Dead Cows and Jigsaws

I saw my grandma for the last time yesterday. It was grim and raining and miserable despite the fact it’s still August — someone I loved was dying, so of course it was raining. I’d gone to her nursing home, this sanitised, shiny compound full of cheery nurses, bunches of flowers and meticulously dusted scenic watercolours. It was nice, especially as nursing homes go, but it always made me uneasy. I’d mentioned this to my mum before — how depressing that so many people would end up in this building, sweating and weeping on their painful path to death — but she told me, quite rightly, to shut up and stop being so morbid.

My grandma’s room was full of familiar things, but because of the circumstances they’d all taken on this buzzing, nervous, hyper-real edge. Blankets I’d slept under as a child now lay haphazardly over her knees as she lay in a bed that I can only describe as an adult cot. Teddies I’d constructed elaborate backstories around on her living room floor when I was 5 sat on a table that also held 15 different types of medication and one sad looking lollipop. Pictures of my family — cousins and uncles and aunts, me and my mum and sister and nephew — were propped cheerfully on a sideboard, a nice touch that jarred purely because they weren’t in their rightful place — her mantlepiece.

I sat down next to her and was thankfully recognised (which, for the record, I’m really grateful for). I talked to her about my job and my writing and my boyfriend, and asked her how she was feeling, as if we were in some weird absurdist Waiting for Godot standoff where whoever acknowledged the lingering presence of death first would lose. I’m almost 100% positive that’s not what she was feeling — she was just happy to see me.

She drifted back off to sleep again (just after telling me I needed to “get my toes in order”, which is probably advice that will one day be useful in some way) so, to occupy myself, I tried to finish a jigsaw she’d started a week earlier. It was a funfair scene — a helter-skelter, some obnoxiously laughing 1950s children, a dog. And, because of the cinematic soft-focus of everything else, I was preternaturally focused on finishing it. The only thing that mattered, for those 15 minutes, was to leave her room with the jigsaw slightly more complete. The only thing that felt real was methodically slotting the pieces into place, trying to sort and select the tiny illustrated children from the muddle of edges and middles and bits of sky.

I recently read a piece about humans’ defence mechanisms, our reaction to things like death and trauma. It explained why we’re so bad at dealing with this stuff, and it’s grimly predictable — it’s because it’s just too big for our puny human brains to deal with. The author talked about a farmer whose stoic reaction to his wife of 40 years dying was overshadowed by his hysteria over the death of a favourite cow a few weeks later. And yes, I know this sounds like the plot of a Cormac McCarthy novel, but it does actually make sense. To confront the death of his wife — a woman he had shared every intimate moment of his life with — was far too big. A cow, though? Now that he could handle.

To actually think about my grandma dying was too much. I’ve a bent for bad existentialist pondering as it is, so the reality of death probably would have driven me over the edge. The jigsaw was something to focus on — a safe place to get lost in amongst the realities of inhalers and confusion and loose, feeble coughs.

Who can really say anything about loss? (Joan Didion, probably, but other than her). Loss forces you to confront your own mortality and ruminate on your choices — we know this already and I’m not going to say it again because not only is it boring but it’s trite. But one thing I wish someone had told me is how awkward it is to go and visit someone who’s about to die. How awkward to watch a vibrant, happy woman slowly fold up inside herself like one of those classroom plants sacrificed, inside a cupboard, to a science experiment. How awkward to hold a sippy cup to the lips of a woman who once baked you elaborate birthday cakes and wiped your arse as a baby and who was a solid, comfortable presence every Sunday morning for 20 years. She raised her hand slowly and with effort towards me, and it was just like a child seeking comfort from its mother. It made me sad and furious and I nearly cried, but it also made me uncomfortable.

But was it uncomfortable to her? I don’t think so. I don’t think she knew what was going on. She was in her bed. She was talking to me. I was holding her hand. As far as the situation allowed, she was essentially fine. It was me who was uncomfortable, me who was awkward, me who didn’t know what to say. I’ve never been this close to death as an adult, and it’s made me realise that the feeling of loss, of bereavement, isn’t really about the person who’s dead or dying at all. It’s about you; the deepest, most raw feelings of animal selfishness, the futile, clawing rage at the unfairness of everything. I don’t know whether that should make me feel guilty or not, but I don’t. I’m just glad I got to hold her hand again.