THE EVOLUTION OF DEATH

Surrounded by ritual and hierarchy, the Irish have always had a peculiar relationship with dying – but the routine often brings us a sense of solace

Lately I’ve been thinking about death and its attendants: how coffins of wicker are becoming more common, how overnight ‘removals’ to churches have become rarer in favour of home wakes, how the Irish Roman Catholic clergy have adapted stoically to the fact that many of those in the caskets before them may not have been churchgoers in life but that the relatives had wanted the Mass. They celebrate quietly, bravely walking the tightrope between their bishops’ funerary edicts and mourners’ needs.

Over multiple recent funerals, I’ve discovered that however deeply affected I’ve been, the alwaysopen Third Eye, the observational side of writers, has remained operational and has been struck by the rituals and hierarchy surrounding mourning.

It can be relatively easy to write about death and mourning in a novel because no matter how distant its cause, grief, personally experienced, hunkers down just below the skin and is far easier to access than, say, happiness, which can prove to be as evanescent as steam. To communicate effectively, the writing around deathbeds, dying and aftermaths must feel authentic and in my own case these scenes have resulted in tear-stained keyboards.

Then there are the letters of condolence I’ve had to, for various reasons, substitute for attendance at the obsequies.

They’re proving difficult to write these days because I’ve written so many by now and I would hate the recipient to believe I’m retrieving stock phrases and words from some shelf marked ‘Sympathy’ as I struggle for fresh words of sincerity, relevance and consolation.

And how long are you allowed officially to mourn? I think that instinctively in Ireland we allow flexibility by being kind, attentive to fluctuating moods and not communicating inappropriately, for instance with Christmas cards within the first year.

But even decades after someone dies, mourning can sneak up to blindside you. I don’t wear fur for reasons to do with animal cruelty, but it was only within the past few weeks I could part with my mother’s musquash, re- cut into a jacket from a coat bought, recklessly, we all thought at the time, with the entire sum of insurance money resulting from a bad car crash not of her making.

She could have had a new kitchen with that money, or even a car for herself (or presents for me and my brother!) but no, she bought a fur coat and wore it until it became ratty and then had it remodelled.

I’d kept that jacket in its protective plastic for nearly two decades but when, recently, I took it out, could faintly smell a waft of her scent from its raggy lining and pockets, the latter torn from being overstuffed with hankies, loose change, lipsticks, pens, foreign addresses written on the backs of envelopes, perfunctory lists: fish, meat, Stella pay back ten bob… So, what about that hierarchy? It has occurred to me more than once that it exists within the ranks of the designated bereft, depths of grief regardless. Like a delicately balanced Pavane, it’s demonstrated most immediately in the seating arrangements at church funerals, officially with ‘reserved’ notices, unofficially by other attendees, automatically leaving the correct number of front spaces.

Firstly, you have spouses, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers; then sisters and brothers, then, behind, if there is no space in the front row, all the in-laws with or without the grandchildren; then the aunts, uncles and cousins.

Then comes a melange of friends, colleagues, neighbours, acquaintances, debtors (of kindness received from the deceased), carers, medics, former teachers, school and student pals, with the last rows occupied by a sister’s divorced husband, or the coffin inhabitant’s first husband or wife, with new spouse or partner.

Although it’s not a competition, what does occur is to ask who decrees that a dear, deeply griefstricken cousin or extremely close colleague, cannot be near the deceased for one last time?

Thanks to the work of bodies like Hospice, experiences around the death of a person in hospital have improved.

My mother died, in pain, at 9.10 on a busy morning in a six-bedded ward with curtains pulled around her while all around, radios blared, cleaners’ buckets clanged and staff bantered; similarly, my father died, one evening, in pain, with the communal TV blaring an episode of Keeping up Appearances – which, bizarrely happened to have been his favourite comedy show – with, at all the other beds, patients chatting and laughing with their visitors.

By contrast, my best friend died early one August morning, ‘slipped away with her usual grace’ according to her devoted husband, in no pain, surrounded by her loving family and cradled by staff kindness, her quiet room bedizened with the grandchildren’s paintings and drawings on the walls.

Meanwhile, in this life, the ritual attendances increase, people depart. ‘It’s the age we’re at,’ we survivors nod sagely, hugging each other on forecourts of churches and crematoria.

What we don’t say, but we do think, is: ‘See you again soon?’ because we can’t know when again we will encounter one another or in what capacity: funeral attendee? Or reason thereof?