7

Help

We are deeply grieved, struggling to cope, but we are not alone.

We are not alone in our suffering. Our friend Vivien comes to see Tom. She, too, is suffering from terminal cancer, though it is in remission. She, too, will die, in just a couple of years’ time, leaving behind a husband and two teenage children. If you live in the Global South you expect suffering as part of life: poverty, hunger, disease, untimely death, war. It is not that these things are less painful for those who live in extreme poverty, war zones or refugee camps, but there is often, in such situations, a solidarity of suffering that is seen as part of normal life, accepted along with life’s joys. Like Job, who says to his wife, after disaster strikes: ‘Shall we receive the good at the hand of the Lord and not accept the bad as well?’1

In the West, instead there is a sort of unspoken myth that goes something like this: ‘If you make the right choices and keep your nose clean, you can enjoy a great life, keep fit and well, meet the perfect partner, produce your 2.4 children (who also grow up happy and well, excel at school, get great jobs and in turn meet ideal partners), have a wonderful, rewarding career, enjoy retirement and, finally, die peacefully and contentedly in your sleep at the age of 95.’ But it is a lie! I don’t know anyone like that. Everyone suffers. The so-called ‘normal life’ includes tragic loss, family breakdown, childlessness, serious illness, domestic violence, redundancy, bankruptcy, mental illness, failure, disappointment, serious accident and a host of other painful, traumatic events. Yet, in the West, when suffering comes upon us, we often think it is an anomaly. Imagining we are the only ones, we ask: ‘Why me?’ Too often we find no solidarity in our suffering; rather, we find painful isolation. Vivien, however, does not ask: ‘Why me?’ but ‘Why not me.’ She, and others, bring us solidarity in our suffering.

The medical and nursing teams in the neurology, oncology and surgical departments at the hospital are also all doing their level best for us. The community nurses, who come in to look after Tom, are excellent. Pippa Corrie, Tom’s consultant oncologist, and Stephen Barclay, our own GP, in particular, are wonderfully able, deeply caring, compassionate human beings. Reports that the NHS is going down the pan certainly do not match our experience. I think of our time in South America, where poor families we knew had to choose between taking a sick child to the doctor or buying food for the other children. Most could never have afforded the sort of treatment Tom is receiving. We could never have afforded the sort of treatment Tom is receiving. Mercifully those choices do not face us. We thank God for the NHS.

Also, Tom is not alone. He has good mates. Four great mates in particular. Like him they are awkward, 21–year-olds, not quite at ease with themselves in the adult world as yet. They have been mates for some time, since early days at Parkside Community College. All are quiet types, like Tom. None is a high-flyer. There are things you can measure by public examination, such as GCSEs and A levels, and things you can’t. Things like loyalty, generosity, courage, determination, stickability, good humour, compassion, care, love. All of these things Tom has in abundance – and so do the great mates.

It is not easy to sit with someone who is dying. It is, for many people, quite unbearable. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane the night before he dies asks his disciples to watch and pray with him for one hour, but they can’t.2 It is too difficult. They are overwhelmed with grief and they fall asleep. I know how they feel. Doing practical jobs is OK, but sitting with Tom and watching him die is torture. I can hardly bear it. Thank God that at least other members of the family are a lot better at it than me.

The great mates can face it – and do. Stephen, our GP, offers to meet with them separately. He explains to them what is happening to Tom and how best they can help him – mainly just by being there. They continue to visit Tom, regularly. They even come and sit with his body after he has died. Phil, Simon, Matthew and Daniel – thank you.

There are others, too. Tom is a great Star Wars fan, but he has been too ill to see the latest movie. Someone gets in touch with the Cambridge Picturehouse on his behalf and, through a string of contacts, they manage to ship over from America the reel of film and put on a special, private viewing of Attack of the Clones just for Tom and his mates, free of charge. He is not at all well but he is determined to go – and go he does. At the end of it he is utterly spent, and falls down the stairs on the way out of the cinema – but he has been to see it!

Despite what we had hoped, there is no remission. Tom is in no condition to travel in the UK, never mind abroad. We get in touch with Andrea at Lunn Poly and explain that we clearly cannot go to Crete after all. We wonder whether it might be possible to get at least a partial refund? She is incredibly kind and says she’ll do what she can. Within a week she has resold the holiday and reimbursed us, almost in full.

Tom walks to the loo one night, supported by his Zimmer frame. Unfortunately he stumbles and the syringe driver, which is slung around his shoulder, crashes into the toilet bowl and stops working. It is a tragic, and also comic, scene. We get him back to bed and ring the emergency number we’ve been given. He needs that constant infusion of morphine or he will be overwhelmed with intolerable pain. By 2 a.m. the emergency technical team have arrived, replaced the syringe driver with a new one, set it up and taken the old one away. So many people, often in quiet and unassuming ways, have helped us in our hour of need.

People say to us, ‘Just let me know if there is anything we can do to help’ but, for the most part, we are too caught up with Tom’s care to know what we need. In any case, we haven’t the energy to pick up the phone, but some people don’t need to be asked. They seem to know and they just do it. Shirley turns up, time and again, with a hot meal. People come round and just sit with us, listen to us. Others send us money – which, actually, helps a lot. Ank, my wonderful curate, and other people in the church, take over the burden of my work in the parish. The church as a supportive community is much underrated. They care about us, deeply. The diocese pays for me to have some counselling, though I don’t know how much good it does. I just sit there, for most of the sessions, saying nothing, until the counsellor informs me that we have five minutes left and asks how I’d like to use the time. I have no idea!

Annie’s best friend, Mary, whom she has known since they were in the Methodist Youth Group together as teenagers, turns out to be a rock. My mate Michael turns up, or rings up, and says: ‘Hargrave, get your butt in the car, we’re playing golf’ and we play golf – Michael, Archie and me. There is something about hitting the ball which lets out some of the anger, pain and frustration I have no words for. Unlike Annie I am not someone who can cry easily. People say: ‘Don’t be afraid of having a good cry.’ I don’t think I am afraid of having a good cry. I often wish I could cry. It would be a release. It is like feeling nauseated all the time, knowing that if only you could vomit you’d feel better. I do not, as far as I know, try to hold it in, but I have no idea how to turn on the tap – or even where the tap is. So, instead, I play golf – once, twice, sometimes three times a week – and, months later, I am finally able to begin pouring out my grief to Michael. Only years later do I discover that, throughout Tom’s illness and death, Michael was going through a really difficult time himself, but he never mentioned it to me. He knew how great my burden was and he knew I couldn’t carry his as well.

Unlike some who, when they ask you how Tom is and you tell them, then proceed to tell you all their problems, their illness, their loss. So we become wary about whom we talk to, knowing that, right now, we can’t cope with anyone else’s pain on top of our own. Indeed, as Annie says one day, after she’s read a passage from Isaiah about God’s Suffering Servant bearing the grief and sickness of the whole world,3 ‘Well! I don’t know how he can manage all that. We can’t even bear our own grief, never mind anyone else’s.’

It is no good, when you find yourself in a mess, to think: ‘Oh! I must find myself some mates.’ Or: ‘I wish I lived nearer my family.’ Strong relationships are like money in the bank. You can only draw on it if you’ve got it. One of the things I later come to value about Ely Cathedral is the Benedictine tradition. For many centuries Ely was a Benedictine monastery. One of the vows Benedictines take is Stability – something St Benedict, in his Rule, is very hot on. Staying in the same place. Living with the same bunch of people. Sticking at it through thick and thin. Not giving up. Working at the relationships, including – and especially – with the people you find most difficult, the ones who get right up your left nostril!

Increased mobility, however, people going off to university and never coming back, a flexible and international job market, means that stability is something we have lost over the last 50 years or so in a very big way. There is no putting the stopper back in the bottle, though. We are not all going back to live in villages where everyone knows each other. Yet we can build, for ourselves and for others, strong, stable relationships. We can invest in them, prioritize them. Take decisions which reinforce them rather than break them up. So that, when we need them – and when they need us – they are there. We didn’t really ­realize it at the time, but we soon discover that, when it comes to strong, stable, supportive relationships, we are very fortunate indeed – and deeply blessed – to have a lot of money in the bank.

Michael Mayne speaks of seeing signs of God’s kingdom, which are to be found and celebrated, not just in the Church, but all around us in the world.4 Watching the news and reading the papers you could be forgiven for thinking that everyone is corrupt, selfish, on the make or downright evil, but it’s not true. There are living signs of God’s kingdom everywhere, and an awful lot of them, people of all faiths and none, have gathered around us in our hour of need.