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Songs of Love & Parting

Discussion in 'Gerontology' started by Mark Russell, Mar 1, 2006.

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    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4761346.stm


    A sad and not unusual tale. I once visited an elderly lady in a retirement village on the Norfolk coast only to discover the body of her husband who had been dead for over a month, in a small bedroom adjacent to her own - not a pleasant experience. In Ireland, it was once the custom to have amputated limbs buried - with full ceremony - to comply with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Often, relatives would bring home the lower leg in a special coffin - before the return of the unfortunate patient - and the limb would sit on display for a truncated wake to take place before burial.

    Any similar experiences?

    Mark Russell
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2006
  2. John Spina

    John Spina Active Member

    Not here.However,I can understand this.Sometimes,when someone has spent years and years with their significant other,parting can be difficult.So this form of denial takes place" So and so isn'tdead...(s)/he is right here."
     
  3. Cameron

    Cameron Well-Known Member

    Netizens

    My father was a country bobby and had a friend who was a well known wit called Stuart Scott. (Stuart was by coincidence Bon Scott's uncle. The late Bon Scott was lead singer for ACDC). A friend of Stuart had died and was a amputee. His grieving widow was unconsolable when Stuart and my father called to pay their respects. For once the wit was lost for words but when he saw his old friend's prosthesis he caringly said to the widow, "its not that bad, you have been left a leg I see."

    As a practitioner in the Oxford area, moons ago I did home visits and was called to a period house in the gothic style in a little hamlet. I was invited in by the butler who ferried me quickly up the spiral stair case to the first landing. I could see below a gathering of people in the hall all gressed in black and sipping champaign. It was obvious the butler was in tears and could not contain himself anymore as he swung the large Spanish door open to what would be the master bedroom. There before me was the master of the house laid out to meet his maker with enormous gryphosis. The daughter of the house swept in Morticia style and pled with me to cut his nails because the undertaker had refused and they were unable to close the coffin.

    Under the circumstances, how could I refuse.
     
  4. Mary's story.

    Regrettably I only knew Mary – not her real name – for the last few weeks of her life. She was living in a not unpleasant nursing home on the Norfolk coast, not far from Great Yarmouth – I say living, but she would chastise me for calling it such – existing and waiting – would be her own description.

    Like many podiatrists, I was called out to manage a refractory foot ulceration, brought on by lower limb ischaemia – a particularly nasty digital breakdown that had exposed most of the underlying distal interphalangeal joint. There was no prospect of successful resolution – the emphasis of care being to prevent any opportunistic infection that might lead to greater loss. The clinical regime called for twice weekly dressing change – and during the period of our acquaintance, a mere three weeks, I was fortunate enough to learn a little of her remarkable life.

    During her formative years, she had worked as a personal assistant – one of many - to Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, during the final years of the Second World War, accompanying him to the Yalta Conference on February 11,1945 with American President F.Roosevelt, and Soviet General Y.Stalin. She recounted that meeting – and others – with the clarity of someone who possessed an almost photographic memory, even in her advanced years.

    There are many tales of extraordinary friendships and relationships that were forged during the war years – I’m sure many of you will have heard of similar stories from patients from time to time – and she spoke movingly of her own experiences, still so vivid in her memory. There had been a passionate relationship with someone who worked with the Resistance in France – a relationship that had spanned a mere eighteen months, although in truth, their encounters added up to only a few weeks, whenever and wherever the opportunity arose. By a cruel twist of fate, her lover was killed shortly after VE day in a traffic accident – not in France, but back in England – an incident that she still found difficult to bear.

    Mary was eventually married in 1950 to a butcher from her home town in Yorkshire, and they settled in a small village in the Dales where, over the years, they brought up their four children. On the surface they enjoyed a normal family life, but it was a loveless relationship, characterised by the occasional beating from a man who carried his own terrible burdens and shared them physically and mentally beyond the bedroom door. Like many others of her generation, she stayed loyal for the sake of her children, divorce being a stigma of great magnitude, especially in a small rural village – even in the swinging sixties.

    Eventually in 1992 her husband died and, after some consideration, Mary sold the family home and moved to Norfolk – some two hundred miles away – to live in a retirement flat by the sea. The move perplexed her children and they pleaded with her not to go, but she was determined – and given her character and history – nothing would change her mind. Even the fact that she had several grandchildren back in Yorkshire couldn’t persuade her otherwise. Why Norfolk? She would never say, other than it was a pleasant place.

    My last visit to her was on a Tuesday afternoon in June and she seemed as cheerful and talkative as ever. I enjoyed these visits – she had a sharp mind and a wicked sense of humour and her remembrance of things past were a joy to hear. Look away and it could have been someone half her age - or more – speaking to you, but by now she was in her mid-eighties and failing fast, although I thought she still had some years of her journey left to go.

    Although ambulant – she could walk unaided to the bathroom for example – Mary spent most of the time in her room which overlooked the beach of Gorelston-on-Sea, reading and listening to her radio. Not far from the home was a small church and graveyard and you could see the white of the gravestones in marked contrast to the grass and the azure blues of the North Sea. I thought it was a morbid reminder for many of the residents, but Mary used to joke that it was nothing more than a logical step for them all. Gallows humour perhaps, but delivered with such a wicked smile that you couldn’t help but laugh.

    The visit that Tuesday was unremarkable in comparison to the previous encounters. The wound was cleaned and debrided, then dressed with the usual sterile gauze – and there was the normal banter. I left, promising to return on the Friday and I remember her smiling then saying “very good.” It was the last time I saw her.

    Sometime before dawn the following morning, Mary walked out of the nursing home and up the few hundred yards to the graveyard, whereupon she lay down atop a grave and died. She was found by the vicar shortly after breakfast, lying peacefully in her nightgown and bare feet. Clasped tightly in her hands were some old photographs and a faded handwritten letter.

    The grave that she lay down on belonged to a young woman who had died in 1945 - the same woman in the photographs and whose name was on the letter written to Mary. It was dated two weeks before she herself had perished – in a car accident in Yarmouth when visiting her parents after she returned from France. The date of her death, recorded on the gravestone, was June 11 1945. Mary died on June 11 1995 – exactly fifty years later

    I am not sure still if the family know the history of their mother – possibly not – as they visited infrequently during the final years of her life. But if they do they must surely be touched by her story and of her love for someone long gone, but never forgotten.

    Sometimes a parting is not forever.
     
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