The Death Walk

This morning I had to walk away from someone important.

Before I made my feet move away from him I took one last look at his face, at his eyes which had focused on me with such searing insight, such intense understanding. I took a mental photograph of that face and then, with a familiar agonising pain in my throat, I walked away from him, forever.

This final walk triggered a series of older goodbyes; other times when I’ve had to make that same final turn away and just keep walking.

At the funeral of an ex boyfriend, I’d got through the church service, the crematorium and the wake with some tears, but also huge amounts of joyous reflection on all he’d meant to me. The wake was held in a restaurant within the grounds of a beautiful national park, a place we’d visited together often, him pointing out birds, me puffing out fag smoke.

When it was time to leave the wake, I stood outside for a minute, my eyes up to take in the tops of the huge, ancient trees we’d so often walked under. My friend called out behind me, time to get in the car, to go. I turned around and waved to her, then turned back again for one last gawp at the tree tops and took a mental photograph. Then, with the old familiar pain stabbing at my throat, I had to walk away from the trees, from him, forever.

A couple of years before, I’d been in the room when my step-mother had died at home. We’d already talked and said all we wanted to say to each other. When the undertakers came to collect her body, we all agreed we didn’t want to witness her final journey out of her home, we’d said our goodbyes already.

But that pain in my throat started knocking again and I announced that I had to go back for one last look at her. I hovered at the door there, my face only half in the room, watching as the men began to prepare her, gently folding her arms across her stomach, that stomach which had caused her so much pain. I took a mental photograph and then I turned and walked away from her deathbed, from her, forever.

Years before then, it was a hospital bed and my own mother dead. When the idea of seeing her was tabled, Dad warned us that she didn’t look like herself and it might be upsetting and I remember thinking, which self doesn’t she look like? The sober mother? The unconscious mother? My sister had already said no way, no thank you, always so much more sure than me what to do, but I was curious to see this new mother who didn’t look like her other selves.

The curtains around her bed were closed as I approached with a nurse at my side, holding my elbow. She asked if I was sure. I wasn’t, but nodded. She pulled back the curtain and there was Mum, her mouth slightly open, her hair pushed back from her face which was never how she wore it so that was a bit different, but aside from that she looked just the same kind of unconscious as I had seen her so many times before, though without the wet, ragged breathing. She looked as though at any moment she might open her eyes, turn to me and say, ‘help me’ or ‘what have you done?’ I didn’t approach her, staying by the curtains for a few seconds, just long enough to take a mental photograph.

The walk away from her was intolerable. The choking pain in my throat turned up for the first time and made it hard to breathe. Every step was an unbearable move further and further away from her. The nurse held me up, one arm around my waist, the other steering my elbow. Back in the family room, my sister shot me a look that said, ‘told you so, dickhead’ and I sent her one back that said, ‘yeah, I know, dickhead’. But it wasn’t the seeing that was awful, it was the walking away from her, forever.

As you can see, I have gathered a sizeable bank of experiences of these Death Walks (might as well give this recurring phenomenon a catchy title). So much experience that I have come to expect them and have learned to prepare for them.

Before today, my most recent Death Walk happened after a close friend died. She’d expressed a wish for her children not to see her dead body, unless they very desperately wanted to. My mission was to go to the funeral parlour, recce the coffin-based scene and report back on its child-friendliness.

I broke down by that coffin. I looked intently at her face, the same face which had once listened to all my secrets and laughed at all my jokes, but which now didn’t look at all like the friend I once had. Her hands were folded across her stomach. I reached out, laid mine on top of hers and said out loud, ‘I won’t let the kids see you like this, my love, and I won’t remember you like this either, I promise.’

Then I stood back, determined not to take a mental photograph. I closed my eyes and replaced the image with one of her smiling. Then I turned around and walked away from the coffin, from her, forever.

Even as I tell you this story, I can’t clearly conjure what she looked like that day. Last impressions count. That’s why it’s wise to try and make them good ones.

Nobody died this morning. The man I was walking away from was just our couples therapist. But the session had been filled with endings, it being our final appointment with him and this man, this gentle, kind man has looked after us for the last 18 months, has seen our sadness and tears, our hopes and fears, and as time went on, helped us say goodbye to our marriage.

Walking away from him was hard because it also means I must now properly face the walk away from my marriage forever, away from family holidays and car journeys, shared bedtimes and bathtimes and mealtimes, the four of us grinning on a beach, the four of us being an in-one-place family.

I gave our therapist a parting gift today, a collection of stories by Lorrie Moore all about relationships. I wrote two of my favourite quotes in the front for him:

‘What do you call a woman who marries a man with no arms and no legs? Carrie.’

‘Understand that your cat is a whore and cannot help you.’

I’m sure he’ll find Moore’s take on relationships hugely insightful in his future professional practice.

This quote from her feels right for me today:

‘When she packed up to leave, she knew that she was saying goodbye to something important, which was not that bad, in a way, because it meant that at least she had said hello to it to begin with.’

I’ll never regret saying hello to my Gwyneth. And whilst I’ve had to say goodbye to our marriage, I’ll never say goodbye to him. I’ll never have to walk away from him, forever.

At least not until the Death Walk, though I’m certain to get dead long before him so will probs avoid even that.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, eh? Keep moving on, taking all your mental photographs with you.

Maybe a new ‘hello’ awaits…