"Bury Me At Sea": A Father's Final Voyage
A WW2 Navy veteran's request becomes a son's great adventure
The Bombshell and the Pain
And, yes, the matter was eventually resolved, far better than satisfactorily. Each parent received the burial they desired and deserved.
Fulfilling their conflicting wishes, however, turned out to be much more complicated and harder work than I imagined and would lead me to stand one day about ten years later, very tired and quite alone, on a slippery shelf of rock beside the Atlantic Ocean with a wooden boat full of ashes in my hands.
* * * * *
Mother’s Death Breaks the Silence
Sunday, November 19, 2000 -
I visited my mother at Versa Care, an ‘old age home’ outside of London. I was accompanied by my older son David and his son Jackson. Jack was only about two years old at the time and will not likely recall the uncomfortable scene.
My mother was almost totally uncommunicative because of Parkinson’s Disease, dressed in her well-worn burgandy housecoat and pajamas, and I lifted her head and shoulders carefully so she could see Jack in David’s arms. She was quite stiff and I don’t think she recognized any of us.
I recall her shared room was quite small, didn’t smell the best, and had a window to surrounding barren fields. My mother was in her last days and we didn’t stay very long.
Sunday, November 26, 2000 -
I went for an early morning run with friends and afterward stretched and cooled off outside the Running Room store located at the corner of Richmond and Hyman streets in London. A Running Room staff member exitted the store and unexpectedly spoke to me.
“Your wife called and left a message. You’re supposed to call home.”
So I called home, suspecting all was not well. My wife Pat gently told me my mother had died. My demeanour changed during the few minutes I spent speaking to Pat and a friend asked if I was okay as I walked toward my car.
“My mother died while I was out running,” I said, without stopping. And I was soon home.
It’s true, the best laid plans can go awry. My mother died on the day I’d planned to take my father to see her for the first time at Versa Care. He wanted to see her and I know she would have wanted to see him, because during their last visit together, at Trillium Retirement Home (mother’s last place of residence) in their hometown of Norwich, they had been very happy to see and visit with one another. Their conversation had been close, heart-felt and - to a degree - animated, and when it came time to go my mother declared she wanted Doug to stay longer.
“Don’t leave me,” she said.
My parents' wedding picture circa February, 1946
And on November 26, instead of taking my father to see his wife I visited him with tragic news.
Once home from the Running Room I asked siblings who lived nearby - and already alerted that our mother had died - to join me in the trip to my father’s small room at London’s Psychiatric Hospital on Highbury Avenue.
Before I visited my father, however, my brother Kim Douglas and I drove to Versa Care to see our mother for one last quiet visit. The two hours that passed there were likely full of dramatic weight from front to back but I can only recall four things.
First, my brother and I had to wait to see our mother’s body and have it released to a funeral home because a coroner had to see her before we did. Because mother was the third person to die at Versa Care during the week, her death had to be investigated. I doubted anything suspicious had happened. Parkinson’s had done its job. But I minded what seemed like a very long wait, and all the while I felt helpless, and out of sorts.
Second, when I had a private minute or two beside my mother’s bed, I stroked her arms as I’d done when she was alive but drifting away, and noticed her arms and hands looked in many ways like mine. We were indeed mother and son.
Third, when I lifted her in my arms and placed her upon a waiting gurney I realized how light and frail she had become. Surely she weighed less than ninety pounds.
Finally, I watched intently as the back door of a waiting hearse closed and she was taken away. As the car turned onto the county road I felt I’d seen my mother for the last time.
(I didn’t know at the time, but family members would be given the opportunity to see her momentarily just hours before she was cremated.)
The next thing I recall about the day's events is the walk my sister, brother and I shared in the hallway leading toward my father’s room at London Psychiatric Hospital on Highbury Avenue. We were dressed in our Sunday clothes and I was anxiously wondering what to say and how my father would respond.
But I needn’t have worried. He was braced for bad tidings. He was aware we were going to deliver serious news before we even reached his door.
“I could hear your leather shoes and the way you walked coming down the hall,” he said. And together we mourned our shared loss.
The countless remaining events of that day in November, 2000, are nothing more than a blur. I spent hours tracking down the whereabouts of an older sister and dealing with an all-knowing uncle and controlling aunt. I welcomed an array of guests to our home, fielded numerous phone calls and attempted to sort out many inevitable and pressing details. On more than one occasion I felt overwhelmed and recall snapping at a brother-in-law who just offered a small bit of advice.
However, later that day and through the next week my family (including our marriage partners) can be described as supportive and helpful. Together we made many necessary arrangements concerning the preparation of Edith’s obituary, her cremation, and a family gathering or wake in the family home according to her wishes. Without incident we assembled to read and act upon her last will and testament.
That being said, at some point, perhaps in early to mid-December, I realized storm clouds were very likely upon the horizon. Burial plans would have to be made, a grave site purchased, a grave stone engraved, and I recalled my mother didn’t want to be buried alone. About that she had been adamant.
As well, my father still wanted to be buried at sea, as he had wished and vividly expressed twenty years earlier.
Most of the pressures I felt on November 26 paled in comparison to what I thought lay ahead during discussions with my father.
Fortunately, while anxious thoughts filled my mind I received two gifts that brought some relief.
More to follow.
Please click here to read Bury Me At Sea (1)
Unattributed Photos GH
Most of the pressures I felt on November 26 paled in comparison to what I thought lay ahead during discussions with my father.
Fortunately, while anxious thoughts filled my mind I received two gifts that brought some relief.
The Italy Star, one of a few among my father's WWII medals
Edith and Doug, an early Christmas together circa 1953
Please click here to read Bury Me At Sea (1)
Unattributed Photos GH
