IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH

Today's blog title is borrowed from Joan Didion's prize-winning depiction of her personal grief - "The Year of Magical Thinking."

I have recently finished reading this book. I read about half of it just before I moved in December, then after I'd moved I couldn't find it (it was buried deep in one of the hundred banana boxes), and I missed it and was desperate to retrieve it. And then - yes, magical! All of a sudden it turned up when I stopped looking for it.

Joan Didion won the Pulitzer Prize 2005 for this book. It's simply a recount of her experience with and after the death of her husband of thirty-nine years - John Gregory Dunne. He died suddenly and unexpectedly at dinner on New Year's Eve 2003 from a heart attack. It's also about the longterm illness of her daughter, who died just as she was finishing the book. (She has written another one about this loss, "Blue Nights"). I find myself admiring her openness, her honesty and her truthfulness about grief, bereavement and mourning. And she's not even that emotional - just frank. But between the lines you realise how traumatised she is. As she herself has pointed out - she was crazy with sorrow. She says she wants others in the same situation to know that their craziness is "normal."

I recognise myself in her. Without attempting any bold comparison I see that I write a bit like her. My mission is to convey to others my situation of living day in and day out with unbearable sorrow, with the knowledge that my husband of nearly thirty-two years, my life partner, my soulmate, is going to die from his illness. Not in five years, not in ten, not in twenty - but very soon. The absurdity of it! The absurdity of knowing that "in the midst of life we are in death." Still, this is a fact, an inevitable one, and I have to deal with it, both now and when he is gone.

"Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant." Joan Didion.

"The Year of Magical Thinking" was recommended to me by my Norwegian friend Eva, who emigrated to Australia ages ago (a bit like my own daughter has done), and I bless her for picking out and knowing exactly the kind of literature that would soothe me. Eva and go way back - to 1976 and our first encounter at the old airport of Oslo - Fornebu - which was situated just a stone's throw away from where my new flat is. Funny how coincidences simply enter your life and in retrospect they were obvious!

Brighton of course!

I was at the airport gate waiting for my flight to England where I was going to spend summer '76 with my English boyfriend. A quick visit to the Ladies' left me so scared I simply had to tell someone, and that someone was the girl next to me, waiting for the same flight. When I came out of my toilet booth there were two REALLY frightening looking guys by the wash basins (in the Ladies for heavens's sake!), and it looked to me as they were swapping, trading, whatever - something illegal - guns, drugs… well, they shouldn't have been in the Ladies' with that nonchalant attitude anyway!

My new acquaintance calmed me down - and said in as many words that she thought I might be overreacting. That's my friend Eva - she'll always be straight with you!

So we got talking - and I asked her what she was going to be doing in England over the summer holidays. "Getting married," she said, very matter-of-factly. "Then we'll be moving to Brighton and I'm starting at the University of Sussex in October." "You'll meet my friend Grete there!" I said. Long story short - the following year I enrolled at the University of Sussex, and the year after Tove turned up at the same Uni and became my friend for life. Four Norwegian girls that coincidence brought together and who are still very much in touch. (And Joan Didion's book was lent to me by Grete)!

I think it was all meant to be. The support these girls give me is endless. This is true friendship for you.

My husband has spent the last twelve days at the Hospice. My decision to ask for more help got things moving at a fast pace, and only five days after my application to Hospice Lovisenberg in Oslo he was admitted for a two-week stay. Though after moving house we now belong to another municipality, there was no question of boundaries. He was there for a five-day stay at the beginning of December when we moved, and they understood the importance of admitting him to somewhere familiar, especially important now that he has no eyesight and has lost the use of his legs.

My days have been structured differently while my husband is away from home, and I've been assembling IKEA's Billy bookshelves at such a rate that I should receive the IKEA gold medal, or at least be given the lead role in the next IKEA commercial. Finally my wardrobe interior arrived too (ordered and paid for before Christmas), and the enormous contents of clothes from black plastic bin liners are being neatly folded or hung out of sight. Much of it has in fact gone into other sacks for donating at the Salvation Army depots. And these are beautiful things! But when you realise you haven't worn them for let's say the past ten years - well, it's not likely they'll ever have a revival.

The view from my husband's room at the Hospice. So terribly sad that he can't enjoy it, but we tried to describe it to him.

I took my husband out of the Hospice last night to come home to a dinner party with six close friends and his sister Eva and our daughter Johanne and her friend Janne. It was great fun and much laughter. He managed to discern and place all the different voices. He enjoyed himself immensely. So did I.

But then, after everyone had left, and I'd put him to bed, I found myself breaking. And today has been bleak. Sleeping next to him again was lovely, but seeing that I can't possibly handle him on my own ever again was a horrible realisation. He fell off the toilet this morning, right on to the hard tiled bathroom floor. If Johanne hadn't stayed the night and been here, I would have had to call the emergency nurse. The two of us lifted him. I'd left him alone on the toilet. The nurses at the Hospice wouldn't have done that. Basically I'm not a nurse. And he needs a nurse all the time, preferably two. Again I thought I'd handle it, and I didn't.

I'm afraid he won't be coming home again. Perhaps never again. He was glad to go back to the Hospice this afternoon. It must feel a lot safer. But I am so happy we made the dinner party last night. 

At the moment I am dealing with a roller coaster of emotions and not least deep grief. But my huge relief now is having let up on responsibility and decisions. For the first time in my life I am pleased that others are taking control.

After the party

Beautiful flowers from our even more beautiful friends