The Cerebral Mum

Last night, I was going to describe Caspar’s party and post a couple of photos. Instead, at around 8:30pm we got the news that a friend who is in hospital wasn’t likely to make it through the night. We spent the evening there.

The friend is not someone I have known a long time. Not long after Caspar was born, we got new neighbours, two men rather like The Odd Couple. Unlike most neighbours, we talked to each other and became neighbours in the fuller sense of the word. One of those men is Big Sis’ B, who we already consider one of the family, and Hughie, now in hospital, is one of his closest friends.

The majority of my social life out here at the end of the earth involves sitting around a table in their garage, talking about nothing, doing the crosswords and quizzes from the paper, and having a beer. Hughie was there almost every day. He is a wiry Englishman in his 50s, with a dry sense of humour and a quick mind. He is often the voice of reason when The Odd Couple are bickering and he has that grounded kind of energy - that broad tolerance along with that clear understanding of where he draws the line - which some people develop after living life hard, then calming down. He has a big heart and Caspar loved him. He made Caspar laugh. He made us all laugh.

And he is an alcoholic.

As I said, he has lived life hard. He spent time in jail for an assault when he was younger. He abandoned his daughter when she was three years old. But he grew and he has a great capacity for love. Sadly, he was never able to find enough of it for himself to kill off the demon alcohol was to him. He came into some money recently. He drank nearly all of it.

He met his daughter just over a year ago. She just showed up at his door one day, all grown up, a young woman he was extraordinarily proud of but could take no credit for. I met her last night for the first time. She shares his intelligence and humour and she too is grounded, in a way few 23 year olds are.

We were an odd collection of people in the intensive care unit: A daughter burdened with next-of-kin choices for a man whose relationship with her was only just beginning; His ex-wife, feeling all the frustration of a woman who was never able to help him and cannot help him now, quietly angry at herself for her misplaced sense of guilt, and quietly angry at him for making her feel it; B, that down-to-earth bloke who wanted to deny the end was coming, alternately telling jokes to Hughie’s unconscious body, then almost yelling at him, Squeeze my hand! Squeeze my hand!, then unable to stop the flow of tears when he could no longer maintain the illusion that there would be more tomorrows.

And then Big Sis and I, who only ever got to see the best of Hughie.

We left when B could not handle seeing Hughie lying there any more, full of tubes and needles, unconscious with unseeing eyes half open, surrounded by the steady beeps of the machines and their meaningless numbers moving up and down. B was still trying to find a way to make things different. His mind was still not ready to accept the reality. On the way out we passed the hospital chapel, and he stopped, saying that he was not religious but… I looked to see if there was a candle he could light - a simple, symbolic act - while he was drawn into the room. Instead I found tree branches, laden with wishes, and a basket full of paper leaves and a pen. B could not write: He only made it half way through the room before slumping into a chair, with Big Sis there beside him. I wrote out a leaf for Hughie, and for B, who could not. Then we came home.

Overnight, we received a message from Hughie’s daughter, simply saying, There has been no change. He has lasted through the night, but we remain waiting for that final call. We had a chance to say our goodbyes as best we could. And Hughie will not die alone, in spite of his very best effort to do so.