Still You

by Claire Allan

  “Yes,” he said. “She’s on her way there now.”

  I thought how hard this must be for Emma – who had only a few days ago arrived to see Áine, not thinking for a second this would be her last opportunity to talk to her.

  “It’s just us now,” he said. “Everyone else is gone. Our mother, father, our grandmother and now Áine. Stupid, isn’t it? To feel like an orphan, at my age. I should expect to be an orphan.”

  “I don’t think there’s an age limit on missing your family,” I said. “And I know I’m not family, but I’m here for you, Jonathan. I don’t intend on going anywhere – not unless you want me to.”

  He squeezed my hand tighter and turned to look at me. “Promise me you won’t,” he said. “Because, Georgina Casey, I have fallen deeply in love with you.”

  I reached over and kissed him gently – yes, I had fallen very much in love with him too.

  Emma was there when we arrived. She ran to her brother and they embraced. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I should have come sooner. I should have spent more time with her.”

  “She understood,” he soothed. “And I don’t think all the time in the world would have been enough.”

  “I wasn’t really angry with her – I just fell into a habit,” Emma sobbed. “I felt I would be letting Mamma down, and Granny down if I let her in totally. But I loved her. She was a mother to us.”

  Jonathan nodded. “We were so young,” he said. “We were only children. You were only a child, Emma. You need to forgive yourself. She wouldn’t want you to feel like this. She loved you very much.”

  I wondered, listening in, if he would take his own words to heart. If he would forgive himself for not being there when she passed.

  Wiping her tears from her face, Emma looked up and pulled me into their hug. “Thank you for being there for her, Georgina,” she said. “I know how much you meant to her. I know how you helped her.”

  And it was my turn to dissolve into tears. The three of us made quite the sight, standing there in the hospital corridor, hanging onto each other, feeling our loss intensely.

  “Do you want to see her?” a nurse asked. “I can assure you she looks peaceful. There is nothing at all to indicate she was in any distress. She even took a cup of tea and some toast last night, chatted a little with the nurses on duty. She seemed happy.”

  We were grateful for this knowledge. That she seemed happy. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy. I closed my eyes and thought of her sitting in the garden, sipping from a cup of tea, smiling in the sunshine, talking to Jonathan or the girls, planting flowers, telling me about Jack, or Charlotte or her mother. And then I took a deep breath and followed Emma and Jonathan through to the hospital room where she was lying, as if sleeping, in her bed, her hands folded.

  I let Jonathan and Emma step forward, keeping my distance, dreading the moment when I would say my goodbyes. I listened to them tell their aunt how they loved her – and thank her for all she had done. I heard Jonathan say he wished he had been with her, holding her hand, when she left and I watched as his sister put her arms around him to comfort him.

  When it was my turn I could barely find my words. I just looked at this lovely woman and thought of the life she had lived. She had been one in a million.

  “Oh, Áine,” I wept. “I will miss you, my friend. You rest well – and say hello to Charlotte and Jack for me.” I kissed her on the forehead and sat down beside her and held her hand. Jonathan and Emma sat with me and we shared our stories until a nurse very gently told us that it was time to take Áine’s remains to the morgue.

  We walked out together into the early morning sunshine – floored that the world was continuing on as normal all around us.

  “We’ll have to make the arrangements,” Jonathan said.

  “Shall we go back to the house and get started?” Emma asked.

  “Yes,” Jonathan nodded. “Although you might not be surprised to know she left instructions. She wanted her way.”

  “That was Áine, through and through,” I said, smiling.

  “Come with us,” Jonathan said.

  “Yes, please,” Emma said, smiling softly. “I do believe Áine was not the only person very fond of you. My brother here, he needs you too.”

  He squeezed my hand. “I do,” he said and I nodded.

  The house at Temple Muse felt strange. It felt odd to know that it would never again hear Áine’s voice. That the kitchen would not be the hive of a home where she cooked, and ate and read. That the living room would not ring to the sound of her shouting at the TV.

  “It’s a nice morning,” I said. “Why don’t we go out to the garden?”

  “I just have to get something,” Jonathan said, “but yes, the garden seems the perfect place, doesn’t it?”

  I helped Emma make some tea and toast and we carried it out to the garden and sat looking around, marvelling at how it had been transformed over the past few months. It had given Áine so much joy.

  “I think we spent more time out here than we did in the house,” Emma said. “No matter the season. There was always something she would have us doing, or some game she would have us playing. I think we created a hundred different imaginary worlds out here – I’m quite sure if I looked hard enough I would find a few of the dolls from my doll’s house still hiding in the bushes – or the ‘magic woods’ as we called them. Our childhood was magical – for all the pain and the grief of losing our mother and not seeing our father that much. She made it magical.”

  “She was so proud of you,” I said. “Don’t ever think she felt anything other than the strongest love for you.”

  Emma nodded, wiping away a tear and sipping from her tea, just as Jonathan walked out to us carrying a folder.

  “All her arrangements,” he said. “Everything planned. She was meticulous.”

  He joined us at the table and we opened the folder to see that, not only had Áine put arrangements in place with a local undertaker, she had paid for it all. She had chosen everything, from the floral arrangements (wild flowers from her garden) to the readings and music – and she would be cremated, her ashes scattered between here and her beloved Italy where Jack was laid to rest with Charlotte.

  Among the formalities we found an envelope addressed to ‘My Family’.

  Nervously Emma opened it, as Jonathan held my hand, and she read from the letter inside.

  Dear Jonathan and Emma,

  I write this having learned that I have dementia. It seems so cruel – to know I may forget the times we have shared. The love, the joy, the pain, all of it that made us who we are.

  When I was young I didn’t want much in life – I wanted only to find a man who loved me and to raise a family. Your mother would tease me that I didn’t want enough – that I lacked her adventurous streak.

  But, my darling children, life has been an adventure – one we could never have predicted. I found love, with your darling father. A love that in no way replaced the love he felt for your mother but which gave us comfort, companionship and many happy times.

  I may not have carried or given birth to my own children, but I hope you don’t mind that a part of me considers you both mine. Certainly I could not be more proud of either of you – and as long as this mind of mine will allow me I will cherish the memories of the years we spent together. I could not have loved either of you more if I had borne you myself. I may not always have got things right – but, my darlings, my intentions were pure.

  I don’t know how life will be for us now. I don’t know what I will put you through as these months and years pass. I am not afraid to admit, my darlings, that I am scared. I hope that I do not reach the stage where you consider me a burden. I hope that no matter how this disease ravages me, you remember the person I was. I may slip away, but I am still me. And the person I am will hold on to the love I have for you all as long as I can, in this world and the next.

  God bless my darlings,

  All my love, always,
<
br />   Áine

  xxx

  Epilogue

  Present Day

  It was Christmas afternoon and we had just finished dinner. It was lovely to see Temple Muse brought so much to life again. We sat in the dining room, which Jonathan had repainted a light and airy colour, and I smiled as I listened to the chat around the table. Eve and Sorcha had been in remarkably good form – helpful and delighted with the presents Jonathan had bought them. It was lovely to spend time with Emma too – to learn more about her life, to feel a part of Jonathan’s family. It had been a wonderfully relaxed afternoon and soon the girls would leave to go and stay with their father for the evening (where they were expecting to be spoiled further) and Emma had made plans to go and visit some old friends.

  Jonathan and I would have the night together and I couldn’t wait. Perhaps I was too old to really enjoy sleepovers, but Jonathan made them so interesting. I smiled to myself at the thought of some quality alone-time with him. Our relationship was still in its first flush and it felt wonderful.

  As we cleared the table, I heard a shout from the kitchen. “Mum, Jonathan, come quick!” Sorcha shouted.

  We hurried to the kitchen where she and Eve were pointing excitedly out the window.

  “It’s snowing!” Sorcha shouted.

  “I didn’t think any snow was forecast for today,” Emma said.

  “Well, that is definitely snow falling,” Jonathan said, taking my hand and leading me to the back door.

  We went into the garden, followed by Emma and the girls and we stood marvelling at the flurry of snow that was falling softly on Áine’s precious garden.

  As the soft fat flakes drifted through the sky, landing and settling on the ground around us, we looked at each other. I was the first to smile although I could also feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes – and Jonathan and Emma followed.

  “A message from heaven,” Emma whispered.

  “She’s okay,” Jonathan said. “She’s happy.”

  I closed my eyes and let the snow settle on my face. “She’s happy,” I whispered. “And she’s still with us. She always will be.”

  THE END

  A note on this book

  “No one understands dementia until it comes to their door,” – those were the words spoken to me by Michael McIvor, at the time a support worker for the Alzheimer’s Society in Foyle.

  He was right, of course, but I already knew what it meant to have experience of Alzheimer’s. For more than a decade my own grandmother has been fighting a battle with this cruellest of diseases.

  I could list you the many things which hurt about Alzheimer’s – the difficulties we have faced as a family. The sacrifices her children have made, and continue to make. Their pain – my father’s pain – is rawer than mine can ever be.

  I could tell you that it has been eight years since she knew who I was. I remember very vividly the first time she stared at me blankly. It was the day of my sister’s wedding – a day of great celebration – and she asked me who I was. It also happened to be the exact same day my first novel was published and had soared into the top ten. She would have been so proud, had she known.

  I could tell you, by the time my daughter was born six years ago, she was barely able to acknowledge that her latest great-grandchild had been put in her arms. She certainly didn’t know the relationship they shared, or that my daughter’s middle name was Anna – her own name.

  But what has happened over the last ten years doesn’t define my grandmother. I still remember the fiercely stern woman – the bad cop to my grandad’s good cop – who could quiet us with a look. But her exterior was all bluff because it was Granny who would unlock the special biscuit cupboard and treat us to a chocolate digestive when we visited. It was Granny would slip 10p into our hands to buy sweets with. It was granny who made the hottest and strongest cup of tea known to man and Granny who loved my grandfather which such fierce love it winded me.

  One of our last lucid conversations was just before I became a mother for the first time – when this devoutly religious woman pressed a prayer card into my hand to take into the labour ward with me. I’m not overly religious but I prayed through my labour using that card to give me strength – feeling the strength of generations past.

  In telling Áine’s story, I wanted to give a voice to people like my grandmother who led full and productive lives before Alzheimer’s robbed them of what they should have had left.

  I wanted to show that, along with their new status as a dementia patient, they are still themselves.

  You don’t understand dementia until it comes to your door – but I hope this book helps explain it a little.

  If you enjoyed

  Still You by Claire Allan,

  why not try an exclusive chapter of a previous title The First Time I Said Goodbye

  also published by Poolbeg.

  Chapter 1

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go. I did. I wanted to go with all my heart but I suppose in many ways I was a coward in the end. It was too much. There isn’t a day that has passed where I haven’t missed you.

  * * *

  Meadow Falls, Florida, USA, May 2010

  It seemed only right that it was raining. It would have been wrong if it had been anything but. You can’t bury someone on a sunny day. I couldn’t have buried him on a day when the sun was splitting the stones and the sprinklers were dancing around the lawns and when the Southern Belles were out in force, fanning themselves and thinking about getting back to the wake for an iced tea on the porch. Black on a sunny day wouldn’t have been at all comfortable. Not that the shift dress I wore was comfortable anyway. It was starchy, stiff, far removed from the comfortable clothes I usually slouched around in. “It suits you,” my mother said when I walked into the church. She was already sitting in the front pew, her hands crossed, her gaze fixed firmly ahead, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. She glanced at me only briefly as she told me I looked nice, and I sat beside her and reached for her hand. Now was not the time to brush off her compliment – to tell her I was afraid the dress might choke me or split at the seams. She had enough worries without me adding to them. I stared ahead too, trying to fix my gaze on whatever she was looking at, and squeezed her hand. She didn’t squeeze back, but she didn’t shrug me off either.

  We sat there, together, awaiting the big arrival. Waiting for my father to make his final journey into the church – neither of us being able to face walking in behind him, having people gawp at us in our grief, nudge each other at our tears, give us that pitying ‘poor them’ look. No, we had walked in separately, ahead of the congregation, and fixed our eyes forward, barely touching, and I tried not to breathe out. I heard the door of the church open, the footsteps of our fellow mourners, and I felt my mother breathe in – and as she exhaled there was a small shudder which revealed to me just how she was feeling. I squeezed her hand a little again as the music started to play – wanting to make it better for her – and wanting to make it better for myself, and I thanked God it was raining, because it would have been wrong to bury him on a sunny day.

  It would have felt all out of sorts, as if the world was spinning off its axis, to have had the sun smiling on us when inside there was a small part of me screaming as if I was still six years old and the only person who could make it better was my daddy – the daddy who was never coming back.

  * * *

  Craig’s arm slipped around my waist. I instinctively breathed in, away from him, and I tensed as I felt his hand take mine. He cuddled up closer to me, asking softly if I was awake. Yes. I was awake. I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to talk. I don’t think I had actually slept. Maybe I had. I vaguely recalled Liam Neeson walking into our room at three in the morning, so probably it was fair to say I had drifted off. The rest of the time, however, I had just lain there, looking at the red light on the clock, watching the numbers slowly changing. My father had been gone four days. I wondered when I would stop thinking of it in terms of
days, in terms of weeks, in terms of time passing, and just think of him as gone. Maybe I never would. Maybe now I just had another day to mark – another day to count from. It was one day since his funeral. One day since I had stood at his graveside and willed my heart not to shatter as they lowered him into the ground. I was a grown woman. I was thirty-seven. Now was not the time to scream for “Daddy”. My mother had stood stoically. I’m not sure if she cried – she didn’t sniff. I didn’t notice a dabbing of eyes but I noticed her squeeze my hand a little tighter as we were invited forward to toss some soil into the grave on top of his casket. I hated that part. Even though I could feel the almost overpowering, claustrophobic warmth of Craig behind me, I had shuddered there in the clammy warmth of the graveyard. My mother had been led away by her friend Louisa, while I stood there and stared, entranced by the hole in the ground.

  “We should go,” Craig had said and I’d glanced up to see we were all but alone in the cemetery, the majority of mourners having clambered into their cars and the waiting limos to be ferried back to the golf club for lunch.

  I was shivering in the rain – my neck cold as the drops slid down my back. They weren’t cold. I knew they could not be and yet they felt like ice. I felt like ice.

  “I don’t want to leave him,” I muttered.

  “Then stay here as long as you need,” he said softly and he let me stand there until I was shivering so hard that my teeth were chattering. I felt . . . I felt confused. Broken. Torn.

  “We’ll get you warm, we’ll get you changed and then we’ll go on to Green Acres,” he said softly, leading me away, and in a haze of pain and grief I’m almost ashamed to admit that my only thought was that I didn’t own a single other thing in black and I would look like an insensitive heel at my own father’s wake.