Global Courant 2023-04-15 21:00:00
Christina Patterson – Clara Molden for The Telegraph
At my mother’s funeral, my brother gave a eulogy at the grave. “Mom and Dad bought this lot on my 24th birthday,” he said. “But it only came with a 50-year lease. So if I manage to live to be 74 years old, I hope I have enough savings left to buy an extension!”
Despite my sadness, I smiled. It was like Tom trying to lighten the mood. He was 55 and I was 53 and 74 seemed a long way off. Two and a half years later I was back at the grave and Tom lay in it.
‘To die’, says the poet Sylvia Plath in her poem Lady Lazarus, ‘is an art, like everything else. I am doing exceptionally well.” I have often thought of that poem over the years. I’m not an expert on dying, of course. I’ve had cancer twice and did my very best to keep myself alive. But after burying both my parents and both my siblings, I’m starting to feel a bit of an expert on death.
Christina as a young girl with her parents and siblings – Christina Patterson
The first funeral I ever went to was my sister’s. My dad called me at work to tell me that Caroline had collapsed while she was doing the dishes. The paramedics, he said, had done their best. I lay down on the floor of my office. My head was wedged against the filing cabinet. The finance manager knocked on the door and my words sounded ridiculous when I told him my sister was dead.
I was 36 when Caroline died. Tom was 38. Caroline was 41. Our mother was the only one who attended the funerals of her mother and our elderly Swedish relatives and I had missed my Scottish grandmother’s funeral because I was ill. I had no idea how to arrange a funeral or report a death and I had no idea how to do all this when your world had just come crashing down.
It’s been 23 years since Caroline died, but I still remember the moments of panic that interrupted the grief. At the funeral home we received a brochure with different types of coffins. It felt surreal staring at different woods, finishes and fittings and wondering how on earth to choose. After choosing one made of beech wood, I suddenly thought that the box might be too small; maybe coffins were always a standard size and Caroline didn’t fit in them. Later I worked up the courage to tell my father about my concerns and he said the undertakers knew what they were doing.
Story continues
Christina Patterson’s family – Christina Patterson
On the morning of the funeral, I went to M&S to pick up the sandwiches for the wake. The woman at the desk told me there was a mistake. “I’m afraid there’s nothing on this,” she said. I kept showing her the receipt and she kept shaking her head. “Please,” I said. “I can’t tell my mother that there are no sandwiches for her daughter’s funeral. Please, please, please, please.” Eventually she found some. Tom waited outside in the car while I picked them up.
That’s the thing about death. On the one hand, it catapults you into another universe where you wonder if you’ll ever be a normal human again who doesn’t want to just lie on the floor crying. On the other hand, you must take on a new role as project manager, party organizer, admin supremo, and grief counselor, all the while trying to keep yourself fed, clothed, and healthy while keeping your actual job. It’s a strange mix of the existential and the banal, and it’s the banal that can trip you up and make you feel like you’ve been punched in the gut.
Both my parents left very clear instructions. My father died of colon cancer at the age of 70. He wrote a list of the hymns he wanted at his funeral. He said there should be a “short speech” by the rector of his church, but “no personal commentary or tribute”.
My mother was equally humble. “For John’s funeral,” she wrote, “I asked for double time at the crematorium, but I don’t think that will be necessary for me.” She, too, listed the hymns and possible locations for the vigil. One was the Tithe Barn in Loseley Park, where we picked raspberries and ate honey and ginger ice cream. But she had crossed out the words “Tithe Barn” and written “too big” next to it.
Christina’s parents left clear instructions about the kind of funeral they wanted – Christina Patterson
When my mum died after breaking her hip I followed her instructions and booked one of the pubs. I traded it for the Tithe Barn when it became clear that it would not invade all guests. I immediately booked the Tithe Barn for Tom. In the 19 months between my mother’s funeral and his, catering costs had skyrocketed. That’s the other thing people don’t tell you about death. It’s very expensive. Organizing a funeral is very similar to organizing a wedding. Or I imagine it is. By the time I placed Tom’s coffin in the family plot, we had had no weddings in our family and four funerals.
Tom died suddenly of a heart attack the summer before the pandemic. For a while I thought I was going to die of grief. But that is impossible. Tom was single and had no children. There was no one else to tell his friends, no one else to report the death, close his bank accounts and have the grave put in my name. There was no one else to do the endless, endless paperwork.
At Tom’s bank there was no option for a brother or sister under “relationship with customer”. The clerk went off to check and came back with a senior manager who tried again and failed. Tom died without a will and let’s just say getting sibling inheritance is no small feat.
And then you have to clear the house. But first you need to wash the dishes that the person you loved left in the sink. You have to pick up their toothbrush, their comb, their washcloth, their pajamas. You have to go through their socks and pants. Perhaps this is easier with a husband. With a sibling, it feels like a terrible intrusion, but one you have to make. You have to open their wardrobe and touch the shirts, jackets, jeans and suits that the person you loved will never touch again.
“There’s a part of me that still can’t believe they’re gone,” says Christina
I prefer, as business people say, to “eat the frog”, so I drove to B&Q, bought lots of giant garbage bags and put everything in as many as needed. I put the garbage bags in the back of Tom’s garage. What followed was even harder. When my mother died and we sold the family home of 50 years, Tom took quite a few ornaments and pictures and some of the furniture with him. I’ve lived in the same flat for almost a quarter of a century and it’s already packed. But who wants to throw away their parents’ first tableware or the paintings and art objects they’ve acquired over half a century? Who wants to throw out the family albums?
Shortly after I put the house on the market, the pandemic hit. Charity shops stopped clearing houses. Viewings were tricky. Sales were slow. It felt like a metaphor for everything. And yet I had a garage to clean out, a garage full of albums and papers and letters and ornaments and memories. A garage with my family’s history.
Christina with her brother and parents next to Caroline’s grave
Finally, when I could, I took the boxes of albums and papers back to my flat. I took a few pictures, rugs and ornaments. I have a house clearance company to take the rest. Just before the sale went through, I picked up my brother’s car from his driveway. I got rid of mine and now drive his. It makes me feel close to him.
I won’t pretend this has all been easy. I loved my sister, I loved my father, I loved my mother, and I loved my brother. There’s a part of me that still can’t believe they’re gone. What I do know is that my siblings’ lives, cut so cruelly short, remind me every day that I am lucky to be here. At each full funeral, I was also reminded how much each member of my family was loved. After Tom died, I decided I had to tell their story. It’s my way of keeping them alive.
The family enjoys a picnic
I suppose I mean death is not the end. I’ve had more of it in my life than I ever expected or wanted, but I’ll still scream from every rooftop that death isn’t the end. We live on in the memories of those who love us and remind them that life is precious and short. I’m careful with my time now. I spend it with people I like. Where I can, I cut the junk. Life is much, much too short for the nonsense.
Oh, and I finally got to host a wedding. It was locked. It was amazing. But you will understand that it was a bit of a relief that we only had two guests.
Christina Patterson’s Family Memoir ‘Outside, the Sky is Blue’ to be published by Tinder Press (£10.99)
