After a while, Daddy didn’t know who Charlie was. ‘Daddy’s brain is sick,’ I would explain. ‘He loves you, Charlie, so much, but his brain can’t make his mouth tell you any more.’
It ruined me, the first time I said that. But children are remarkably resilient. A reality check for the awful, amid so much ‘normal’ around us. Charlie would clamber on the bed and watch YouTube clips from ABC Kids, just like other kids running around in the aged care facility, visiting their grandparents and great-grandparents.
So Cam’s last kiss is really just for me. I promise him it will be quick. He won’t even notice. Leaning into a face that isn’t even his own any more – shrunken, shrivelled, blank – my eyes fill with the inevitable tears, although I’d vowed I wouldn’t cry. Inside this kiss is every other one. Our first, on one of our undergraduate picnics on the uni lawns in Melbourne. The kiss he gave me through tears, straight after Charlie was born, in the delivery suite. That kiss on the bed the weekend after we lost our baby. All these kisses, punctuating a grand romance, snuffed decades before its time. He closes his eyes as I lean towards him, and I notice every breath is catching in his throat.
He hasn’t said a word to me, or to anyone, in weeks. But at the moment my lips touch his, I swear I feel his soul stir. In that fraction of a second, we’re Cam and Kate again, the way we used to be. Such strength between us, in this perfect, ageless, timeless, worldless moment.
Then I lean back and open my eyes.
He doesn’t.
I stare for a long time at his beautiful, peaceful face.
And then I become aware. Quietly. Aware of my breath. My heartbeat. The million unseen, microscopic inner workings of the miracle of life, continuing to vibrate within me.
And aware of his stillness.
‘Cam,’ I whisper, my hand shaking his arm gently, not wanting to wake him. Knowing I can’t.
I trace the outline of his face with my fingers. Feel the roughness of his chin. I smooth his hair. Touch his ears. Cradle his neck in my hand, my thumb coming to rest where his pulse should be.
Panic rises within me, but it’s quickly overwhelmed by a tumbling sense of peace. We sit together for ages, Cam and I.
Death and life.
Before and After.
I try to thank him . . . for what, I don’t know. I just thank him, in general, and tell him I love him and I’m sorry. Again, for what? For everything. Every mistake. Each tiny hurt I may have inadvertently inflicted, ever. It feels pointless, speaking aloud to a lifeless body, when it so clearly is no longer him.
There’s no trace of him at all, suddenly. He’s just . . . entirely gone.
And so is the Kate that I knew. Innocent Kate, who believed in fairytales and love stories and happy endings. Kate, who at thirty-eight is too young to be a widow, and who suddenly wants, more than anything, to be at the end of her own life, with her love.
I can’t end it though, because of Charlie, who doesn’t even know yet that Daddy has died. Died. What a horrible word. Charlie, who on the phone earlier tonight told Daddy he’d done another drawing for his wall and got no response, as usual. And never will now.
I’m unable to move. I sit with him for what feels like eternity but is probably a few minutes. It’s only when the nurse knocks at the door and bustles in for her evening check that she finds us here. Checks Cam’s pulse. Tells me she’s sorry, there’s nothing we can do. And even though I know that, it quashes any final hope this is just a nightmare.
She calls her colleagues, who call a funeral director, who’ll be tasked to take Cam away. Paperwork is prepared. Questions are asked. Answers are given on autopilot. It’s all very efficient and administrative, and I can’t take my eyes off him. My Cam. My love. My whole life. What am I going to do now? I’ve been thoroughly occupied in my caring role since a few months after the diagnosis, but that gave me purpose. I don’t even know who I am without the job it has become to look after him.
‘Can we call someone for you?’ the nurse asks.
‘It’s okay. I drove myself.’
She places her hand gently on my shoulder. ‘Someone else should drive you home tonight.’
I scroll through my contacts list and find Hugh’s number and pass the nurse my phone. I don’t even think of calling anyone else this time. He’s the one who handles this stuff best.
I can hear her muffled conversation outside in the corridor. ‘. . . about half an hour ago . . . she’s in shock . . . thank you . . .’
And it’s not until about twenty minutes later, when Hugh walks in calmly, respectfully, that the tears finally erupt. I pick up Cam’s hand, my head bent, and hold it to my forehead.
His skin is already going cold.
This is the saddest I will ever be, I think.
But even this early in my fledgling grief, I suspect that’s probably not true. I’m going to disintegrate.
‘I’ll give you time with Cam alone,’ Hugh says behind me.
I don’t turn around. ‘Stay,’ I say in a voice I barely recognise. I don’t like being alone with Cam now. But I can’t leave him. I need to watch over him until they take him from here. From me.
Hugh doesn’t speak unless spoken to, but his strong presence in the room is such a comfort. I say something about needing to start calling people and he tells me we’ll get to that soon, it’s okay just to sit here with Cam for a while.
I’m instantly terrified to go home to an empty house. I don’t know what to do about anything. ‘Do I call in and wake Charlie up or tell him tomorrow?’
‘Let him sleep. Look after yourself tonight and get your bearings.’
My bearings? There can be no bearings in a life without my husband.
Charlie can have twelve more hours until his world is shattered. Twelve hours until his childhood innocence is ripped to pieces. Of course I’ve prepared him for this moment, as much as you can prepare a three-year-old, but I could never quite imagine us actually being here. There’s no rule book, and I desperately need one.
Grief is strange, when it happens in advance. Since Cam’s diagnosis two years ago, I’ve been processing this loss every day. I thought the time we had to accept it would make it easier. Sudden death must be so blindsiding in comparison. But now I’m here, I’m blindsided anyway, because I never truly believed this would unfold. Never stopped hoping for a miracle, even though we were so obviously not going to get one.
Hugh passes me a glass of water. He tells me grief can be dehydrating.
I can’t work out how he knows so much, but I do as he says and take the glass.
It strikes me that Cam will never need water again. He’ll never need pyjamas or sheets. Never a bed or a toothbrush or shaving gear. He’ll never drive. Never see the stars. Never anything. He is finished. Done. Gone. Full stop.
‘He’s never coming back,’ I whisper, finally appreciating what grief really is. This permanent ending of a person. The end of their story. The complete lack of their existence.