Beatrice a hundred year old mystery

My grandmother died aged 25 when my father was only 14 months old. One of the few photos we have is her sitting with him, a baby on her lap. She looks so lovely, but it feels strangely heartbreaking knowing that in a matter of months, she would be dead. What caused her death or even any details of her death seems still shrouded in mystery. It was 1925 and attitudes to death were different in those times. The general approach then could be summarised as ‘least said soonest mended’!

A friend, even in the 1960s, said her mother had died when she was just 13 and her sister 11. They were sent to school the day of their mother’s funeral and no one ever mentioned her mother again. Such a reaction was fairly common in those earlier years of the 1920s, and to be fair, there were so many deaths from diseases and other causes that perhaps not talking about such losses was a practical way of coping. What is there to say about the death toll of World War I when 40 million died between the years 1914 and 1918? My grandfather fought in that war. The Spanish flu which followed from 1918 to 1919, killed another 50 million. In the face of such a scale of loss, possibly people opted to just accept death as an ever-present feature of their lives. 

My grandfather was born in 1898 and entered the army aged only 16. It is hard to imagine him going through World War I as a teenager and facing the brutal horror of those days including the battle of the Somme. During that time he was shot in the upper arm and once recovered was sent right back into battle. By the time World War I was over he was in his early 20s. He returned to Northern Ireland fell in love with Beatrice Magee and married in 1923, aged 25. They had a baby boy but after just two years, his young wife suddenly died.

Because her death was seldom discussed my father knew little of his mother’s death. He was fortunate that his mother was one of many siblings and during his childhood, he had many loving aunts lavish attention on him. But that void where a mother should have been was ever-present. He had questions that were never answered. One gossipy villager whispered that she had been sent to an asylum and died there. In the absence of real knowledge, toxic gossip often takes its place. Also in today's world, not knowing your family’s health details leaves you uninformed about important things like any inherited diseases there may be. When a relative examined one side of our family tree, he was horrified at the number of male relatives who had died quite young from heart disease.

Last week, my brother found an old tray in the attic of our garage and brought it down for us to see.  It had been there for decades but we read its inscription as we examined it.  Given to Beatrice Magee on the occasion of her marriage in 1923.  My brother took it home and cleaned, polished and fixed the tray and my Mum placed it in the living room behind the photograph of Beatrice holding her baby.  It triggered renewed memories of this lady that none of us had ever met.  Several family members had failed to find Beatrice’s death certificate while carrying out their research and there seemed to be a mystery in its absence.  

This week I applied online and bought a copy of her death certificate using a different birth date than the one commonly used.  This morning the death certificate arrived and I felt that at last the mystery of almost a century would be solved.  However, the death certificate was written in such poor handwriting I could not make out the cause of death!  In frustration, I sent it to relatives, medical and otherwise hoping they could help decipher the words.  It took a day but the answer eventually came, she suffered from “mitral regurgitation 2 years cardiac failure certified”.  So there in back and white at last was the answer.  

In examining the names on her grave there are signs of the scale of loss of life in those days.  Of her 10 siblings a five-year-old Violet died of scarlet fever in 1914 (the scarlet fever epidemic would peak in 1914).  The Spanish flu in 1919 took two of her brothers 24-year-old William and 19-year-old Charles.  They had to carry out the coffin of one brother through the family front door in November and then the second brother in December.  The scale of such loss was repeated through homes throughout this country.  It hurts the heart to think of it all.  There are no words.  How that generation weathered so much in such a short time should remind us all of the preciousness of life that we too often take for granted.  War and disease rip families apart. Each loss leaves a void that lingers in the hearts of all those who loved them.  

PS The Spanish Flu originated in the US on March 11, 1918, at Fort Riley a military camp in Kansas.  When those soldiers went to fight in World War 1 they took the disease to Europe and the rest of the world. It feels odd that the war my grandfather fought resulted in a disease that killed his wife's two brothers. However, pestilence and warfare were often fellow bedfellows over the millennium and no doubt recent wars will continue to contribute to the re-emergence of infectious diseases.  Already diseases such as cholera, polio, measles, tuberculosis and malaria are rising in the conflict areas of Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen. The sad truth is that adequate prevention and treatment of communicable diseases are often impossible in times of conflict. In fact, war itself provides perfect vectors for disease such as refuge camps, mass movements of populations, poor sanitation, and a lack of access to either proper medical assistance, water or a healthy diet.

Dear One,

It has been such a special time with you and I have luxuriated in all these moments of fellowship. I cannot be grateful enough for all these gifts of love. The heart-to-heart chats, the beautiful walks, and my young grandchild’s hugs all serve as a wonderful immersion in love. 

These past years of Covid have stolen such meetings from too many. Heart-stopping to think of all the fellowships that ended in permanent separation on this earthly plane. There are no words for those who faced such endings. So, it is with utter gratitude I find myself with loved ones these days. I am appreciative of health to enjoy such company and to have weathered this pandemic. Perhaps some of us have emerged scarred from all that has happened. Changed creatures from what we were before. I feel my brain is not what it used to be. No matter, perhaps recovery will take time. That is my hope and, in the meantime, I relish connections with loved ones that seem to stretch with love past the veil of brain fog and communicate heart-to-heart. I don’t have to be 100% to bask in love and laughter. 

Perhaps love, that cord that stretches even past death, is how we all must hold onto that which is vital. I am enjoying CS Lewis’s diary, who knew his spelling, was almost as bad as mine? When called up to serve in World I he wrote to his father to come and see him before he was shipped off to France. He would subsequently find himself on his 19th birthday on the front lines in the Somme Valley and lose his university flatmate and best friend Paddy Moore on those muddy killing fields. His father didn’t visit, not even when his son returned to hospital in the UK injured from France.  C.S. Lewis’s words on this haunt me dreadfully, “my father was a very peculiar man, in some respects: in non more than an almost pathological hatred of taking any step which involved a break in the dull routine of his daily existence.” How true it is, that we have to sometimes break free from dull routines which blind us to the real priorities. I felt travelling to see you was the break I needed to remind myself of how precious such steps are in all our lives.

“Deal ye one with another with the utmost love and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship . . . This goal excelleth every other goal, and this aspiration is the monarch of all aspirations.”

Bahá’u’lláh

The Favourite Daughter!

I cannot remember when it was first said to me exactly, but I can remember the location. My dad and I were driving up to a forest walk near Ringsend high in the mountains with our black Labrador Monty in the back. 

He was singing as he drove and then he turned to me, out of the blue, and informed me that I was his favourite daughter! As a very young primary school pupil, this new status felt epic indeed. It was a title that had never been bestowed upon my other siblings so I felt exceptionally honoured. If my siblings resented my new title they never showed any evidence of this. Perhaps the baby of the family is normally treated with undue deference. They do seem to get away with much more than their older siblings. Parents know that this is their last offspring and generally place fewer demands on them than they did on their older children. 

I did not gloat over my siblings as my father’s favourite daughter. Instead, I held the privilege of that station close to my heart. As a child, there are so many things that hurt you, bullying, failures, slights, being ignored or self-doubt but this unexpected title acted as a mighty shelter to a rather supersensitive and easily bruised child.

It took me far too long to work out what my father’s words actually meant. I was his favourite daughter indeed but I was also his only daughter as I have only brothers.  No wonder my brothers did not resent it, they had worked that all out years ago. It makes me smile now when I remember how much my title of “favourite daughter” meant to me.

I am grateful for so many other things my dad taught me. He stressed the importance of honesty, having integrity, being free of prejudice and the importance of being really curious about everything.  I now devour books and love the sea as he did. I still respect so many of the principles he strove for his entire life.  I loved the way he let me wrestle with him on our landing at home and made me, a small child, believe that I could defeat a 15-stone grown man like him.  Okay, he played tricks too but even that I remember with fondness.  When we walked together to school, I wanted him to hold my hand really tightly and to tease me he would deliberately loosen his hold. In later years when I lived abroad, his weekly faxes were the high point of our family life. That distinctive hum of the fax machine and his handwriting appearance brought all of us together as a family to read his words which were full of good humour and insights. I will remain infinitely grateful that he always held my heart tenderly and lovingly. Perhaps knowing you are loved is the mightiest remedy of all.

Lessons learned in a dark A&E

Heartbroken by the rows of trolleys packed back to back in corridors at 2 am in a darkened A&E department. Most seem to hold an elderly patient grey-faced and loosely bandaged in a twisted blanket embalming the old and sick. Heads hang off necks too weak to support them. The trolleys are bereft of pillows with cold and plastic surfaces easier to wipe down and clean. Their inhabitants, if strong enough, repeatedly plead for pillows to any passing staff member. Pillows are banned now along with much of the expected humanity one would hope to find in a place of healing. 

They usually only end up here as a last desperate resort. When really in pain beyond endurance or unable to draw breathe properly, the elderly, like my mum at 89, break their daily vow never to go to hospital, and 999 is dialled. Mum’s ambulance had raced from Limavady to Ballymoney to collect her as Coleraine Hospital had all their available ambulances parked outside A&E unable to offload patients.   My Mum was shaking uncontrollably for hours with severe back pain, vomiting, and breathing fast shallow gasps of air until we eventually called the emergency services. 

The ambulance arrived in response to the call in just over half an hour and the dispatcher stayed on the call talking to me while we waited.  A team of three determined ambulance personnel arrived with loads of equipment and quickly checked measured blood and heart measurements. They administered pain relief and insisted on taking my mum to the hospital. They said there were just too many worrisome medical indicators and we reluctantly agreed. They decided to go to Antrim hospital because of the queues outside Coleraine A&E.  But when we arrived outside Antrim A&E there was a five-hour wait in the car park. My poor 89-year-old mother gasped in agony at the hardness of the stretcher in the back of the ambulance. The wait seemed never-ending, those trolleys are not designed for comfort. During that long and unbearable night, I was struck that so many elderly and vulnerable patients are lying for hours and hours waiting for help in such conditions. Some die on these hard-cold trolleys outside hospitals and it seems to go on getting worse and worse instead of being improved. We wouldn’t let a badly injured dog howling in pain sit in the back of the van outside a vet’s so why do we expect the vulnerable, the ill, and stoic elderly to endure such conditions?  

Shame on this system of abuse. Is it due to a lack of funding, gross incompetence, a lack of staff, shortage of beds or equipment, staff burnout, or GPs hiding in the trenches while emergency services face all the flack?  I have no idea, what is wrong with the system. I cannot fault the kind ambulance staff or the over-pressured hospital staff but it is not acceptable. Too many are in corridors or in the back of ambulance vans suffering pain and whatever we are doing is not fixing it. On my worst days, I wonder how truly awful everything will have to get before we throw off this strange stupor and make even small changes to improve these conditions. I know there are amazing souls working their hearts out to try and make a difference it’s just I just feel we need to do more than just applaud them.

When we had eventually entered A&E mum’s trolley was wheeled into a corridor filled with other patients on trolleys end to end like carriages of a train awaiting a missing engine.  In the nearby ward, there is a shouting angry man and there seems to be three staff remonstrating with him.  I think they want him to wear an oxygen mask but he doesn’t want it and shouts violently and aggressively, he pulls it off and the staff tries to reconnect it.  Their arguments go on hour after hour and there is a tiny part of me rather ashamed to resent that this nosy intoxicated patient is draining all the efforts of so many staff.  After all, the softly moaning old lady two trolleys away may need more help but is not getting much attention.  Another patient in the ward is a young teenager who has tried to commit suicide and two staff try to convince her to stay rather than discharge herself immediately.  Her father arrives and joins the team pleading that the results from blood tests need to be checked before she can leave.  She is dressed and standing close to the ward door trying to push past them as they valiantly encourage her to stay.  This discussion lasted a good 40 minutes and was conducted with a lot of shouting.  It seems that, like in most places, those that have the energy to protest louder get a lot more attention.  Even here in this world of sickness and pain, it is the noisy demanding patients that drain valuable resources their way.  The very ill and old have little energy or will to make such demands and just endure the lack of attention, the noise, and the disturbance.  

I stayed by my Mum all night, beside her trolley, on a plastic chair kindly provided by a night nurse.  In the early hours of the morning, I could rub her sore back, and whisper answers to her questions.  In this frightening and foreign place, we had each other.  My Mum hates hospitals and on the rare occasions, she has had to go in refuses to eat or drink and seems to withdraw into herself not speaking to staff.  She can lose so much of her body weight in days.  When the morning shift arrived, I was told to leave the A&E immediately.  

Perhaps if the health system all had looked efficient and professional I would have accepted this better.  But in the chaos of so many patients and shortage of staff, I felt that I was being asked to desert a loved one to uncertain unsteady hands.  I was told they would do some tests on my Mum and I needed to leave but when they finished the tests they no longer allowed me to enter the A&E.  I remonstrated with staff to no avail and waited in a closed hospital café restless like a dog that has left its post.  A nice passing nurse, from a different department, let me back in with her card and I found mum had been moved to a different alcove, she seemed more withdrawn and silent.  The nurse in charge found me back in her A&E and was understandably annoyed and insisted I leave immediately.  I am ashamed to say after an hour or so outside I followed a passing cleaner into A&E who kindly let me in behind her.  This time the head nurse was angrier to find me back again beside my Mum.  I felt like a loyal dog that was being chased from the side of its owner but even embarrassment and shame could not stop me from wanting to be there with mum.  I felt sorry for the already short-staffed A&E department that I was being so unreasonable.  But another part of me could not condone deserting my Mum.  That seemed an even larger more unforgivable wrong.  

I have no answers.  I know so many died alone during this pandemic far from loved ones.  The privilege of those last moments of being there, where it is hardest to be, at the passing of a dear one was denied.  It feels inexcusable and we sense so many other mistakes were made. It is difficult to rectify them all or even reflect on the lessons that need to be learned.  So many hearts have been broken.  Perhaps one solution is to find our humanity again and ensure it is expressed in all the different settings that matter.  One of the important lifelines for those who are ill may well be loved ones.  Even some animals will not leave a wounded family member, surely such instincts should be supported by institutional systems rather than blocked or denied?  

In this depressing world of increasingly isolated living, that leaves so many alone and afraid we must rebuild the vital links with family, friends, and neighbours that fortify all of us.    There are times that instinctually you feel the direction of flow is in a negative direction and you need to consciously head the opposite way.  Perhaps rebuilding broken or neglected human bonds is the upstream movement that all of us need to focus on in these testing times.  

Lessons from the Bees

There are days that bring a sigh to the heart.  Day followed by day with no respite.  Too many souls feel growing despair within.  At such times it can be hard to remember the joy that will come in the future.  We need to cling to hope,

… that days as sweet as honey may once again return. 

‘Abdu’l-Bahá 

Life sends tests that can crush but perversely that makes good times that follow more joyous.  These highs and lows are both aspects of life’s landscape and give it depth.

Honey doesn't lose its sweetness because it is made by bees that sting. 

Matshona Dhliwayo

But when in the darkest valley of despair, it is hard to gain that perspective that change and recovery are already coming.

This deadly poison shall give way to purest honey, and this sore wound will at last receive a healing balm. 

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

What can help is the kindness and compassion of those near us. 

Kind words are like honey, sweet to the soul and healthy for the body. 

Proverbs 16:24

A degree of humility however is necessary in order to receive the help we sometimes need.

The world is plentiful with honey, but only the humble bee can collect it. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Progress can come at a surprising speed when there is a clear purpose to any day.

The sweetness of life lies in usefulness, like honey deep in the heart of a clover bloom. 

Laura Ingalls Wilder

In a materialistic world, the competition for resources can blind us to what actually uplifts the spirit.

The bee is more honoured than other animals, not because she labours, but because she labours for others. 

Saint John Chrysostom

To look around and feel truly alone is the very worst form of poverty.  

A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside. 

Winnie The Pooh 

In some ways, this life is about searching, like the bee, for that special flower but the ultimate aim of all such endeavours is love.

Life is the flower for which love is the honey. 

Victor Hugo

 During this search, the watchword is to do no harm, only good.

As a bee without harming the flower ... flies away, collecting only the honey, even so, should the sage wander in the village. 

Buddha

And this doing good has to become second nature, not a task done for reward or trophy.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne. 

Marcus Aurelius 

At our age, there needs to be a good reason to run – like the house is on fire or someone is firing a gun

My two grandsons, 3 and 5 years old, were coming to stay. It would only be for two days but we had steadied ourselves, my mum and I. Looked at each other with a football manager’s eye. What shape are you in? Is that hip weak? Can those ankles take it? Have you taken all your medication? Checking up on the team before the invasion. With my mum in her mid-80s and me in my 60s, we are pretty old for this game.

They arrive with a flurry of hugs, boundless energy and laughter. All too soon we are left alone with two little guys who want to explore every quarter, all rooms, every cupboard, the garage the garden and all shelves that they can possibly reach.  Privacy goes out the window as they bang on the toilet door demanding to know "what are you doing in there?" We walk them to the park and local playground. It was frightening for us. My eldest grandson has a cast on his arm from fracturing his elbow and the playground seemed right for compounding the injury. Kids are not like adults in so many ways. They, in a cast, will happily scamper up a climbing wall or the tallest helter-skelter slide. My mum and I ran like demented bodyguards after the two of them. Danger seemed incredibly close and we walked home relieved everyone had survived. Even the eldest with his cast had insisted on trying the zip line and managed remarkably well. Don't ask why unearth we let him do it. We have no idea!!

By the time we got home to a welcome cup of tea and a quiet sit the two boys had already eaten, instantly recharged and were as full of energy as before. Now mum and I began to worry. It was barely 10.30am and we were ready to be substituted. Fortunately, my middle son their uncle had boundless energy like the boys. While mum and I sneaked off for a badly needed midday nap he ran them around the house playing wrestling games.  We awoke refreshed but aware the rest of the day lay ahead. 

A box of old toys from the garage was salvaged and the boys fell on them like wolves. We built Lego together, played an ancient basketball game that their father had played more than 30 years ago (the exact same toy, conserved in mum’s garage over the decades).  The boys were constantly good-humoured. Normally they were instructed by their parents, when they had eaten enough, to stop. We, grandmother and great-grandmother, adopted an alternative approach. We force-fed the two of them rather like they stuff ducks. Until they’d hold up their hands and say no more. We would ignore that and keep filling their tanks. They were obviously nonplussed by this novel handling. The eldest examining us strangely as if we didn't know the rules at all. The first day we fed them until they had indigestion. The second day the boys were more cautious, having learned that we would feed them dangerously full. Their appetites seemed smaller and both mum and I fretted. What if our small charges starved under our careless care?   Meanwhile, our own intakes had increased substantially. I was downing chocolate and crisps in minutes of stolen time. My mum had taken to eating three Choc ices (white chocolate of course) a day. Regularly smuggling them behind her back to the living room so the boys would not see them. In our second day, all the rules went out the window. Survival was the goal and we thrived on their hugs like an energy source. 

They were challenges. Like mum finding a small brown leaf on the bathroom floor, it turned out not to be vegetation at all, least said! Or discovering that some small fingers had turned on the electric blanket on the bed in the spare room. Buttons are an attraction for the under fives. So we needed to check freezer plugs, electric fireplaces and phones constantly. Small children are a bit like controlling a flood. When you manage to block them touching the cooker switches immediately they head for the TV or sound system or computer. The running around the house both inside and outside seem frenetic but was good humoured. At our age, there needs to be a good reason to run – like the house is on fire or someone is firing a gun in your direction. At their age running seemed the default setting as did the shouting and laughter. 

At night they usually have a bath in their own home and when I told the three-year-old we had no bath he didn't believe me. He pushed into the bathroom hunting for one. Finding none he reluctantly agreed to sit on a small stool in the shower while I showered him.  I was telling him that his great grandmother believes most people have dirty bottoms and claims that the shower-head should be directed at this extremity from below not above. Our three-year-old took this piece of advice very seriously and sprayed his own bottom and me (by accident) with equal gusto. When both were washed and in clean pyjamas in bed my mum and I gave each other high-fives. We had survived this invasion of love.  Grandmother and great grandmother’s tanks were topped up with love.  They may be small containers but little people pack a big punch in the love stakes.

There are people and things we take for granted until they are taken from us

There was a time when they were just so many weddings. It felt like the whole world had conspired to get married simultaneously. Especially to a 23-year-old me who had never even had a boyfriend! My fridge door was covered in invites and large periods of time was spent buying wedding presents and working out what to wear.  There were so many that they seem to blur into each other.

Then they stopped.  Suddenly it was baby showers that popped up interspersed with children’s birthday parties. Children’s presents, balloons and games dominated everything.

Unexpectedly the weddings stopped and as children grew into teenagers, who sneered at the very thought of a birthday party organised by parents, those parties frizzled out too.

There followed a long period of expectancy with no weddings and no birthday parties. In the gap that followed, we examined all the 20 and 30-year-olds around us wondering if marriage was even on their radar at all.

The sense of expectancy was broken by a funeral of a loved grandparent, then an aunt and uncle. Suddenly it seemed that the wonderful forest in whose shelter you have long stood is being felled. These major oak trees that have remained consistent for eight decades begin to topple. The void they leave is huge. There are people and things we take for granted until they are taken from us. Then the space they leave seems unsustainable, unbearable.  With each new loss, the landscape seems to change and not for the better.

I mourn my uncle with his smiling good humour teaching me about beekeeping. My aunt whose laughter was only exceeded by her golfing expertise. The list goes on I cannot name them all, there are simply too many.

Yesterday another dear friend passed away. I remember her living room, chairs all drawn close, warm and cosy, full of love and anecdotes. Rocking with laughter we shared tales of woe and triumph.  These immense oak trees are falling around us.  I mourn their loss, their integrity, their faithfulness and their love. I want to speak of these great souls and all those who are heartbroken at their loss. But what do words matter?

At one recent funeral my cousin was asked that traditional question, “what charity should contributions be sent?” He explained the family had decided that in lieu of giving money each person was asked to do a good deed in memory of their mother instead. What a lovely way to be remembered. As I see the voids left behind my thoughts turned to searching for actions in their name that will contribute to the betterment of others.  In among the fallen oaks seeds of goodness need to be planted. It seems a befitting fruit of lives well lived.

Your Loss is Remembered...in our hearts

My heart goes out to you on the loss of your son. Ever since I received the news the shock has left me devastated. He was such a special soul and one of the nicest young men it was my pleasure to know. His kindness and good humour was tangible. I must say of all my son’s friends he was my favourite. 

I'm sure I am telling you nothing you do not already know. The last few nights have left my heart aching that we have to go on without this sweet young man in our midst. Last night I could not sleep and could only think of him and remember his smile and ready laughter. Then, in the early hours of the morning, I registered that this tragic sense of loss must be nothing to that experienced by you and the family.

There are no words! 

May I just offer you my deepest sympathy for your loss and my sincere congratulations that you brought up such an exceptionally unique character. I am so grateful to have known him and know the bewildered sense of loss must be shared by many. Such sweet souls are rare and touch so many hearts.

love

Crazy but lucid on Skype

The Skype calls and I race to turn off radio 4 and click on the green icon to accept the call.  Then there in the centre of the screen appears your face looking perplexed.  You stare with that piercing intensity only the under twos can muster.  Not old enough to pretend sociability or even feign interest.  I am pulling out all the stops on my end.  Beaming, smiles, hands clapping, launching into nursery rhythm’s we’ve shared on visits months ago.  You inspect me coldly, gosh it’s a tough audience tonight!  Then, something in my repertoire clicks and a huge smile emerges.  He has recognized his granny.  She of the crazy attention seeking over performance is familiar once more.  He babbles, at times he leans in as if to kiss the screen, he waves and claps.  It as if the entire audience of a packed Albert Hall is in rapturous applause and I feel a deep sense of satisfaction.  It was a tough show but the seasoned performer knows how to pull off magic.  The Skype call finishes and I feel the remains of the adrenaline surge through my body as the screen darkens.  I am left, the connection broken, but triumphant.  Another spider link established between that precious soul and mine.  For Charlie, I’d even master headstands if it brought forth those life giving smiles.  What is this granny hood madness?