1996: a crappy year.
Grandma spent New Year's Eve of 1996,
and New Year's Day too for that matter, in Wycombe Hospital, four miles from her
home in Marlow. Her ailments were
increasing and diversifying into cancer.
What upset her the most was that she had been unable to wrap, address and
send her cards and packages that year. Christmas was her annual time of
contact with her larger world, and had been as long as Ian could remember.
So at her request Marie-Hélène and
Ian spent New Year's Eve in Grandma's hospital room with the wrapping paper
and cards that they brought from her home helping her wrap and address her
Christmas
wishes. That was what she wanted to do. She was very grateful for our
help.
1996 was a crappy year. Not a lot else to say.
Ian, Nick and Tom
visited Grandma for the last time the weekend before she died. We stayed in a
hotel near to her home in Marlow so that the boys and their turbulence would not
bother her. She no longer had the strength to handle them for long periods.
And
so after putting the boys to bed in their hotel room, Ian drove over alone to
visit her on the Saturday evening. She had been flat and worn out all
weekend, but during this short visit perked up and showed her old energy,
buzzing and laughing, interested and interesting. She even called in the Doctor for a short
visit to attend to an ache in her arm. Without actually saying it, he conveyed
the question, "why am I here?"
For some reason, Ian ended up leaving
at the end of the evening, quite late, through the
French windows in her living room rather than through the front door. He
smiled back at her, and she gave him a sort of grin, looking at him from a
distance now that the Doctor had gone, through a tunnel, I thought to myself.
That was my
last look at my mum. We went back home on the Sunday, and she died on the Wednesday.
She was buried next to her mum and dad in the grounds of The Abbey, Erdington. Her funeral,
in
the Birmingham that she grew up in, took place on Nick's birthday.
Like I said, a crappy year.
Again, we did not send an annual update, but here is an edited letter sent by
Ian to a friend in the UK, another Ian, looking back on 1996.
Dear Ian,
I do hope you find the time during one of your Paris conferences to look
us up, or plan another holiday here. You and yours will always be welcome, and
there are enough rooms to fit you all in even when we are all here.
Nick asked after you the other day.
"Do we still see Ian?"
he asked, somehow giving me the impression that he was wondering if the divorce
had interfered with your and my friendship. He has seen the divorce interfere
with so much that it begins to explain everything in his head. I told him that
we did still see you, but that it has been a while since our paths have crossed.
"
It’s
because of money, is it dad?"
he continued, once more jumping on a reason for misery that he has learned over
the past couple of years. I told him that it was not, but am not sure that he
believed me.
With childlike clarity, that little exchange summarized the
recent past. Ian, it has been a shitty year. Nick and Tom's mother dragged on
the divorce through the hearing which was finally held in October. What wears me
down the most is the extent of the bad stuff that trickles down to Nick and Tom.
It
’s not
simply the uncertainty for the past 18 months, since the preliminary judgment gave me
custody, although that has inevitable effects on them. . . .
Judgment will be given in the divorce in January, and she has
already told the boys that she will appeal. I hope that it will be favorable, if
only so that I can have a bargaining chip to persuade her not to appeal. None of
us need any more of this. It hangs over you like a storm cloud on a heath, and
the storm never seems to break. I still worry about the judgment, of course:
there were three woman judges at the hearing, two woman lawyers, one woman party
and me!
Finances have also been catastrophic this year. In addition to
the alimony and child support that I have been paying, all of the joint debts
from prior to the separation continue to fall on me alone, and my practice has
been suffering. We were already planning on staying home most of the summer
because of financial limitations when my poor old mum finally succumbed to her
years of illness and misery and died on July 24th. The death
certificate talked of pancreatic cancer, but she had simply had enough of being
chronically ill and gave up one day.
And by now, you must have had enough of this miserable letter.
So I’ll
stop the shit. It is Christmas, after all, and Christmas perks all of us up.
Charlie is the world’s
most adorable baby. He actually laughs as much as or more than he cries. He is a
very lucky chap. All four kids dote on him; everybody’s
brother, he is one of the things that ties this household together. And his
mother spends hours and hours with him, to the point where he screams if he is
left alone. He sleeps almost religiously through every night, and eats
everything put in front of him, although he has a marked preference for what is
put in front of us. At mealtimes, after his own bottle or bowl, he tours the
table begging from children and parents indiscriminately for anything he can
get. It’s
all such a pleasant change.
The other high spot in our lives is
this house. It
