Knowing you’re going to die is an existential horror that I pray is never inflicted on anybody I know again

SEVEN YEARS AGO, THIS MONTH, two huge events happened in my life. But before I begin at the end, let me start at the beginning. In a hospice. Funny, that, given it’s normally the last part.

But in this case, the timeline didn’t quite go to plan.

In the summer of 2010, my stepdad began to have stomach pains. After my dad died, my stepdad was the man who stood beside me for all the important occasions: my graduation, driving lessons, my wedding, Christenings. He was one of life’s characters – a Cabra man, full of wry observations, happiest around his grandchildren or with cup of tea and a cigarette. Many, many cigarettes.

He went to a specialist that October, paid privately, when the hacking cough and pain in his lungs and chest wouldn’t shift. He was told, by the very well-paid consultant, that he had a tear in the lining of his stomach.

His mother, father and sister had all died from various forms of cancer. That wasn’t considered.

That November, in Beaumont A&E, he was told he had terminal lung cancer and would be dead in a matter of weeks. There was a last Christmas, some time at home, but most of it was spent in the hospital and then the hospice. We got there so quickly, it’s almost all I remember.

Not all of death is sad. When we discovered Willie was dying, there were moments of real love and care, time to tell him how much he meant to us, time spent with him which otherwise may have passed without seeing so much of each other.

But it is always traumatic. Knowing you’re going to die is an existential horror that I pray is never inflicted on anybody I know again. Better, as they say, to drift to sleep one day and not wake up. And watching him deal with this left those of us around him in the worst of pain. Unable to do anything but wait with him and try to be strong.

As all of this was happening, I was heavily pregnant. I was due early February 2011, with the baby that was to be Willie’s third grandchild in our house.

Willie was a man who delighted in small children and they delighted in him. He had a contagious smile and laugh; I’d never met a kid that wasn’t immediately at ease around him because he was like a big kid himself. My other two adored him – with his Curly Wurlys and Tic Tacs and blasting of The Killers’ Human in the car when he drove them places.

If you recall, winter 2010/2011 was one of our snowiest. As many days as possible I visited him in the hospice, sliding over ice with a belly the size of a small planet, trying not to fall over. I can barely remember that. What I remember is walking into that hospice embarrassed, self-conscious, like I needed to hide my bump, this awful reminder for those who were at the end, that for everybody else life continued.

When I sat with Willie, we would talk. We’d laugh. We’d watch bad daytime TV. Then somebody else would come in – family, friends – and I’d head off and let them take over.

The last day, I had to leave before anybody else had arrived. It was okay. He was tired. I would speak to him later by phone. I was due, the following day, for a scheduled C-section.

The baby would come a week early. So he could meet her.

I asked him to please hang on. The hospital would provide me with a wheelchair and ambulance and I’d be brought out to see him.

As I stood at the door to his room, I found myself unable to close it. I knew – I knew – I wouldn’t see him again. I was frozen on the spot.

He looked so weak, so skeletal, half in, half out of this world. And then somebody walked up the corridor and I was shaken. I closed the door.

The next day, I went to the hospital. As I sat on the bed, waiting to be brought to theatre, the phone rang. Willie had died.

I went into spontaneous labour, the C-section was deemed an emergency. Into my arms, a tiny little girl was placed, our beautiful Sophia. Every year, on February 2, we celebrate her birthday. And I remember her grandfather – her two maternal grandfathers.

It’s not a morbid day. Children have to have parties and presents and fun. They have to be allowed to live; they can’t carry the sorrows of their parents.

But her life is a celebration of the granddad she never met because, even before she was born, he loved her.

Life goes on. It’s never easy but there’s always someone or something worth living for. And those who’ve left us wouldn’t want it any other way.