A MEMOIR - GRIEF HAPPY - Part One By Katharine Arfona Knights
Image by Nick Fewings, Unsplash
It had been an ordinary working weekday. I was at my desk a little bit earlier than normal but that was really the only difference. I wished it had been the only difference. After my husband phoned my secretary and explained the ambulance was on the way to Treliske Hospital, everything had changed. A colleague popped his head round the door and said he was driving me there in a tone not meant to be argued with. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t drive myself – it wasn’t as if she were dead or anything. She’d only had an accident.
I worked out she was dead in between walking through the doors at A&E and being shown into a long, thin side room set aside for bereaved relatives. I sat down on a bright orange sofa and wondered where everyone was and why I couldn’t see my her straightaway. I realised afterwards they were probably “getting her ready”.
I looked up at a print of Monet’s Bridge and made a mental note to tell my mum later. She had painted it once in Art Class after an organised tour to France with her group. I remember she had proudly shown me her new yellow plastic water bowl for rinsing off brushes whilst painting ‘en plein air’. The dish was a lightweight and portable. It blew up like a rubber ring and had one of those rubber plugged stoppers, clearly designed for ease of travel and storage. Her face had been a picture of delight at the genius of it and the wider she smiled the more her false teeth would clack up and down. She loved little things like that.
Afterwards, back at the house, when all her stuff was being divvied up between us children, I asked everyone if I could have it. I remember there had been a long pause with a few rolled eyes and sighs. My sister, Margaret, had bagged all her painting stuff already and this would be splitting it up. She let me have it in the end and thankfully, on this occasion, I didn’t have to explain why I wanted it. Although I would have done if I’d had to. A large tear rolled down my cheek and plopped onto the plastic as she handed the painting over. So, this was what grief looked like. I swallowed hard as I stared at it in my lap.
I looked up at everybody with their little piles of goodies. It was like a Christmas morning: a rare occasion when all 6 siblings were together and smiling at each other. Showing each other what we’d got and being nice to each other whilst waiting for Mum to come in and tell us lunch was ready. I turned round to look at the lounge door half expecting her to walk in.
Not now, I can’t cry now. I’m not the baby anymore.
I was trying to take her jewellery off – the nurse asked me if I could take her things home. I couldn’t quite pull the back off a small delicate gold stud. I moved to try to get the other one out when a smell of onions wafted over me, I was sure I could taste blood. I felt hot and giddy, and my fingers were sweating and slippery. The necklace was easier.
I kept the necklace. I didn’t tell the others I had it. It’s in my jewellery box even now. I get it out sometimes and hold it up like a pencil and then lower it down, letting it coil around itself like a snake charmers’ basket. I do this repeatedly sometimes, remembering and forgetting in equal measures.
I rubbed her forearm for the last time. She felt warm and her skin rumpled under my fingers. I didn’t kiss her goodbye – not with that onion breath and all that blood caked down one side of her face which, somehow, I managed to taste in my mouth again.
They put all her belongings into a carrier bag for me to take away. It was the standard, long white plastic bag with HOSPITAL PROPERTY printed on it. How much stuff do people have that they need such a big bag? Mine only had her swimsuit in it. It was all she was wearing when she collapsed at the poolside.
When I got back to my house I put it in the family swimming drawer, not to hide it but to keep grandma close to my children when they go for their lessons. It was a grief thing. I realise that now. I don’t have it anymore – I must have thrown it away at some point. I can’t recall what colour it was either, which is annoying. I remember the nurse telling me they’d had to cut it off so they could ‘work’ on her. I must have been having a ‘grief happy’ day that day to get rid of it.
Edited by Jess Buxton