In the Midst of Life (21 page)

‘Do look after yourself, you might fall or something,’ a nurse said as he was leaving. He gave her a roguish grin, irresistible to women.

‘Now what have I got to lose?’ he replied. ‘Tell me that.’

She couldn’t reply, but said: ‘We are going to miss you.’

‘You’re
a sweet girl. You all are, and I have grown very fond of you.’

He kissed a couple of the girls, and then turned to Matron. He hesitated for a fraction of a second – the navy blue uniform, the silver buckle, the high collar, the white cuffs, the frilly cap, were a touch intimidating for any man. Would he, wouldn’t he? He did. Cheered on by the nurses he kissed Matron, who blushed as pink as a peony.

Mr Anderson returned looking a lot better. He was tanned from the fresh air and sunshine, and although he had not noticeably gained weight, his muscles were stronger. He told us that he had started his walking with a paltry five miles a day, which was exhausting, but day by day he improved on this until he could manage twenty miles without too much fatigue.

‘And what about the rough canoeing?’ I enquired.

‘That also. It was a great help, having lost so much weight. You need to be light to shoot the rapids of the Wye.’

‘Wasn’t it dangerous?’ asked a nurse.

Yes, but that’s half the fun. And if you’ve got nothing to lose but a life that’s on borrowed time, you can do anything. I took far more risks than anyone else. It was great.’

He laughed in a devil-may-care way. ‘Now I’ve got to get back to work. There is a good deal to be completed still.’

Blood and serum tests were taken, and a series of X-rays. The Chief was so impressed by the apparent reduction in the size of the growth, and especially in the improvement in the patient’s general health, that he thought we could risk a further series of radium treatments. Normally, one has to limit the radiation because the effects on the body are so debilitating.

Mr Anderson was re-admitted, and his previous working pattern resumed. The effects of the radium were quickly evident, and the poor man became very weak and ill, but still he carried on going to his broom cupboard. It was pathetic, yet inspiring. There was no point in telling him to rest more; he took no notice.

The
Chief had decided on a ten-week course of radium, which was longer than is usually ordered, and could easily kill a person, but they had discussed it, and Mr Anderson had declared that, by sheer strength of will, he would overcome the side effects. He was determined to go fell running in Cumbria, and the Chief felt sure he could manage this, although it is notoriously difficult and dangerous.

During the next two years Mr Anderson worked like a man possessed, in his city office during the months after he had been discharged, and in the broom cupboard when he was in hospital. He never let up. Work was punctuated by strenuous holidays – he walked the 190 miles of the Pennines in seven days; he climbed the Welsh mountains, including Mount Snowdon; he went frequently to Scotland, determined to climb each of the Munros and the Cairngorms. He did more in two years than the majority of us will do in a lifetime.

And it was not the cancer that killed Mr Anderson. It was the Cairngorms. In the mountain ranges, the weather can change from sunshine to blizzards in a few hours. Mysterious things can happen on those remote heights; perhaps he saw a beckoning hand, or heard a beguiling voice, luring him towards danger. ‘There’s nothing to lose,’ was always his spur. He had flirted with Death for so long that he almost loved Her. As he fell in the snow, and his body temperature dropped, his senses would have become numb and easeful rest would have seduced him to a sleep from which he did not waken. He had not wanted to die in a hospital bed, and the cold and the snow had saved him …

The mystery of what had been going on in the broom cupboard was later revealed. Through a combination of hard work, speculation and professional expertise Mr Anderson had accumulated millions of pounds. Every penny of it was left to Cancer Research.

What poor Van Gogh needed

was a little pill,

or perhaps not that pill

but a different little pill,

or perhaps a different one again

for a month, for a year, for life,

or perhaps a combination

of little pills, try this one, try that one,

try that one and another together,

lots of little pills perhaps he needed,

a thousand pounds’ worth,

ten thousand pounds’ worth,

half a million pounds’ worth

given the research costs

and the cost of Public Relations

and the expectations of shareholders,

then poor Vincent could have

given up painting masterpieces

and vanished without trace

into old age.

—
David Hart

From
Running Out
(Five Seasons Press, 2006)

Most people die in hospitals and not at home any more. This seems to be largely expected, and it feeds our fear. We shy away from closeness to a dying person, and from seeing the body, and, even if the relatives are there, in the hospital at the time, the body will be quickly whisked away and never seen again. Many people have no contact, before, during or after the event.

Yet basic, primitive and stark, hidden behind a curtain, death remains, and human imagination cannot resist it. We need to take a little peek now and then, and so we lift a corner of the curtain to get that frisson mingled with fear. The media know this and feed our desire by showing violent death in all its detail. The producers seem determined to show the most horrifying and bloody pictures. And this is as much as most people see, or want to see, of death.

Some producers have tried to show, realistically, on television how people die, and, on a couple of occasions, have actually filmed a man whilst he is dying. I am not sure whether this is helpful or not. It certainly shows that dying is not a time of physical pain or mental distress, but of peace and quietness. This is probably reassuring to some people. But, on the other hand, it is only a ‘virtual reality’. But perhaps that is what people want. The idea of filming a man dying quietly in his bed so that viewers can get an impression of what goes on is no doubt praiseworthy, but, of reality, they will see virtually nothing.

Only those who have been close to the dying and seen death in all its awesome mystery can get a glimpse of what it is about – and even then only a glimpse. The whole picture includes a spiritual dimension. God is not in the churches, or the mosques or synagogues. He resides not in temples and minarets. God is not the
possession of priests or rabbis or mullahs. God is at the deathbed, tenderly drawing the living soul from the dying body. God is in the grief and suffering of those who are left behind, who catch a glimpse, perhaps for a few fleeting seconds, of what life and death are all about.

Reality is not to be found in a television screen. The closeness to real death means, inevitably, closeness to our mortality and questions about the divine. Perhaps this is too much to take. If we can find no spirituality in life, death is an uncomfortable reminder of a missing dimension.

We have to go to a very different society and mingle with a people closer to nature to see a more realistic approach to death. In southern Morocco, in 2007, I was invited by a young Moslem woman to take tea with her family in her home. We entered a hole in the wall and went down a long, dark passage towards a dim light and into a tiny kitchen. There was a central place for a wood fire on the floor, and a hole in the ceiling let out the smoke and also let in the daylight. We went from the kitchen to a large room, about thirty feet by twenty. A beautiful carpet lay on the mud floor, and around the walls cushions were scattered on the floor for seating. High windows let in the daylight and oil lamps stood on low tables. Silk hangings adorned the high walls. The room was both elegant and beautiful. There was no upstairs, so this one space, plus kitchen, was home for the entire family. Other women and children came in, eager to see the stranger in their midst. The lady of the house, in good French, invited me to sit down whilst she made the tea. The cushions were very low, and I was apprehensive about sitting down in case I made an exhibition of myself trying to get up again! Seeing what at first I thought were some higher cushions I walked towards them. The lady must have read my mind or, if not, it is as well she spoke when she did.

‘That is my grandmother. She is nearly a hundred years old. She is near the end of her life, and Allah will come for her soon.’

A woman was cooking, another feeding a baby, children were running around, and an old woman was dying. This is the realistic
acceptance of death. The children will take it in their stride, as children always do, and as they grow up they will look upon death as a natural part of life. They had probably seen birth in that room and, without being told, had absorbed the fact that birth, life and death are all part of the whole.

But
we
cannot see this. We are too busy ‘getting and spending’. The hush and momentary time-stop of the deathbed plays no part in the rush and perpetual motion of our busy lives. ‘Death? What is it to us? We want to live, live, live – don’t be morbid. We want sex, fun, sensations – don’t be a bore. We want money, careers, possessions – don’t be a drag. Friends, relationships, travel – these are the things we want. Death doesn’t come into it. Go away!’

Each of us is going to die, whether we like it or not, but it only hinders acceptance of the fact if we never come near it. If we could see the infinite variety of emotions, insights, experiences and delight in little things that are granted to people as they approach the end, if we knew how human understanding and love can grow and flower in the last stages of life, if we witnessed the peace and tranquillity that is given to us in the last hours before death, we would be less afraid.

The Berber children saw the tranquillity of death in that sunbaked room in Morocco. But we seem to think that our children should be shielded from it. ‘He is too young to be told. It would upset him,’ I have heard. And on another occasion, ironically from a professed atheist, ‘We didn’t know what to tell her, so we said that Granny has gone away to live with the angels in the sky.’ This sort of over-protection is misplaced. Another generation will grow up, remote from reality, and they, in turn, will want no contact with death or the dying. Parents who think they are shielding their children from something unpleasant are ensuring that, when their own time comes, they will be left to die alone.

Yet children are increasingly exposed to violent death on film, television and computer games. They have a morbid fascination for horror and many are allowed unrestricted access to these sources, so they are able to see people carving each other up, and inflicting
unimaginable suffering. And this is the generation of children whose parents imagine they are too tender to be exposed to natural death. What an irony!

Many years ago Anthony Bloom, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in England, played an important role in my life. He said that, when he first came to this country, the thing that horrified him the most was the attitude to death that he encountered. As a Russian, he came from a nation and a church where death was a normal part of life, something we all have to face, something known, seen and accepted. But, in this country, he was shocked to find that death was almost regarded as an indecency, provoking the most profound embarrassment, and certainly not a subject to be talked about. To his surprise and dismay, he found that meaningful contact with death was comparatively rare.

He said that he visited an English family where a much-loved grandmother had died at home. The family was grieving, but the children were not around. He asked where they were, and was told that they had been sent away because they should not see ‘that sort of thing’. In surprise he asked, ‘But why not?’ It was the father’s turn to be shocked. He said it was quite unthinkable. The children knew what death was because they had seen it when a rabbit had been killed and half eaten by dogs in the garden, and they had been terribly upset. He and his wife had agreed that they must be sent away because they might have wandered into Granny’s room while she was dying or, which would have been far more upsetting for them, when she was actually dead. Such a possibility could not be countenanced.

Did these parents really mean to leave their children with the idea that their grandmother was now like the dead rabbit, savaged by dogs? Children are highly imaginative. They would have sensed that something was wrong in the looks passing between adults, the hushed voices, the unfinished sentences – the ‘not in front of the children’. Or worse, they might have been told silly lies about their grandmother’s condition, which they would neither believe nor
understand. Finally, to be sent away at a time of family crisis would have alarmed and frightened them. Their imaginations would have been inflamed, and they might have invented all sorts of lurid tales about the thing that was happening to Granny that was so terrible they were not allowed to see it.