things i've learned from death

A few months ago I went live on Instagram (which I do fairly regularly) and I shared this.

It's still on my mind, so I want to share again.

Before I moved away, I was pent up, restless and resentful. I really needed to live life my way.

When I came back to visit, I was able to see things through different eyes, and I felt a little bit guilty.

I'm quite private, but there are so many things that have happened in my life that have really shaped and impacted me. No matter how painful these experiences have been, they're a gift. And maybe if I share, it passes on the gift while sparing people the pain of going through these experiences first hand. Either that, or it makes them feel less alone.

Anyway, let's get into it.

I have cared for people for as long as I can remember.

I have been around death for the majority of my life.

My Mum is an only child, and she was very close to her parents. I spent every single weekend (if not longer) at my maternal grandparents house since I was born. From when I was very young, their health began to decline, and as I grew older they grew weaker.

My maternal Grandad (Grandad Clown to me) was diagnosed with dementia when I was 8 years old. I didn’t understand it at first, but I gradually saw my very artistic, wood sculpture making, nature loving, joke cracking grandad stop speaking as much. I saw him melt into his chair, not going out anymore, not drawing anymore. I saw his shed at the end of the garden (John’s den) fill with cobwebs and get covered in rust.

Carers came in to help him get ready for bed and I used to grill them, my mum and nan used to laugh. I would watch them as they shaved his beard, brushed his teeth, and I would sternly make sure “you’re doing everything you’re supposed to aren’t you”. I was a bossy nightmare of an 8 year old, but as I saw my Grandad melt into his chair and feel increasingly emasculated, I wanted him to know he was loved unconditionally.

A week before I turned 14, my Maternal Grandmother died unexpectedly. She cared for my Grandad until he went into hospital, and then one night she just died with seemingly no decline. Three weeks after, my Grandad Clown died in a care home. I was around death an awful lot in those last three weeks.

I was lucky that I got to learn about them and their lives. I was lucky to pretty much interview them every weekend about their regrets, their memories, and the things that shaped them.

It taught me about myself.

When I was 10, my parents were still together, and we ran out of money. Both my parents were working full time, we were doing respite care for families in need at the weekends, but my family just couldn’t keep it together. My paternal grandparents had just moved down to Suffolk from London to be closer to us, and all the main adults in my life made a huge sacrifice.

My family moved in with my paternal Grandparents.

My Dad wanted to have some time to save to buy a house, providing a stable home for us all.

All the adults wanted to make sure that my sister and I would never miss out on opportunities that can help us move up the class ladder. Moving in with my Grandparents meant that my parents could save while still being able to afford extra curricular activities for us.

I was resentful because at the time, I thought I would rather be poor than live in such dysfunction. Nobody really got on with each other. Even though my family had the best will in the world, my parents got divorced a year later, which caused another financial setback. Years passed, the tories stayed in government, we couldn’t afford to move out, and eventually my Paternal Grandparents got sick.

My Paternal Grandmother began displaying signs of Alzheimers in 2015, but was too proud and stubborn to get diagnosed until we absolutely forced her, which was a year or so later. Her decline was rapid and explosive, she became angry and abusive. One night, I was home alone with my Grandparents and she fell, so with matters in my hands I called the falls team. They saw that I was alone with them and this rang alarm bells enough for my grandparents to get some care.

My paternal Granddad got diagnosed with Alzheimers a few months later.

I have seen them both decline rapidly. They are now both bedbound for the most part. My grandmother's brain has rotted down to its core, and she has lost control of her body. She is mostly paralysed.

Every now and then, I can hear her babble. I don’t like to be in the same room as her now, our relationship was always complex and slightly difficult. When she was still verbal and mobile, she was running rampant one night, insulting people, trying to run out of the house. I was alone with them, and I snapped. I shouted at her, I called her names, I expressed how resentful I was of her.

I’ve never been too proud of that. Before I moved away for second year, I went into the living room, turned hospital ward while she was sleeping and said sorry. I said that I knew she had a difficult life, and understood why she turned out to be the way she was. I said that I forgive her, and that I hope the next life is better for her.

She stopped snoring for a bit and I was worried that she died, but then she started breathing again.

The day after this, I was set to go back to Sheffield. She was restless and I could hear her stressing my Grandad out, so I went to speak to her and take the pressure off him.

She looked at me and smiled, but she was unsettled. She said “Is this a convent?” (she is Irish Catholic). I said no, this is the kitchen. I put on some old TV show. She looked at me and said “I’m not really here, I’m somewhere else”. I said “Oh okay. Where are you?”.

“I’m somewhere else in here” she said, pointing to her chest.

“When I came here, they said I had something to do and I did it. But I didn’t want to do what I did, I want to do it again”.

To anyone else, this sounds like babble from someone with Alzheimers. It might be. I might be reading into it and attaching meaning to it. But it has done something for me.

I said “oh right. What did you want to do?”.

She said “I wanted people to see me”.

My Nan was loving in her own way, but it often didn’t translate.

She was born in County Kerry. One of four children, two older brothers and a twin sister. She was bullied by her brothers growing up, and bullied by her alcoholic father that she knew nothing about. He didn’t even know their names and couldn’t tell the difference between her and her twin.

We have come to learn about his hidden past since she got diagnosed, but she never knew about him or anything he kept a mystery.

Without really knowing why, as a child, she and her family moved to London and her Dad fought in the army. She was bullied at school for being Irish, and that hardness from being bullied all her life stayed with her until even now.

She had always been very defensive, and sometimes a little too feisty. She could never be vulnerable, or show too much affection. Her version of love was saying “this is how you do things, don’t do them differently”. She was very harsh, but if you got to understand her, it's because what she was really saying is “don’t let them see you with your guard down, because they will hurt you”.

What I learned from that conversation is that she wishes she didn’t live like that. She wishes she didn’t lie so much, and that she didn’t say she was okay when she wasn’t. She wishes she was more honest, not just with others but with herself. She wishes that she lived life the way she wanted to, being expressive and going for things.

Things were different back then and you had to live a certain way to survive.

I am endlessly grateful that I have had the opportunity to see all my Grandparents in their final days.

It has given me trauma, there is no way to sugar coat that. But it has shown me authenticity.

I used to resent the way a non conventional and challenging childhood made me isolated and confused, but I can see it differently now. I can see the sacrifices, and the freedom it all gave me.

I have had the rare and unique privilege of learning all my grandparents' life stories, and seeing how all of their decisions through life have affected their final days.

I have seen family patterns, cycles, dysfunctions clear as day, and have been given the opportunity to see them repeating and immediately disengage with that behaviour.

Because of my grandparents, I am able to raise my children to be free of these unconscious patterns that everyone lives to regret.

Like a mathematical equation, I can trace back their life and see how certain behaviors or habits they took up years ago have impacted them on their deathbed.

They have freed me to live life the way I want.

I can see that if you aren’t honest, if you aren't completely accepting of yourself, if you compromise yourself too much, you will regret it.

I see people my age appeasing crappy behaviors, abandoning themselves, engaging in self sabotaging behavior to try and punish others. I see people dragging through in jobs they hate when they do have the opportunity to try something else. I see people telling themselves that they’re just having fun but when the fun ends they’re wrapped in anxiety and sadness.

I have been guilty of doing all of the above. And I can’t always see my own mistakes and bad habits.

But I have been given the gift of incredibly low tolerance for things that don’t sit right with me. I have been given the gift of existentialism, which has freed me from giving a crap about what anybody else thinks.

And it is all because of the sacrifices made by those around me.

I see my Grandmother, vegetated in her bed, and I think; if you from 30 years ago could see yourself now, you’d change in an instant.

So I, nowadays, change in an instant.

My intention with this piece was to share with you the gift of perspective that I have been given by my Grandparents, and Parents. There is a lot to learn from the circumstances which shape you.