Friday night in August is not a good time to die

Ten years ago tonight I got the call to come to the hospital because my dad was dying. In fact he had already died but the nurse who rang hadn’t been able to find a doctor to certify death. As a nurse she was not permitted to inform the relatives until the requisite form had been completed by the requisite doctor. She just urged us to come with haste. Friday night in August is not a good time to die.

I arrived first at the small dark geriatric ward at about 11.30pm. I said quietly to a nurse sitting behind the desk: “I am here to see Mr Robinson.” Strange the formal nomenclature one uses at these times, a formality I strayed from as I asked bluntly: “Is he dead?” The nurse paused slightly but barely looked up as she said, “Yes”. The hush of the sleeping ward felt all wrong. Surely this news needed noise and drama and loud utterances of regret, not whispers?

My mother arrived and I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that her husband had died. Moreover, I felt crazily that it wasn’t allowed; Dad was not officially dead yet. I asked if we could see him but the nurse said that no, we could not, we had to wait for the doctor to come. She didn’t explain to my mother why.

Mum and I were ushered into what appeared to be a lumber room to wait among piles of chairs, a broken air conditioning unit, and a training skeleton. I unpiled a chair for my mother to perch on. It seemed faintly surreal to be waiting in what was really a large cupboard for a pronouncement of the utmost seriousness and finality. But it was almost unbearable that we were not being allowed to see him. Friday night in August is really not a good time to die. I said to my mother that they couldn’t stop us seeing him, so we left to search for his room.

The door was open and there he was all alone, wires still in, feeding tube still churning. He was so obviously not alive. No dignity for him with the machines on and no one there. We held his hands; I switched off the hated feeding tube; we felt at sea. I went back to reception and asked the nurse to remove the machines. Tidy him up a little. Night shift among the dying isn’t fun and her mood was uncooperative.

Then a young man came in who looked about twelve, jittery youth, and said he’d never certified a death before. Said he didn’t know how, and then rushed off to find a more experienced doctor. Standing about in the ward, talking in undertones, not wanting the other patients to hear, and fearing being a harbinger, superstitiously I didn’t want to be crassly talking about death among the sleeping elderly and the sleeping dying.

The doctor came back and less nervous now told us he’d been shown how to certify a death. With a confiding and rueful smile he said he’d only qualified recently. With no hint of the anguish I felt, I congratulated him. Finally then, “Your father has died”. No shit.

The rest of the family arrived, and we waited outside the hospital’s mortuary chapel in the dawn light for them to bring Dad. After a while, I saw through the frosted glass window a body being delivered down some kind of slide and bumping on to a gurney. Just a body now, not a person; an aching awful absence of dignity. The door opened and we were let in. Friday in August is not a kind time to die.