And Time Stood Still, page 8
A steady boat
She packed the cargo
He steadied the load.
When he came to
Waters quiet
He anchored home
On a summer’s night.
His going reflected
An approach to life
Gentle and calm
Without stress or strife.
On that warm June day
Each remembered
His kindly way
Sunshine and singing
Warmed our tears
Recalling memories
Of happy years.
In Clonfert ’neath
A patch of green
On a simple stone
Can his name be seen.
A loving husband
Father and friend
A gentle man
To the very end.
Chapter 11
The Gardener
When I married Gabriel and went to live in Innishannon my mother’s advice was, ‘You are now going to be part of another family and don’t you be the cause of any trouble.’ At the time I didn’t know what she was talking about. As it happened, my new husband’s parents were both dead and he had been reared by his Aunty Peg and Uncle Jacky, who both thought that he had three halos! Aunty Peg viewed me as a potential problem – and she was right because, like two stones in a bucket, she and I rubbed off each other until I got my corners rounded. But Uncle Jacky was an all-forgiving, wonderful man, whom I loved dearly from day one. Maybe he and Peg were a good combination because she never let anybody get away with anything, whereas Jacky only saw what was good in everyone, which could be a risky business if you were running the village shop and all your customers had little red account books and very few dealt in cash!
Jacky was a great gardener and, of course, he dished out his garden produce free of charge across the counter. He worked on the principle that it had cost him nothing and he never counted the price of his gardening because to him it was a pure labour of love. It was his time off from the shop and was his all-consuming passion.
Aunty Peg, however, worked on a different principle. She made jams and jellies from his gooseberries, raspberries and blackcurrants and charged what she considered her due for it, though if she liked you there could be an extra pot slipped into your message bag! I learned a lot from the pair of them. They knew everybody in the parish and could trace their family roots back for generations. If you wanted an edited version, you asked Uncle Jacky, who told you all the good things about all his relations, but if you wanted the full, unabridged edition, you asked Aunty Peg.
Jacky was a saint and his garden was his heaven. I loved his garden – the first time I saw it I thought that I had rambled into the pages of a children’s book. It sloped up from the back door and right at the top, at the end of a winding path, was the henhouse. He had built this himself under the trees in the grove, as well as all the other little rickety sheds around the garden that were used for his tools, and his cats and dogs. The hens – Rhode Island Reds, Wyandottes and Sussex – had the run of the garden where they scratched between drills of potatoes, rhubarb and onions. The hens were like the league of nations and we enjoyed a great mix of eggs: large and small, white and brown. Jacky was not into pruning, so there was a flowing abundance about that entire garden – his rambling roses climbed over homemade wooden arches and across nearby hedges. Almost everything that he grew found its way onto the kitchen table and visitors never went home empty-handed. As a young man he had planted apple trees and crab-apple trees so Aunty Peg was never short of supplies for making what in later years became known in our family as ‘Aunty Peg’s Apple Cake’. At Christmas his holly trees decorated not only our house, but many other village houses too. It made me realise the wisdom of having your own holly trees as you didn’t have to go scrambling across wet fields on cold winter days, and every year I bless him at Christmas when I can just go out the back door and cut his holly.
Jacky’s gardening was all about enjoyment. No matter what he was doing, when you went out to see him in the garden he had time to lean on his spade and have a chat, and he loved to walk you around and explain things to you. He would make anyone love gardening because he exuded such a sense of pleasure in it. In his shop he was fast-moving and efficient, but it was as if he took off that coat when he came out into his garden and here his true spirit emerged. He relaxed and glowed with contentment. Sometimes, if you came on him unawares, he would have his rosary beads twined around his fingers, as he weeded and prayed. Our children loved him and he thought that they were perfect which, of course, led to a mutual adoration society. He never saw any wrong in them, which meant that they got away with murder! Every second week he took them on the bus to Bandon to get their hair cut, and they always got more than a haircut!
But Jacky did not confine his goodness to his home, shop and garden. Every morning he ran around the village and delivered the paper to all the houses on his way to daily Mass, and also delivered milk and the paper to the priest, changed the bulbs in the church when needed and cut the grass in the graveyard. He was a maintenance man for the entire village. But if someone overstepped the mark and took advantage of his goodness, Aunty Peg intervened and sorted them out in no uncertain fashion. As time went on, I grew to appreciate Aunty Peg’s stalwart qualities and I would sometimes remember my mother’s description of my grandmother: she’d kill you and she’d cure you.
Jacky’s other great love was the GAA. He had played, refereed and held every club officership in his local and divisional club. The most valuable piece of jewellery that I now possess is a gold medal that he got from his local West Cork GAA division, dated with his terms of office 1924-1927, and Aunty Peg had it fashioned it into a beautiful broach. Because of its history it is deeply treasured.
Whereas Aunty Peg, who was a woman of some size and stature, occasionally felt the need of medical aid, Jacky was slim and athletic and as fit as a fiddle, and never bothered any doctor. So when, in the small hours of a cold November morning in 1977, he got a heart attack, it came as a bolt from the blue. Aunty Peg arrived at the foot of our stairs calling for help, and Gabriel and I tumbled downstairs, ran through the adjoining shop and up their stairs, where Jacky was sitting up in bed, ashen-faced. Dr Cormac, who lived down the road, was there within minutes and then Gabriel and Jacky were on the road to the hospital in Cork. He recovered, but there was a long, hard road ahead of him and he spent months in hospital, during which time as a result of complications he had to have a leg amputated.
Gabriel and I visited every night and he was an amazing patient who always had a cheery word for everyone. On the night after his amputation operation I was apprehensive, fearing that he would be very upset, but rather than us comforting him it was he who made it easy for us. Finally, he came home with a crutch and a very positive attitude. His old friends and neighbours visited him and on warm, sunny days he sat in his beloved garden. But it was a tough time for him because this active man, who had spent his life looking after others now was in the reverse situation. He found his artifical limb cumbersome and difficult to manage, and so the next step was the rehabilitation centre in faraway Dun Laoghaire, outside Dublin, where he would be trained to use it.
On a bright sunny July day, Gabriel and I drove him up to Dun Laoghaire, but as we said goodbye to him at the hospital I could see for the first time a deep sadness in his eyes. Every day Aunty Peg and I wrote to him and posted on the Cork Examiner – we wanted to keep him in touch with the local news until he came home. But he never came home. Early one morning there was a phone call to say that during the night he had had a fatal heart attack.
Aunty Peg was devastated and Gabriel and I headed back up to Dun Laoghaire to bring Uncle Jacky home. I dreaded arriving there and seeing the body of this wonderful man whom we all loved so much. But the strange thing was that even in death he made it easy for us because on arrival we found ourselves looking at the smiling face of someone who was completely at peace.
On this occasion I was again reminded of small kindnesses that mean so much at such times: it was comforting to meet Innishannon people, now living in Dublin, who had come to be with us. Because of it, the journey home was an easier one and Jacky arrived into the village to be welcomed by a guard of honour of the GAA club that he had served so well.
Early on the morning of his funeral I walked up through his beloved garden where his roses were in full bloom. The birds were singing and white butterflies fluttered around his rambling roses. This had been his heaven on earth. I hoped that wherever Jacky was now he had a garden, because there he could create his own heaven. In his garden he left behind a wonderful heritage which, in subsequent years, became my own healing place when other bereavements came my way.
Jacky’s Garden
Here there is no set layout,
Nature’s freedom is all about.
A garden cared by loving hands,
Green profusion, nothing planned.
Flowers and fruit freely abound;
Bees in their hives hum a mellow sound;
No regimented hedges in orderly array:
This is a garden with nature’s sway.
A haven created by a man of love,
Man of the earth, with thoughts of above;
Here nature, love and care combine
To create a refuge, an escape from time.
Chapter 12
A Woman of Substance
In the weeks following Jacky’s death, Aunty Peg seemed to shrink. While she appeared to have been the strong one in the relationship, Jacky had actually supplied the fine threads that had held their world together. He had provided a deep, resilient pool in which Peg had the security to be totally at ease and to depend on him to provide silent support. With his going, that security was gone. Because she and I had lived for so long in such close proximity, I was aware of this and on the day of his funeral as I stood by Jacky’s grave I found myself asking him how she was going to cope without him. This may sound a bit hard to believe, but in some way it filtered through my mind that Peg would soon follow after him. Even in death he was taking care of us. So when, within a few weeks, Dr Cormac referred her to hospital for tests it did not come as a complete surprise. She was diagnosed with cancer, and rather than accept treatment she discharged herself and came home declaring that she could not ‘put up with all that carry-on’ and that she wanted to die at home in her own bed.
At first I was a bit perplexed by this unorthodox approach, even though I should not have been surprised because Peg was always a law unto herself. Dr Cormac, who knew her well, was understanding of her decision, telling me, ‘It’s her choice and we will respect it.’
‘But will we be able to cope?’ I asked.
‘We will cope,’ he assured me. ‘I’ll be there when she needs me.’ And he was true to his word.
For the first few months Peg was able to manage and pottered around her own little house and then her sister, Mary, always known as Min, came to stay with her. But that arrangement did not last long as they had never got on too well and after a few weeks sparks flew and Min abandoned ship and was on the bus back home to Cork. Peg was all right on her own during the day, with someone popping in and out, but she needed company at night. She had always been a bad sleeper and she now found the nights very long. With the departure of Min, one of our boys, Seán, slept in her room. He was ten years old, and at night they had long chats and he grew extremely fond of her – and during that time he learnt long prayers, the family history and all about the life of the parish!
After Jacky’s funeral Peg had got a huge number of cards and letters from around the parish, and indeed from around the world, as Jacky had been a cornerstone in the village for so long. Now, every day after breakfast, she sat down at the table in her little sitting room and proceeded to answer all this correspondence, sometimes with long, detailed letters. She was a great letter writer. Her application to this task, despite all the trauma she was going through, was admirable and her letter writing in some way seemed to ease the pain of her grief. She may have found it difficult to articulate her feelings to those around her, so letters to old friends were a great outlet for expressing her hurt: the deep wound of grief needs expression to be healed.
Gradually her condition became more frail and she needed more care at night, so Seán and I switched places and I became her night nurse. After his amputation Jacky had slept downstairs, but Aunty Peg refused to leave her familiar bedroom and eventually she was unable to climb the stairs. Her bedroom became her sanctuary – indeed, her whole world – which she shared with her dog, Topsy, and myself. Topsy, in his day, had been a small, light little terrier but now, after years of over-loving, had grown into a big, soft, white ball, waddling around on four props and he could barely climb up the stairs – and sometimes had to air-lifted from the rear.
All her life Aunty Peg had been forthright and sometimes demanding, but now she became tolerant and gentle. Every night before going to sleep we both had a brandy and port because it helped her to sleep, and one night she told me, ‘If I don’t die soon you’ll be an alcoholic!’
Regarding the matter of dying, I was never quite sure if she really wanted to know the details or not, because one day she would want to know and the next day she would be planning a trip and had forgotten all about dying. I discussed it with Dr Cormac.
‘When she asks me “Am I dying?” what do I tell her?’ I asked him.
‘Well, there are two ways of looking at it,’ he told me. ‘The modern way is to tell a patient their situation out straight, but I’m not sure that’s always the wisest decision because then you take away their hope. At the moment Peg has good days when she feels well – well enough to make plans – but once you have answered that question she will remember it on the good days and it will take the pleasure out of them. And Peg probably has it worked it out for herself, anyway, but working it out and articulating it are two different things. Once something is said it gets imprinted on the mind.’
To me that made a whole lot of sense. A few days later when a long-forgotten cousin came to visit, I discovered that Peg was quite aware that she was on her final journey. While he chatted with her I went downstairs to make tea to bring to her room for the two of them, but on my way up he passed me on his way down, muttering under his breath. She was sitting up in bed having dispatched him on his way. She had never really liked this man and was quite annoyed that he had come at all, but when he told her she was looking well that was a step too far and she dismissed him in no uncertain terms.
‘I have only to look in the mirror,’ she said scornfully. ‘It tells the whole story. Does that fellow think I’m a fool?’
But mostly she enjoyed her visitors, especially if it was somebody that she really liked, and I soon realised that it is important that only good friends visit you when you are very sick and that visitors do not stay too long. I appreciated the good neighbours who popped in and out, especially those who would sit quietly with her. The people who were most helpful and understanding were the people who had nursed a family member at home. To quote my sister Ellen’s favourite phrase, ‘They had walked in the shoes.’
Gradually Aunty Peg grew weaker and needed somebody with her at all times. It was a balancing act between several people: Dr Cormac called every day and was a tremendous support; and working in the shop at the time we had a wonderful girl, Ann, who constantly ran up and down the stairs to Peg between customers to make sure that all was well. The back-up of friends made coping possible and acts of unexpected kindness kept us going. One night just before Christmas I came downstairs to find a box of delicious mince pies on the table. It did my heart good. The younger children in our family visited Aunty Peg regularly and had no problem doing so, but the two older ones were upset by her appearance and found it much more difficult. As I walked with Peg through her final days I sometimes got the strange feeling that when she went I too might go with her – it was a crazy notion, born of exhaustion and too many long hours in the sick room.
Towards the end she began to have visions. One day when I went into her room she asked, ‘Did you meet her?’
‘Who?’ I asked in surprise.
‘The woman in grey. She was sitting there on the bed and went out the door just before you came in. You should have met her.’
On another occasion she talked about Jacky being in the room. She could see him sitting at the end of the bed. It was a most extraordinary time when I felt that we were living between two worlds.
Then, early one morning, she went into a coma and our neighbour, Betsy, sat with me and helped to alleviate the discomfort that comes with a slow death. As Aunty Peg eased out of life, a profound stillness seeped into the room. It folded itself around her bed like a soft veil. I felt that I was standing at the edge of a deep mystery into which I had no vision. She had gone into an awesome silence that was beyond the limits of my human mind.
Afterwards I walked down the stairs and into her little sitting room and looked at the things that she had so lovingly collected and polished all her life. She would never again touch any of them – and the absolute finality of death hit me. It had been a long, hard journey, but I was glad that we had walked it together. After the funeral we locked the front door of her house and I did not go in there for several months. It would have seemed like a violation immediately to begin dismantling her little corner of the world and all that she held dear. She was gone, but I had no wish to eradicate her essence. Healing time was needed.
During that time I had a strange recurring dream in which I was running up the stairs of her house and then opening the door into her room, but finding nothing there. I would wake up in a panic, falling into nothingness. But gradually the dream faded away.
Jacky and Peg’s house was to become part of the extended shop, so one day we took all her furniture out into the back yard, treated it for woodworm and polished it before moving it into our house. She had died in March and it took all summer to clear out their old house; Gabriel’s niece, Dolores, came every day to help. Uncle Jacky’s family had lived in that house for four generations. Going through old letters and pictures is a slow process, but very worthwhile because it is healing to the spirit to take the time to let loved ones go gently. It can be a sad and tearful experience too, but in some way we are sending them lovingly on their way. Over the years Aunty Peg had collected lovely bits and pieces which she had treasured and now, out of respect for her and Jacky, we too treasure them. Family collectables are valuable on account of the years of loving care that have been showered on them, and when somebody dies I have found it healing to treat what they leave behind with loving respect.
