'I’m an only child and I've lost both parents. It’s left me with complex feelings about death.'

It’s a strange feeling to hold all the memories of your family. To have no one left to corroborate childhood memories with. To know gaps in your knowledge will never be filled. What was your first food? How did your parents meet? What was their favourite food?  

My mum died 19 years ago. My dad only months. As an only child, there is a particular weight to being the only family member left.

Here is what I have learned. 

You cannot grieve in advance.

Grief comes after the death. Or at least another form of it. Knowing the Grim Reaper is hovering nearby unleashes a certain type of mourning. A knowing that things are set to change irrevocably. Even though you know a loss is coming, you cannot prepare for it. You can’t cheat. 

My mum was unwell for years. A horrible tumour on her brain stem that just wouldn’t f**k off.  

Image: Supplied.

It wasn’t cancerous, but these raspberry-like bubbles of blood gathered on arguably the most crucial part of the body and couldn’t be left unattended.

The first surgery was a shock, but Mum mostly recovered - a bit of bodily numbness and a limp. Lots of rehab and physio, but she continued lecturing fashion and education at the University of Canberra. Continued driving her red convertible sports car. 

When the tumour grew back the second time, the surgery was far worse. Months in hospital, I can’t say how many in intensive care. Initially in Sydney, then Canberra. Suddenly the red drop-top was traded for a white automatic Honda. The slight limp replaced with a walking frame, and even a wheelchair at times. 

Her unsteadiness led to countless falls, many of which I couldn’t pick her up off the ground for. So instead I’d find a book and sit and read to her where she lay; in the hallway, the laundry, the garage, by the dining table. Often as she or I, or both of us, wept at the sheer shitness of it all.

Watch: 5 Things About Grief No One Really Tells You. Post continues after video.

When the symptoms appeared for a third time, the slightly dilated pupil and a wandering eye, I knew Mum couldn’t go through another operation. She wouldn’t put Dad or I through it either. And for that, I was grateful. I was 14 then. It was hard, embarrassing to be honest, to have a disabled parent. And for Mum to lose her abilities like that was devastating for her. 

No, the third time the tumours emerged, we all knew that was it. We had time to process, to say everything that needed to be said. But that last morning, as I headed out to school, Mum was hard to wake to say bye to. But she managed to rouse herself from a near comatose state as those raspberries continued to leak in her brain stem for a last hand squeeze and an ‘I love you’. 

Mum was 50. She’d always said she’d get a nose job for her 50th, only half joking. It wasn’t how any of us expected life to pan out. 

It took six months and a psychotic break for everyone to realise I wasn’t coping. I wasn’t grieving. I wasn’t feeling what needed to be felt. You can’t cheat grief any more than you can cheat death.

Image: Supplied.

Death can be merciful.

I’d felt death’s presence with Dad for the last few years as aging took hold. Surgeries became more common and fraught. Falls increased in frequency and severity. 

It was a fall that cause the final cards to fall. Initially, a broken collarbone and a laceration to the eyebrow where his head hit a stair and knocked him out. It wasn’t for another five days that his speech slurred, his movements jerky and erratic. 

He had a massive stroke. Most likely caused by the blow to the head, and worsened by the continuation of blood thinners for a heart condition. 

That first day I could still understand him, just. But it was quickly downhill from there. Imagine the horror of being able to think clearly, but not articulate anything. Words coming out a slurry, staccato mess. 

I watched as he literally tried for his last stand. The physio gallantly trying to help Dad out of bed one final time. Dad couldn’t do it. My heart broke.

Image: Supplied.

On day two, the doctors came by and were able to show Dad and I the brain scans. The enormous amount of permanent brain damage. We were told he would never recover his speech, mobility, or ability to swallow. Dad chose for all life-preserving measures to be removed. 

Day three saw his nasal-gastric tube removed. His nose increasingly chipped and bloody by his jerky hand movements trying to scratch the tape and massage the discomfort of the tube. It was strange to watch the bruising on his face and across his chest change colour and fade as his brain continued to die.

Dad had always wanted to die in his house. Which I think is quite common. On day four, immensely frustrated that palliative care wasn’t organised yet, he tried to roll himself out of his bed so he could crawl the six kilometres home. He couldn’t roll himself out - yelling out garbled profanities in frustration.

The next five days were merciless. Dad’s decent unrelenting in its steady, devastating march. 

On his last day, he could no longer communicate or even blink. The hand that had given me a reassuring squeeze my entire life now lay unmoving in mine. Warm, yet simultaneously limp and stiff. He’d just sort of groan in discomfort as we tried various things to help - was it rolling? Was his mouth dry? Was his broken collarbone aching? But somehow, when he saw his seven-month granddaughter he smiled. Willow got Dad’s last smile, after that there was nothing outwardly of him left.

His death that night was a mercy. That was no life to live.

Image: Supplied.

Memories fade.

One of the hardest things about the recent death of my father is how close he still feels. I can hear his laugh so clearly, hearty, round and full. I can hear his words, I know his phrases and sayings. I know the cadence of his speech, the sway of his elderly walk. The feel of his cuddle. 

Those memories of my mother are so faint now. I can’t recall her laugh or really even her voice. Knowing these same things will befall my Dad’s memory cause my heart to truly, physically ache. 

A snapshot is taken in your mind.

I think it’s almost involuntary, but you instantly notice everything after a death. This is how they last saw my hair, but it’ll grow. This is what they had in their shaving cabinet, that now has no one to use. This was how they last saw their dining room. In Dad’s case, their infant granddaughter. This is how they last saw me. 

But everything will change. Wardrobes are emptied. Houses are sold. Babies grow. I age. 

But you’ll never forget how they last saw you, and how different everything becomes. 

Image: Supplied.

Organising a funeral is like organising a wedding - but utterly fucked.

The similarities are uncanny; invites, venue, attire, speeches, catering, bar tabs, slide shows, music, floral arrangements, the cost… 

The key difference is that you have about a week to do it all. And you’re emotionally distraught. It is a horror. 

Biscuits and sweets are the best gifts, I think. I couldn’t walk past a florist without crying for years after Mum died, our house was so full of bouquets. Plants are also a complex gift, “here have this thing you have to care for and keep alive, when someone you loved most has just died. Oh, and every time you look at it, think of them and hold back the tears.” No thanks. But a yummy treat, something to snack on, that’s a good option.  

The lives lived and left.

Left for you to sift through. Every sweater that still smells like them. Every object the carefully collected. Every trinket bought on some adventure. Every memento placed on every shelf. 

It’s brutal. Heart-wrenching in a whole new way as memories flood in, and more gaps in my knowledge of my parents are realised.

I don’t think I realised how much of an impact Dad had in being able to ask, “Was that right? Did we do that on this holiday?” Lately, we talked a lot about my birth and what it was like to be a new parent. My daughter is just starting to crawl, I wish I knew more about little me - what I was like when I began crawling. And I know there’ll now be endless pangs like this as the years progress and my little Willow continues to bloom.

Mum had a wonderful charm bracelet. It’s full of tiny trinkets that Dad bought Mum throughout the 30-plus-year relationship. But I can’t tell you where or when any of them were bought. 

I found a beautiful pocket watch in the safe, but I don’t know whose it is, where it came from or what wonderful story it tells. 

The sheer volume of stuff is overwhelming. All of it once precious, now destined for the op-shop, or worse, the tip. Some things I’ve considered selling, but again the number of things makes my head spin - the thought of then having to field all the queries on all the items, make all the meeting times at the now hollow house for people to only show half the time… no, it seems best to try and order the skips and organise the Salvos pick-ups. Making small piles of keepsakes as I go. 

The unexpected pangs.

When Mum died, electronic organisers were all the rage. DVD players were new, phones were black and white, and MySpace was still a year or two away. There was no digital footprint left. 

But I still see Dad’s smiling emoji face as part of my Apple family. His profile appears every time I open Netflix. His face pops up in my Apple Photos highlights. He is still at the top of my favourites call list.  Every one a stab in the chest. Gut-wrenching. 

I’m torn between deleting these accounts immediately and keeping them forever, so I suppose that knife will continue to unexpectedly twist.

So that’s it. What I’ve learned from the death of my parents, almost 20 years apart. I hope you find some comfort in knowing you are not alone, or some forewarning in what’s to come.

Jessica Conway is a journalist and communications creative living in Canberra with her wife, baby daughter, two dogs and a cat. You can find more of her work here, here and here.