Share The Sorrow

Each arriving from our own corners of Europe, we gather with Mama around Papa's bedside (See post Share The Moment). From England, there is Sis and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Zara and from Finland there is myself. I have already been in Tenerife four days, Sis has just arrived the previous day after been told that Papa does not have much time left. Zara is now living on the Island with Mama, taking a gap year and immersing herself in her Canarian Island roots. Forty years after Sis and I departed our Island for new lands (see post Share The Moon), Zara has made the journey in the reverse direction. Papa would have been happy. 

It's late October, and outside the hospital room the Autumn sun has already climbed high into a cloudless blue sky, shining gloriously with almost shameless impunity on this saddest of days. Not far away from us, families from their own corners of Europe are sunning themselves on the Island's many beaches, frolicking in the warm Atlantic waters and creating joyful holiday memories. For them the visit to our Island is a moment of carefree existence. For the four women gathered around this hospital bed on a sunny Saturday morning, it is a moment of pain as we Share The Sorrow. Papa is dying.

His breathing is heavy and it pains us to see him in this way. We gather around taking it in turns to hold his hand and whisper in his ear that we are here, that we have returned and that we love him. Gently, Papa awakens and with a flicker of recognition acknowledges our presence, hungrily drinking us in one by one with those mahogany coloured Andalusian eyes that penetrate to the very core of your soul, creating with no spoken words a thousand tender images. His girls have returned to say their last farewell. He is at peace. The nurse asks us to momentarily leave the room whilst she and her colleague carry out their morning duties. We do as we are bid and wait outside in the long corridor until eventually, we return back to Papa's bedside.

Papa is now wearing clean nightclothes and has a calm and serene appearance that we have not seen before. His breathing is no longer laboured, now it is like watching a child peacefully at sleep. He then draws one last shallow breath, closes his eyes and in the flicker of an instant, in the space of an infinitesimal micro-second, is gone. Realisation and along with it immense pain fills us and we clutch one other and begin to weep: It feels incomprehensible that he was here with us just one second ago, but now is gone for eternity. The nurse arrives and tells us that it was a beautiful end. Exactly one hour and twenty minutes have elapsed since our arrival by his bedside. He waited for his loved ones to gather before taking his leave. She sees this so often, and I can see her own eyes welling up as she shares this small comfort with us.

And with Papa's passing I bear witness within the same year to yet another monumental farewell: farewell to a parent, farewell to the end of a twenty-five-year marriage and along with it half a lifetime, and farewell to a family home embedded within its muted walls a million silent memories and a thousand shattered dreams. But the farewell that hurts most is you, Papa. You have gone over to The Other Side, to a better place where old age, illness and pain can no longer ravage your body. But I know that one day we will meet again, and when we do neither of us will feel pain nor sorrow: You will be my young and strong Papa and I will be once more your little girl, sitting on your lap in the caravan at the chicken farm as we recite the new English words of the day in our terrible Spanish accents (see post Watching The English Part I and II). But now is not that time. I am now a Mama myself and still have much to do. Your soul has flown away but your body is still here and we still have one last journey to share together. But before that final journey we have The Wake. 

To be continued.....

Next post 18th December: Gathering And Remembering


Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.