Wet Fishiness

There is black comedy in dire circumstances. Our first taste of slap-in-the-face wet fishiness was the unexpected but inevitable fact that there was no wheel chair waiting at the airport in spite of all my phone calls; in fact no-one seemed to have much idea of where a wheel chair could be found at all. F had to be sat in the taxi at the drop-off point at the airport (around which is always an air of barely controlled hysteria anyway) while I and son B ran around in different directions - I presume B was looking, I have no memory of where he was at all but I was acutely aware of the indifference my earnest queries received as I hurried hither and thither, dodging crowds, trying to find a wheel chair.

Eventually, aha, we found one; and eventually we flew to Johannesburg, alighting and finding the arranged wheel chair but which, astonishing fact, was not to be taken to the International Departures area! But how could we get him there? One has to get one from that side. How to do that? They would give him one at Check In. But he could not get to check in without a wheel chair. Sorry, that was the way. He had to be at Check In in order to get a wheel chair.

By this time F and I were with Daughter K and her two children; F in the Domestic Arrivals wheel chair, at one of the busy restaurants in that area almost over-run by taut people with luggage and the worn air of earnestness that comes with the noise and bustle of long distance travel. Son B was left to sort out the problem. He seemed to take a long time, arriving finally quite exhausted - and exasperated - as he had been arguing at both Domestic and International sections which in Johannesburg is a stiff walk one from the other; finally, he said, he had had to leave his passport with one end, as he claimed, and was given, a wheel chair and could rush back to find us in the crowds.

Our daughter lives in Johannesburg. She had come to the airport to say goodbye, bringing with her our three-year-old grand daughter and baby grandson, who was in his pram and just at the age of broad baby smiles. Amid this innocence of the children we hovered as on a small island in a chaotic passing current, while goodbyes were said. We exchanged Christmas presents. It was a time of darkness - indoors and on the concourse of a vast airport, with coloured artificial lights, people rushing past, noise, loud conversation, steel tables with cardboard cola cups, F stoic in a wheel chair, my family briefly together, my daughter infinitely tense, and a baby smiling at me.

We were on our way. The night ahead would be bearable. We had three seats together in Business Class and it would be relatively peaceful. The only hitch was that we seemed to have been double booked and several enquiries were made by cabin staff as to our properness. Were we who we said we were? We were. Were we happy to sit here? We were, we did not want to be moved anywhere. In fact we would not move anywhere.

After fighting with the wheel chair at two air ports, this was peace. Little did we realise the debacle that awaited us
at the next one.

That Distant Citadel

We prepared to go to France with exhilaration. That our husband and father was being offered this chance to reclaim his life and health was a wonder, and that it was to be in France - France! - put something crazily exotic into my optimism. I would countenance no doubts, no worries. I countered all what ifs and perhapses with denial; nothing would go wrong; if there was a problem, we would fix it. We were going to be in the best place we could be. Which was true, in a way.

But perhaps my hope was being seduced by the glamour of a distant citadel making room for us, letting us in. A place of high style, France, where a beautiful language is spoken. Where clever people who have discovered how to cure husband F's problem had paid us attention, and said, come. Who were above the regime of damaging chemicals we were given, here; who had found another way, and were sending people home hearty and happy.

I could not wait. I brushed aside F's doubts. I would not listen to his fear.

Today, this is pain.

In those last few weeks at home F was miserable. His condition had brought him down to helpless inactivity - this for such an energetic man was anathema. He would sit in his armchair and watch endless sport, mute and depressed. Occasionally he would goad himself into his car, and taking our little dog, would set about some errand, returning home exhausted. Or he would spend hours on our veranda watching the sea, watching ships at anchor which never seemed to move but vanished or were replaced when one was not looking. Occasionally a ship would make its ponderous way across the horizon, or, in days of high wind, all would be facing the same way, their bulk indiscernibly moving to the swell and little brush strokes of white horses on the blue.

I busied myself with preparation. I had had a load lifted off my shoulders. We had a prospect - a trip, a stay in hospital, recuperation and Christmas, away from the hospital, it would be wonderful; back to the hospital for the inevitable checks and examinations and perhaps even hiccups but we would return home triumphant and well. My worst enemy, I thought, would be tedium, slight, unimportant, irksome tedium as I waited for F to get well. I would read, I thought, I would walk. My patience had been well honed by now. I was used to slowing down to the rhythm of an ill man.

The day dawned. Son B had arrived and as usual when he was with me it was joyous. As he lived in London and had been there for seventeen years, seeing him was happiness. We had done our quick trips to a mall, or to friends, or to the beach, we had talked and laughed, as we do, in the sheer novelty of being together, F joining in occasionally, going off to lie down as he had to when necessary. Son B would be escorting us to France and would hand us over to son M in Paris and he would take us on to our destination.

But today was the day we would get on that first plane, and the reality of moving a very ill man through three airports was daunting, involving wheel chairs and organisation and courage, but with Son B with us, I had no qualms.

We Find Our Own Solution

It is now nearly two years since we took husband F to France. Son M, his wife P and baby V had travelled from San Francisco concerned about F's continued downward plunge. By now his health was deteriorating and despite frequent visits to the specialist in search of help with a regime of drugs (the cordarone, having irreparably damaged his lungs, was discontinued) no help was forthcoming. The doctors virtually shrugged and dismissed him. Substitute drugs were slowly, we were convinced, killing him.

Son M, child of this century, searched the Web and discovered that there was a surgical procedure which claimed to be curing thousands of people with atrial fibrillation. It was in fact being done all over the world - even in Johannesburg and Cape Town - but most prolifically and most successfully, in France and in the United States.

Our local doctors must have known about it! Husband F had only recently questioned the heart specialist about the possibility of some sort of surgery for his complaint and had received polite attention but was, as ever, dismissed. Only afterwards did it dawn on me just how callously he had been handled. He had virtually been sent him home to die; if the drugs did not suit and caused him endless and distressing side effects, well, that was the end of the matter.

In September by email we contacted the hospital in France which had a record of several thousand successful ablations and were told that there was a long waiting list. The procedure involved a local anesthetic and the burning off - ablation - of the nerves inside the heart which were causing fibrillations. The patient would spend only about 4 days in hospital and would be awake during the procedure, but their lists were full.

We have no time, I wrote. My husband is very ill. Come in December, they said - just weeks away!

I have a close friend who lives in both France and Cape Town. We could use her French house, she said, before and after the operation; it is standing empty. We could settle in for a few days, put F into hospital, after treatment take him back to the house for recuperation and Christmas and be reasonably near the hospital for check ups before coming home. Son M would meet us in Paris and take us to the house, he would be there for the duration; son B would come from London in order to help my husband and I on the journey from South Africa to Paris.

With such magnificent support it seemed that our troubles would soon be over, F would be cured of his debilitating heart condition and returned to as normal a life as possible, to his own inimitable joie de vivre. I rejoiced in the love and kindness shown us by friends and family and by the French medics, who had made room for him on their schedule, with compassion.

Husband F made one more visit to his heart doctor's rooms. "You are making a mistake," said the doctor. 'What would you have me do - sit here and die?" said F. The doctor shrugged. Nothing. No answer.

Mishandled: the medical idiots

In 2006 Husband F was ailing. Continually plagued by fibrillations, which would leave him weak and wobbly, even confused as the blood would not be properly getting to his brain, he developed a nasty flu/bronchitis in July, which eventually had us going to a local doctor at ten pm one night as he was not breathing easily. The doctor, a young man we had not seen before as he had taken over the practice of our own doctor, diagnosed bronchitis, and we came away armed with costly pills and potions for the condition but nothing much seemed to change; his breathing continued to worry him, right through the administration of more pills and yet more pills. Eventually - and I am not sure about the exact sequence of events - he was admitted to ICU in a private city hospital, the first of many such urgent visits - all, I must add, at huge expense.

We were told that he had a lung condition, incurable - caused by cordarone, a constituent of the heart drug F was on for fibrillations. It would, said the lung specialist in a roundabout way, eventually kill him.

We were also told that his breathing was not because of the young doctor's diagnosis of a stubborn post nasal drip, but was his lungs filling up with water because his heart was not beating properly.

"The man's an idiot!" said the heart specialist.

The incurable lung condition would turn his lungs slowly to "leather" and they would stop working. Nice. Caused by a drug administered a couple of years ago by heart specialists, the first of which was in London in a very famous heart hospital. And continued by a specialist back here at home in South Africa. The side effects known, of course, known - but not divulged. Who else, I think, is an idiot?

The first thing we were told upon diagnosis in the London hospital was that F had atrial fibrillations but that they would not kill him - (no, unspoken: it would be the drugs). What does a doctor THINK as he faces an anxious patient across his desk and prescribes something knowing that it is a death warrant to be discovered, surprise upon unfortunate surprise, later?)

And, as I also later found out, my dearest man would indeed be killed indirectly by the fibrillations, as his heart could not, in the end, cope.

Black and White to my Greys

Husband F lived as he died, with a flourish, He was an adventurous, fearless, perennially cheerful person defeated only in the end by his own failing body. He was the most infinitely secure person I ever met - black was black and white was white and this simple verdict made everything blessedly clear; my infinite shades of grey dimmed and brightened with my insecurity but I had a bold partner at my side for 39 years.

We had three children, a boy, a girl and a boy, all within three years. They were born when we had nothing, were struggling to our feet, as young couples do. Husband F was employed by a large building company and took over the running of huge corporate projects in the then burgeoning city of Johannesburg. His management skills were such that he was the one contractor to have made a profit on a central hotel/shopping mall/business block but he worked very hard, leaving home in the early morning, returning after dark. He was capable of harsh decisions and was, I think, both feared and disliked but he was also loved and many gave him unswerving loyalty as his artisans, for years.

When the children were quite small there was talk of being transferred to an Afrikaans town in the middle of the country. I was appalled, could not imagine living there and although we were offered all sorts of sweeteners, the decision was taken by Husband F to go on his own (and stay living where we were), to set up on his own backed by nothing more than investors with faith in his ability and who actually put their assets on line - but they were never needed. It seemed from the word go, he succeeded. I myself was not involved. I took care of hearth and home, Husband F worked and in all those years I knew nothing of business other than it flourished. He kept a distinct line between his job and his family.

Not everything was great. We fought, as couples do, we had great storming fights and long non-speaking unhappy days; but we were raising a pretty good family and the children have grown up embued with fantastic self confidence all, I think, from their father.

At age fifty he sold his company and retired. This was a pretty large pill to swallow - a man about the house at all hours, a very organisational man who scrutinised my activities, my kitchen, my life, with all the energy previously put in to the running of a large and successful company. Changes were made - a driver was engaged for the several and varied errands I had daily to make. Children were ferried to and from school, to and from sporting events, lessons and extra curricular things. Driver H was an infinitely polite and patient middle aged man who took over the long waits and tedium I had previously suffered. He would have had to be patient.

We were now living in a coastal city, in a climate of frangipani trees, bougainvillea and humidity. We had rebuilt and renovated an old sugar farm house around which a suburb had grown but was conveniently near to a charming seaside resort village. The children had been transferred from a sophisticated private school to a local government school a bicycle ride away and I was happy at this rediscovered simplicity; they became children again, climbing trees.

We had to get used to each other, Husband F and I. Eventually the humour of where are you going and when will you be back dawned on me, as well as the inattention paid to my programme so that the question was asked again, with incredulity, as I was leaving. So typical of a man.

Prodigal Daughter

So far I've written two short accounts of a devastating time in the life of my family, and certainly in mine. The death of my husband was the most awful thing in my entire life; with the most far reaching negative impact. But this blog is not for dwelling on that or for simply writing of Husband F's unusual and histrionic death - although it will, I hope, help,

It is aimed at my sister widows by putting into words an incredible journey of discovery.

At this time he has been dead for twenty two months. I cannot believe that it is already such a long time. I still study the sunset, a horizon from my kitchen window of eucalyptus trees stark against a sky of gold and pink. Somewhere in that sky is his lost soul; or perhaps he glimmers down from a star. The night sky is remote as the soundless flight of a distant plane coming in to land.

His silence is still unfamiliar. We talked about everything. Now there is silence. I am beginning to accept that, even though I return home from an outing to a quiet house. I make noise, hail my cats, who do not always appreciate the sudden bustle disturbing their nap but I am relentless, holding a soft tortoiseshell head close to my cheek,

This silence is truly deafening. Where once I had a constant dialogue, now I have nothing. I used to believe in God, believed in a compassionate Presence who would deliver us, and heal. But no, nothing was to be; death crept up between my prayers and stole my peace. my faith. I rootle round now in this no-mans-land of broken faith, still angry. I am a Prodigal Daughter who does not want to be found.

But I over-reach. This is not what it's all about. I live without faith, live with the denial of a power I used to believe in. Today I find myself, I find my own energy, my own power. I expect nothing other than what I create, with room for accidental tangents although I do not want them.

I have still, however, to accept that love is what it's all about. The love of my children, their spouses and my grandchildren, my friends and my pets soothes me. Love is all-powerful. The demise of my loyal, faithful, primary love of 39 years left tracks which are not obliterated by his absence. I still walk the path of family, of our identity; I trail through the steps we made together, which lead over the horizon.

Wrong Turning

Now with both sons B and M we have to deal with signatures of important stuff. The hospital immediately demands paperwork. We are in France; I speak a very little French and my sons nothing. But they are kind here, and an interpreter is summoned to help and also to guide one of us round the maze of corridors and indeed the several buildings in this large hospital organisation.

Son B as the eldest, volunteers. The interpreter turns out to be an exceedingly pretty young woman, who leads him off while Son M and I sit down - the feeling now a crazy mix of rawness and relief, as if a vast and unbearable noise has been stopped.

It takes quite a while before Son B reappears. It seems the exceedingly pretty young woman was not quite so au fait with the geography of the place as she should have been. She led him across lawns and gardens to a small building, looking for the mortuary, where papers were to be signed. They wandered inside, to be faced with, says Son B, "people in white uniforms and hats, with steam billowing about and large pots and I thought, oh no, my worst nightmare - is this a mortuary?" But it was not, it was the kitchen - wrong turning.

Right there we had a laugh. We had to.

Can you believe it.

With great efficiency we are assured that we shall have all that is necessary within a couple of days. They know how much we want to get home to South Africa. Husband F is to be cremated and his ashes given to us forthwith. I am touched by their consideration. We are told about where to go and what to do tomorrow.

The crematorium is surrounded by grape vines. The sun is shining on open country but one can hear a nearby motor way. I am unspeakably still. We sit, just the three of us, in the chapel; music is playing, flutes, I think. Suddenly it turns into a very lovely melody, falls like balm onto me.

We look forward to going home; we are to receive the ashes in the afternoon tomorrow before our plane to Paris. Son M who lives in San Francisco is to come home with me, Son B has business committments. At the funeral parlour, true to their word, the French have the urn contained in a neat carry bag with a zip, ready for us. We hug the urn.

The Day that Changes Everything

"My husband is dying today," I say to the uniformed man who is checking the contents of our bags as we line up for the aircraft. My small case contains all my cosmetics. "I do not want to check this bag into the hold as I want to get off the plane as fast as possible." I see his face change." Just throw everything away," says son B. "Just let them throw everything away, Mom," he says again. "Hold on, sir," says the man. "We are here to help. Carry your bag."

I am struck by his moment of kindness.

We sit immobile, son B and I. Numb. My husband is an hour or so away across the Channel. He is very ill. I have that morning instructed - if that's the word - son M to tell the doctors to do nothing. He has had enough. "They want to know, should they do everything, or nothing?" Nothing. He will last, they say, about 48 hours. They will make him comfortable.

I see the prospect of his bedside, I see us waiting, watching, I fear the 48 hours.

I cannot remember the flight from Stansted, or the plane, or what we say to each other. I sit frozen with dread. We leave the plane and make for the exit, where son M is waiting in the Arrivals.

"It's all over," he says. "Dad has gone."

The world reels. Son B doubles over; I hang on to son M. We sit down on a nearby seat. My heart beats in my ears. We are shocked, shaking, frozen; a family oblivious to people hurrying by.

At the hospital my husband lies in his cubicle in ICU. There is no small beep of machinery, no tubes invade his battered body but he is not peaceful. His face is drawn, somehow unfamiliar. His bed is immaculate and neat. He is still faintly warm. I do not cry, I do not breathe. I am poised; we thank the doctors, who hurry to meet us with faces stiff with anxiety and yes, guilt, as if they could have done something better but I know they could not.

Husband F died in spite of their frantic efforts to put right his failing system, their chase around his organ circuits shutting down one by one. But he should not have died. He is the first fatality in a long line of successes with a new procedure, a heart procedure which corrects atrial fibrillation, sending patients home after nothing more stressful than a few days of discomfort.

We have had six weeks of agonising intensive care and as many crises. A heart attack, a sudden, unexpected and grotesque colostomy, kidney failure, liver failure, an intestinal infection, periods of delirium in which a strong man wept, pleading to be taken home, to be given a gun so that he could pull the trigger, to be put into the water, to be let go; unaware that he is 10,000 miles away from home, not in the hospital near our house facing the Indian ocean and an African coast, but in France.

This day changes my life. This day I am husbandless, my grown children are fatherless. From now on I am a new person, a stranger to myself. I am devoid of a partnership; I have no best friend, mate, or ally. I am strafed by loss, sadness, grief. Alone. I will come to know the depths of a most human condition, an unspoken, feared, dreaded condition shunned by our western attitude to death, in which it never really happens, only to other people.

"If something should ever happen to you" are words spoken lightly, as if considering an unlikely option.

It is not unlikely. It is definite. It happens. Death comes. And you are left with yourself.