of a hill in Toulon, parks the car outside an old age care facility and leads us through two sets of glass doors, each with a keypad and a code that he punches in. This security is to stop the residents with Alzheimer’s from wandering off.
We go up the lift, then turn the corner into the dining area. There are various occupants in wheelchairs dotted around the tables, some dozing, others talking quietly.
‘She must be in her room’, Stef says.
‘No, there she is,’ my mom says, heading straight over to where my aunt sits in her wheelchair on her own. We pull up chairs and sit around the table with her.
Stef explains, ‘Mums, voila Betty et Catherine. Elles sont venues te visiter.’ (Here are Betty and Cathy. They’ve come to visit you.)
Claudie peers at my mum. It’s a charged moment. We’re not sure if she’ll recognise us, as, although there is no Alzheimer’s diagnosis, she has become increasingly confused these past few years. We haven’t seen her for a decade.
My mum leans forward and takes her hand, giving it a light squeeze. Claudie returns the affection then leans back in her chair. ‘Vous avez voyager loin.’ (You have travelled far.)
She turns her attention to me, frowning slightly. I smile as her eyes search my face. Then her expression clears, she lifts her eyebrows a little and gives a disbelieving shake of her head: ‘Eh ben didon, t’as pris un bon coup de vieux.’ (Gosh, you’ve taken a good hit of age.)
I nod my head in rueful agreement and we laugh. All three of us have tears in our eyes.
During our time in France, we visit my aunt several times. On our last visit, she is in her bed. She says we all look tired and wants to know what our plans are. I stroke her hands, which have been freshly manicured, and tell her I’ve always thought she had beautiful hands.
The nurses tell Stef she hasn’t eaten for three days. He asks her if she’d like a coffee. She nods slightly, with her habitual moue of the lips: ‘Oui, je veut bien.’ (Yes, I’d like that.)
Stef gets her a weak coffee from the kitchen, and she puts an eager hand out for the cup. But there’s a delay while we raise her bed and prop her up with pillows. She keeps her hand outstretched, her eyes fixed on the coffee. When we finally place it in her hands, she receives it eagerly, taking little sips with relish. She has a few bites of the pain au raisin he’s brought her.
When it is time to go, my mum kisses her cheek and whispers: ‘N’oublie pas que je t’aime.’ (Don’t forget that I love you.) It seems to me that Claudie has tears in her eyes when we say goodbye. The ride down in the elevator is silent, my mum weeping quietly.
A week later, we’re settled back in at home, and I’ve caught up with my husband and son, who I missed terribly. Joel and I get home from our morning swim at a local tidal pool to a text from Stef: Claudie has taken her last voyage.
In the days since she passed, I have kept a candle lit for her and have been wearing a ring she gave me.
Our people (whether blood relatives, adopted family or dear friends) are our place holders in this world, like colourful map pins pegging us to this earth, reminding us that we belong here.
Even though we may be separated by long distances, these loved ones centre us somehow, they mark the place called ‘home’.
The year of 2023 has been one of loss for our family: Tony, my stepdad, Margaret, my mother-in-law and Claudie, my aunt.
In some ways my map feels unfastened, precarious, in danger of getting blown off in the next draught.
The older we get, the more those we love and know, who hold us in place, pass away, fall off the map of the earth.
I’ve held this knowing since my dad died when I was ten, but as I witness myself and those around me getting older, it becomes more and more real as the years pass.
I wonder: will I feel more and more untethered as loved ones pass on? Will I become more insubstantial, a scrap of paper tossed about by only a gentle breeze? Is that what happens with aging?
Our losses this year have left me feeling like a tiny warm bundle of fur frozen in the deathly gleam of the predator’s eye. As though mortality has me in its sights and is hunting me down.
It renders many of the moments with those I love more precious, more poignant somehow.
And also, strangely enough, since my darling stepdad died in May this year, I feel somehow more rooted, supported, connected above and beyond.
As I type with my aunt’s opal ring luminous on my finger, I feel my connection with her and all those who have gone before, stretch and expand, strengthen and deepen in mysterious ways.
As though with Tony’s passing, with Margaret and Claudie’s passing, with the precarious sense of impermanence that death brings, my place holders have shifted to a different kind of map, less flimsy than the old paper one.
My place holders now pin me to a bigger, more complex map, one that represents a deeper, unknowable world above and beyond the one we think we have mapped out.
beautiful expressed Cath, and so relevant to those of us experiencing grief. Thank you XXX