The evening before we left my parents house to return home at Christmas, my father said to Keira, “I think I’m going to cry when you leave.”
My mother told me this just before we drove off in the car, and I watched for his tears, waited for them, but he kept his composure. Saying nothing, keeping myself under control, I waved goodbye and said to myself, I think this is going to be the last time I see him.
I wonder if that’s also what he thought. Deep down I wonder – no, more; suspect, fear – that this was the case. I can only guess as to how much of a front he was putting up, how long he’d been hiding his symptoms before they became apparent. What I do know is that his decline was rapid and frightening. I believe the specialist at their last appointment said that his was one of the more aggressive cases of Motor Neuron Disease he’d seen. ‘Typically’ (and I use the term very loosely) a person diagnosed can expect two years. At least.
My father had less than four months.
I flew home that day with nothing but my handbag. I didn’t care. So what if I wore my mother’s clothing until Adam arrived with a proper suitcase? So what if I needed to buy another toothbrush in the meantime? Death makes the insignificant just fade away.
He told friends he wished he had cancer, because at least you can fight cancer. There are options. With MND there is virtually nothing you can do but wait for the paralysis to take over. One of the medical associations did ask, nicely, put it out there, if perhaps my father might consider donating his brain after his death for research?
He was asked this at one of his specialist appointments, although the ‘official’ letter of request arrived two days after he died.
Mum said at the hospital she wasn’t even asked by doctors if he was an organ donor. It makes me wonder if his disease excluded him from helping others? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I also think he’d be disappointed: he was a proud blood donor, and used to show me on his licence the place indicating he’d be an organ donor too one day.
On day in a future far, far away. Or so I supposed.
I supposed wrong.
More tomorrow…
