A week after the diagnosis and many tearful days and nights, Lindsay started on a course of chemo and what the medical staff insisted on calling ‘supportive care’. The chemo made her very sick and after ten days she called a halt to it, deciding that if she had to die, she damn well wasn’t going to do it feeling nauseous for the whole of the time she had left. Even the smell of food made her vomit.
It was almost impossible to get a feel for how long we had left. The doctors were non-committal but positive, saying she was a young, healthy woman (apart from dying of cancer of course) and was strong.
We managed eventually to estimate a figure of around six months, tops. What do you do with six months, when in reality we knew that Lindsay would only be well enough for maybe three or four of those months to do anything meaningful?
We discussed travelling, and between us we wrote down a list of places.
My first choice was Australia.
‘We could spend a few weeks touring around,’ I suggested enthusiastically.
Lindsay sighed. ‘No it’s too far away and I wouldn’t want to be on a plane that long with Amy. It’d be too much for her.’
Top of Lindsay’s list was Egypt. ‘I’ve always wanted to see the pyramids,’ she said wistfully, ‘but thinking about it, Egypt is very dirty and busy and I think Amy is too young for us to put her through all that. Also the medical system probably isn’t very good. What if Amy got ill or I needed something?’
I put our lists to one side. ‘What about going back to America? They’re reasonably civilized and clean as long as we avoid Detroit.’
Lindsay laughed and knew I was referring to a business trip she’d been on a few years ago to the city; Lindsay had hated the place. She shook her head. ‘I’m sick, Andy, and if I was to need some kind of medical care when we were there it’d bankrupt us and I’m probably uninsurable now.’
Lindsay picked up our bits of paper and scrunched them up into a ball. She smiled brightly having reached a decision. ‘I reckon the best thing for us to do is just stay home, we live in one of the nicest cities in the world, why bother travelling away and getting everyone stressed and upset when we can just potter about here. I’d be much happier with that. What I really want to do is to spend time with you and Amy – and my mum of course. My days are numbered and I want to make the most of them.’ We sat and formulated a plan and we had tears in our eyes as we worked out how we would spend Lindsay’s last days on Earth.
Initially I was to carry on working and we would try to have as normal a life as possible. It helped that Lindsay’s mother had retired and was there to help, but it was an intense and emotionally charged time, with Lindsay the most composed and bravest of us all.
We had a family portrait taken, spending a wonderful afternoon in a photographic studio with wind machines and exotic backdrops. Lindsay bought a fabulous strapless dress and had her make-up and hair professionally done. My hair was its usual unruly mane with a floppy fringe and Amy only sported a dark fuzz at that stage. After that day Lindsay refused to allow any more photographs to be taken of her. Even at her best friend Ellie’s wedding in late September she refused to pose for pictures. She had also refused to be Ellie’s bridesmaid due to her declining health, and on the day of the wedding we went home just after the meal due to her fatigue.
Towards the end of that month Lindsay had her first really bad day. She awoke with a blinding migraine, her first ever, and couldn’t get out of bed. We called the doctor who upped her medication, and said she should stay in a dark room until the pain subsided. Bad days began to become more frequent, sometimes it was a migraine, agonizing stomach cramps or occasionally debilitating back pain that left her curled up in agony. The doctors could only administer their ‘supportive care’. I cried for her pain, but had to be brave for Amy who couldn’t understand why whole days drifted by without seeing her mummy.
Sometimes her skin was so sensitive she couldn’t stand being touched and cowered away when either I or Amy went near her. This was particularly hard on Amy who, again, couldn’t understand why her mummy wouldn’t cuddle her.
Thankfully there were also what Lindsay termed ‘remission’ days: times when her pain was bearable and we could do normal things like walk in the park or Christmas shop. We started in October, unsure if Lindsay would be around for Christmas, though her goal was to make that landmark.
Given the pain she was suffering her fortitude was amazing. She would try and smile as much as she could, and once – at Lindsay’s behest – we even went on a pub crawl along George Street, making sure we went into the most expensive bars we could find, ordering champagne every time. We even ended up in a nightclub, ridiculously drunk.
I gave up work completely on 5 November, having agreed an extended leave of absence. The day was a particularly memorable one as it was Lindsay’s last ‘remission’ day.
We took Amy halfway up Arthur’s seat and watched the fireworks at the castle. We then went to a nearby restaurant and Lindsay watched me and Amy eat. By this time she couldn’t face any food at all but between us we managed to drink two bottles of wine. We went home afterwards and after Amy was asleep, made love for what would be the last time.
Her clothes were hanging off her by this time and on the rare occasion I saw her naked or near naked, she was nothing but a series of angles, held together by sinews and ligaments.
One morning, later that week, I was with her when she stood naked in front of the mirror, staring at herself. ‘God, even my tits have all but vanished,’ she said incredulously.
I put my arms around her and she leaned back into me. I kissed her neck which made her turn her head and smile, then she placed her hands under her breasts and pushed them up slightly. ‘I tell you what though,’ she laughed. ‘At least they’re the same size now.’
I loved the fact that she could still make a joke in the face of such adversity. It was her spirit that kept us all going.
A week after watching the fireworks Lindsay decided she needed to move into a hospice. We had talked about this and planned for it, but it was still a wrench as we knew it spelled the beginning of the end. She was no longer able to manage her own medications and needed more care than I or Pauline could give her. Also as heart-breaking as it was, Amy now cried every time she saw her mummy. She was merely expressing how we all felt.
The first week in the hospice was difficult. We’d go to see Lindsay in the afternoon and early evening before Amy’s bedtime, but soon this was restricted only to afternoons as Lindsay was usually asleep due to the effect of her medications by 5 p.m.
At least Lindsay achieved her goal of seeing Christmas. She was transported home on Christmas Eve and spent her last ever night there with us. On Christmas morning she watched from a wheelchair as Amy opened presents and shrieked with delight. We had scented candles burning and the lights twinkled on the last Christmas tree Lindsay would ever see. The excitement unfortunately took its toll and she had to go back before we had lunch. It was the last time Lindsay left the hospice. She died at 11 p.m. on 7 January, holding my hand while Amy slept peacefully on my lap.
The funeral took place five days later in the same church where only a few years earlier we’d been married. It was a desolate and gloomy January morning with intermittent sleet. The service passed me by; I can only remember bits of it. I’m told that Andrew Gillan delivered a touching and appropriate eulogy, whatever that meant, and everyone who mattered to Lindsay was there, except maybe her father. He had managed to avoid Lindsay for most of her life and managed to avoid her death as well. It was his loss and it gave Pauline something to moan about but I wasn’t bothered. Lindsay had given up on her father by the age of ten and I had never met the man. He lived in North London with Myah, a Vietnamese woman he had met while working in Thailand years earlier. He sent some drooping flowers and a cheap card. Lindsay deserved better: he shouldn’t have bothered.
At the end of the service, just as we lifted the coffin, James Blunt’s worldwide hit ‘Beautiful’ started to play. This was at Lindsay’s request; she’d planned her funeral in meticulous detail. As the haunting notes of the song floated up into the rafters of the ancient church my despair sank to the floor. I also knew that from that day forward, whenever I heard that song, it would transport me back to that dark moment.
I remembered lowering her coffin gently into the gaping hole that was to become her grave, and the icy wind that whipped around the cemetery. I remembered the dank scent of the freshly dug earth and the tears that were shed. I recalled the sad faces that floated in front of mine, offering hope, sympathy, memories of happy times and shared grief.
I left the gathering after the funeral early, my excuse being that Amy had to go to bed. The truth was: I’d had enough. I declined any help that evening, leaving Pauline to deal with the food and drink bills, and drove home.
Amy was tired; the day had been an exciting one for her. She obviously knew nothing about funerals, and was now used to her mummy not being around. To her the day was just a long one that stretched her bedtime out to eight o’clock. I didn’t bother bathing her but simply washed her hands and face before I settled her down in bed. I let her drink her bottle half-lying down. She drifted off to sleep midway through her milk and I had to pull the teat out of her mouth. It made a popping sound as I did so.
Downstairs in the quiet and warm living room, I allowed myself to weep, the sobs racking my body like electric jolts as I poured out my grief.
Grief is a weird thing. At first I was crying for myself, not for poor Lindsay. I was grieving for the desolate aching her death had left inside me, then for Amy who would never know her mother, and finally for the world which seemed a much poorer and emptier place without my wife in it.