Flowers

It’s 4am. I can’t sleep, so I thought I’d waste some time writing a random blog about flowers.

Like many people, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with cut flowers and what better time to explore these complexities than the wee small hours of the morning?

Yesterday, a sparkly friend said, “You’re probably not the person to ask...” and went on to question me on the etiquette of sending flowers when someone has died. As an expert on all matters relating to death I couldn’t think of a better person for her to have asked. Now that I’ve exhausted the usual 3am questions, like, ‘Why do elephants have four forward facing knees?’ I’m left pondering the thorny problem of flowers, particularly as they relate to love and death.

Flowers have all sorts of meanings and so if you send or give them then you feel the need to get it right.  These days, the rules on flower giving have become more relaxed but the Victorians were strict on these things. There used to be a book on our shelves at home called The Secret Language of Flowers that was all about what flowers were appropriate for each occasion. In Victorian times sending flowers was like sending a secret message. You could send a random man a bunch of Camelias and he would know that you admire him and believe him to be perfect but if you sent someone you had been out with a bunch of sweet peas you would be subtly ending it, saying, “thanks for a lovely time,” and if you really want to hammer the message home you could chuck some geraniums in there to tell him that you think he is stupid. You’ve got to admit that Tinder is easier.

Sunflowers representing happiness and longevity with a splash of purple for pride.

Flowers are less important in courtship and romance than they used to be but are still big business   when it comes to weddings. My lovely ex-policewoman lynchpin cousin has recently become a florist and looking at the wedding flowers she has worked on make me really happy. There is something  uplifting about a florists wedding Instagram. If only someone could add smells then it would be perfect.

Funeral flowers were also important when I was growing up.  You didn’t go to a funeral without taking some flowers. Since the Pinterest funeral people have been more controlling about what flowers they will accept.

‘NO FLOWERS - DONATIONS INSTEAD TO THE GEKKO PROTECTION SOCIETY’

People have been made to feel guilty about sending flowers to a funeral. When my parents died we felt pressure from the funeral directors to name a charity for people to donate to. With Dad it was easy because he had raised money for the British Heart Foundation since his first heart attack 37 years earlier but we still felt a bit uneasy about it. Why can’t people bring flowers if they want? Why  do they have to donate to our charity? I suspect this trend started because they didn’t want people ruining their chosen colour scheme. When it came to Mum’s we bucked tradition, refused to name a charity and asked everyone to bring a flower picked from garden or hedgerow. There was really something quite beautiful about watching everyone step forward to throw their buttercups, daisies and dandelions into the grave.

What about sending flowers to the living at times of death?

I think you should, if you want. It’s nice. It shows you care. When you are bereaved you feel really lonely and it’s comforting to know people are there. After Dad died, it was the people who dropped round an unexpected bunch of tulips that Mum really appreciated. Luckily, she had lots of vases and I did make a mental note to consider sending the flowers in vase arrangements to people in future.

Flowers for illness can be more tricky. Most people get a bunch of flowers sent from work if they’ve had an operation, which is nice but if you are ill for a long time or have a mental health problem or have no hope of recovery then the etiquette gets a bit awkward.

Maybe we need to adopt the Victorian’s approach to these tricky situations. I could write a book: Flowers to send in awkward situations. It could contain beautiful photographs of creative flower arrangements that send difficult messages.
A bunch of “ What, again?” that you could send to someone who is having their third by-pass. An arrangement of  “Pull yourself together,” for someone struggling with their mental health.
A bouquet of “It will pass,” for those suffering with the menopause (I suggest red flowers and red hot pokers).

 Dad had no flowers at his deathbed. He’d been attention seeking for over three decades and people don’t send flowers after the second or third time you go into hospital. Mum did. There were flowers everywhere. Flowers she loved. Flowers she hated. Every vase was full. I’m not sure how much comfort it brought to her, as she would look at them all ad joke, “Who died?” before realising, “Oh, me.” However, I’m thinking that it didn’t matter. Flowers aren’t for the dead, or even the dying. We don’t use them to send hidden messages. They are just expressions of love and compassion and I think there should be more of that.

Get it done

The Government are spending millions to fill my social and regular media with the phrase, ‘Get Brexit Done,’ and frankly, it’s getting more than a bit annoying now.

Linguistically, it’s just such an ugly phrase.  I wondered if there was a hidden meaning in the anagram, like Yellowhammer = Orwell mayhem, to make it more elegant. The best I can come up with was beg rodent exit, beret detoxing, gob rented exit, bigot extender and being extorted but none of them really work.

There are lots of things in our lives that we would like to be over but it’s not always simple. The Long Suffering Husband has sought planning permission (from me) to destroy a bit of my garden to build a workshop. I gave it ages ago. Since then plans have had to be made, bits of the garden have been cleared, brackets, blocks and wood are being sourced at the best possible price. And all of this has to happen before he actually builds the shed. At this early planning and clearing stage it would be totally unreasonable for him to turn to me and shout, “Just get the shed done, will you?” If I were to shout it at him it might be more reasonable but even then  it wouldn’t be realistic, after all he doesn’t have a shed building magic wand.

The truth of getting Brexit done is that it will just be the begin for of the job. The years of negotiations that follow, the possible economic uncertainty, the politicians calling for a general election because they really don’t want to do the next bit are what happens next. It would be like the LSH buying all the wood for the shed and saying, “look, I got the shed done, over to you.”

Mostly though, I just wish they’d not spend so much money on advertising.

Sparkle

I mentioned Sparkle Club in a previous blog and so I thought I’d write about why it’s is important in these antebellum times and my recommendations for starting your own branch.

My Dad had a few sayings that have stuck and always helped me: ‘three pin reset’, (for dealing with technology - unplug), ‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’ and ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ being some of my favourites.  This year, I have employed all three of these many times. The best thing about having had wonderful parents is that even when they are dead they are still somehow with you, sitting on your shoulder, whispering their sayings in your ear at the most appropriate times.

I’m not pretending that my Dad originated any of these phrases. I do know that the bastards one originated during the second world World War and was later added (in Latin, of course) to the Harvard School song. Margaret Attwood also used the Latin version (illegitimacy non carborundum) in the Handmaids’ Tale and so it became a bit of a feminist aphorism. However, Dad would say it to me whenever I was getting sad or worried about the state of the world. I grew up in the Eighties when we were encouraged to be scared. Russians, nuclear war, Chernobyl, miners strikes, police brutality, the milk snatcher becoming Prime Minister, Falklands War, IRA bombs, coastal erosion, whether the Thames barrier would work, Chinese birth policy, lack of jobs and the dole were just some of the things we worried about. Thank goodness we didn’t have social media then, or I would have been a total wreck. But Dad came to the rescue. The leaflet about how to prepare for nuclear war dropped on the mat and after reading it from cover to cover, I decided that the world was a pretty terrifying place.
“Why do we bother?” I asked Dad, “We’re all doomed anyway. I think I’m having an existential crisis.”
Like a parent who told me her son had used those words the other day, I’m sure he felt the urge to  laugh and wasn’t quite sure what to say but it just took him a second.

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” he said, “They want you to be scared but you need to keep going, keep learning, keep growing and remember that most people and things are nice.”

 I know I’ve mentioned it before, and I apologise if you are as bored of it as I am, but after Mum died I struggled. I had normal grief, PTSD and claustrophobia. All the time I kept hearing Dad’s words, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” in my ears. At first, I faked just wanting to be alive, then with therapy (and particularly EMDR) I faked sparkling. I’ve always faked being an extravert. People are confused when I score really highly as an introvert on personality tests because I’ve pretended so effectively for most of my life.

I took friends out, bought an amazing sparkly dress and had my nails done with a glittery polish. Fake it ‘til you make it!

As you talk about, or write about, your struggles, you start to have conversations with people that make you realise that although your own difficulties are unique, other people can find a comfort and resonance with them. Since writing about general anxiety the other day, so many people have talked to me about their worries. I think that’s good.

The reason our little group has continued our sparkle club isn’t because we are all sparkling but because we need help and encouragement to keep faking it until we make it. We can get together and discuss the thing we find difficult then we can let them go. We can remind each other not to let the bastards grind you down.

I decided that the sparkly nails would be part of my recovery. I have them done, which feels like an  extravagance for me. This time, with general anxiety at the state of the world and exhaustion levels  from dealing with children who are picking up everyone’s GAATSOTW at an all time high I went for something to really cheer myself up. The nail technician wasn’t sure.
“It’s very bright,” she said, “If you get home and it’s too much let me know and I’ll change it for free. I hope they don’t glow in the dark. You wouldn’t have this for a wedding, though would you?”

 

Is it wrong that I love them?
In dark times we all need bright, sparkling nails, to help us fake it ‘til we make it and stop that bar starts grinding us down so that we don’t need to try a three pin reset on the world.

If you want to start your own Sparkle Club, these are the rules.

1. Find some nice friends
2. Start a What’s App group
3. Send memes, gifs, emojis of anything that makes you smile. (For us it seems to be beige cardigans, which we resist the urge to slip back into, alcohol and animals)
4. Take at least 4 weeks to find a date everyone can make.
5. Take another week to choose where to go.
6. Book a table.
7. Wear clothes or paint your nails to cheer you up.
8.  Sit, eat, drink and talk.
9. Try to stay positive. (Fake it ‘til you make it and don’t let the bastards grind you down)
10. End the evening by saying you must do it more often.

General Anxiety

I need to write something but I’m not even sure how or what. 

 My general anxiety levels have gone crazy. I just don’t know what to worry about first or even next. I am concerned that I write a blog that I publish in real time and I haven’t mentioned Brexit and the weird collapse of our country for a while. In years to come, historians will look back at what people wrote and if they stumble upon this blog they could come conclude that everyday, boring people, like me, just weren’t worried about what was happening. They’d be wrong. 

I guess that most of us are so worried that we are trying not to think about it. We are busily trying to get on with our lives, pretending everything is normal, asking themselves if they feel strong enough before they switch on the news, read a paper or look at social media.

However, not looking, thinking or talking doesn’t make the anxiety go away. You still feel it. That elephant sitting on your chest, a desire to run away, a thought about whether it’s all worth it. The dry mouth, lack of sleep and feeling that if only you keep your sock drawer tidy the inevitable cataclysm can be avoided. The small things you normally worry about replace the real anxiety and you find yourself crying over your cereal about not having done the ironing.

Here’s a list of some of the things I’m really worried about.

1. Brexit has irretrievably divided and ruined our country.

2. Racists are rampant. 

3. People can’t stop talking about the Second World War as though it was a brilliant thing. 

4. The Empire too, what does it mean to you?

5. Surely your proud. Shout it out loud. Britain awakes.

6. There’ll always be an England - sorry I slipped into song.

7. But seriously, there might not always be an England. Country lanes, village streets and turning wheels are under threat.

8. The climate is broken.

9. Old men deny this by suggesting that Greta Thunberg has a mental health problem because she refuses to smile at them and show off her tits.

10. Our Prime minister is a fool and loads of people love it.

11. He is in the USA (not Europe, trying to negotiate a deal) on the day when the Supreme Court declare that his decision to prorogue Parliament was unlawful on the same day when the USA’s fool of a president gets impeached.

12. They both think these things don’t apply to them.

13. The economy is struggling

14. The pound is weak.

15. Travel companies can suddenly go bust, losing thousands of people their income and news just shrugs its shoulders because it’s not the worst thing happening.

16. News would prefer to focus on the eclectic broach choice of the judge of the Supreme Court. 

17. The house market seems to have stagnated.

18. Have you seen the price of butter?

19. Whatever happened to the EU butter mountain?

20. The wrong people went on Bake Off.

21. Even Holly City and the Archers are traumatic.

22. David Cameron is selling his book and we are being made to feel sorry for his incompetence.

23. Parliament is back tomorrow, half way through Labour’s disastrous conference before the Conservatives have had a chance to show the country that they fight between themselves too.

24. The opposition party can’t make a decision on how to oppose.

25. We’re all going to get cancer and die horrible, disgusting, painful deaths anyway.

You see, it’s so much better to name your anxieties. We all feel better now, don’t we? *pulls duvet over head and searches ‘kittens doing funny things while babies laugh.’*

Traditional Gang

The human condition compels us to want to belong. We like to live in groups but those groups have to be special. For some bizarre reason humans have to exclude people in order to feel more connected with their group. I have always found group psychology fascinating Tajfel argued that a person’s whole social identity is based upon the groups they belong to. Obviously, as soon as people are excluded from a group and they form an opposite but nearly as  powerful group and conflict arises. Black/White, Male/female, Conservative/labour, Christian/Jew, Muslim/Christian, Leave/Remain.

For some people, these large groups are too big and too full of conflict and so smaller groups within them form. Little rules and traditions form that identify the group and allows the removal of those who aren’t sufficiently committed to the group.

During the last two weekends I observed some groups. It was heritage weekend and some of our wonderful historic buildings were open. I’m a bit of a self confessed history geek and love going in these buildings. I often feel as though I sit on the edge of most groups. I’m interested in all of them but never quite able to fully commit to any of them.

For the first time, the masonic hall was open. Masons have traditionally been very secret. It was part of their appeal: the secret handshakes, trouser rolling ceremonies and corrupt police members that could get you off almost any crime. To open their building seemed a very bold move. I suspect they are actually looking for new members as they seemed exceptionally interested in the Long Suffering Husband. The building is amazing. It’s like a tardis. You go in through the blue door to a traditional working men’s club bar, with a dining room and raffle tombola behind. We were taken upstairs into the secret inner sanctum, where there was so much to see and describe. We were shown chairs that  only the grand master was allowed to sit in and the aprons that the masons wear. I have seen masons  arriving at this building (and it seems to me that being terrible at parking is a membership requirement) carrying a box that I had always assumed was a glockenspiel. I am quite disappointed to find it only contains a white apron. I’m still shocked, a week later, that I had never realised that the masons was a Christian working men’s club of stone masons before. The apron, the block of stone in a lever, the pillars, the square and compasses are just tools of  the trade.  The men showing us around were very proud of their club. They talked of their traditions, especially how complicated and difficult everything was to understand. I behaved myself and didn’t say that the adornments to their  apron, when they got to the next level looked like blue nipples. I did ask if they had to get their mum to sew them on, like when you are in the Brownies. The grand chamber, set up like a court room, was
 very plush. There was a carpet for playing chess on and a big green G in the ceiling, to represent God. The man showing us round was very keen to tell us how wonderful it was to be a grand master, so that he could bang his gavel and everyone would listen to him. Apparently, no one listens to him at home. There was an organ in the corner, that they can’t get anyone to play but they still sing hymns.  

I went away thinking about tradition and our need to belong and feeling as though I’d just glimpsed another group I could never be part of.

In the week my son had his friends round before he went back to university and I overheard one of them say, “But Michael, tradition  is just peer pressure by dead people.”  Very profound, I thought. It’s probably not original but I’d not heard it before.

This weekend was the regatta and I watched as other groups played the belonging game. Boaty people have always seemed to be part of a group that I, as someone who is sick on a canal barge, can never belong to.  There were music groups performing on the quayside. I can belong to music groups but there are so many. If we all got together we could be powerful. We already have our own language.

One of the groups were the Morris dancers. When I was growing up, our neighbour was a Morris man. He wore all white and had sets of bells he tied to his legs. It was like a grown ups version of country dancing, for men only. Yesterday, I saw a different kind of group. Instead of wearing the pristine white they were dressed in rags and had blacked their faces. I was quite shocked. Especially after the flack the Canadian PM has had for blackening his face for a fancy dress party. There is a history of face blackening that has been racist and so now it is generally agreed that it’s best not to do it. Some of the Morris dancers had gone for half red half black, like some deformed ladybird. I wondered why they still did this. My daughter said that they would argue that it’s tradition. I read a few articles where people said that it was just a disguise and that it pre-dates black people in this country and so can’t be racist. For me, it’s a reason I can’t be part of this group either. I just think it’s unnecessary, doesn’t work as a disguise and would be difficult to wash off.

I did accidentally start a club of my own. After my successful EMDR treatment I took a few people out for dinner who had looked out for me when I was really bonkers. I declared that I was now going to sparkle and insisted that people wore something sparkly to celebrate. The sparkle club was born that evening. It will probably fizzle out but if it continues and grows and we get new younger members who continue to sparkle even when I’m dead they can all sit around the table eating nice food in their glittery tops wondering why they can’t wear a plain pair of jeans and jumper and I will be the dead person performing the peer pressure when someone says, “It’s tradition.”

How Tired?

I’ll confess.

I’m tired. I’m feeling extremely old and wondering if I’m cut out for this anymore. I haven’t even been swimming this week, just crashing on the sofa with my knitting or a book, sitting in complete silence and rocking slightly.

Although I’m concerned that it might be my age I do think it probably happens every year. It’s a shock to the system to go back to school after 6 weeks off. In the holidays you relax and forget just how exhausting it is to have to constantly perform in front of a room of thirty barely listening children. My voice is already on its last legs and every bone and muscle in my body aches as though I’ve run a marathon.

Taking the dog out for his early evening walk, while reflecting on just how tired I was and whether it was time to join the Long Suffering Husband in early retirement bliss, I saw some girls in the park. There were four of them, although I didn’t notice one at first. The mum (the girls were about the same age so it was probably a play date) was sitting on the bench looking at her phone. The three girls that I could see were on the swing.

Suddenly one of them said, “Emily’s died!”
Another one said, “No, Emily is just meditating.”
The third said, “Uh huh. Emily is chillaxing on the slide.”
I looked over and saw Emily.
She was on her back with her bottom on the top step and her head pointing down the slide. She did look very relaxed but quite funny and I laughed, which made the mum look up from her phone.
It turns out Emily wasn’t dead, or meditating, or chillaxing but was actually fast asleep and snoring.

Starting back at school takes it out of everyone.

Death Wars

Since both my parents died within 15 months of each other, I have been a little obsessed with death. I keep wanting to write about other things but here we are again, with another blog about death.  WARNING:  This might end up long and rambling with some over-sharing and difficult content because there's an argument raging on Twitter and I need to get my head around it.

Elements of Twitter are at war about death.  There are two camps who are taking a polar opposite approach and this worries me.  I have thought for a little while that people were starting to talk about the dying process and I hoped that this would lead to more honesty and less fear. However, this current war seems to be implying that you have to choose.  You can have honesty and fear or peace of mind and a fudging of people's real experience.

This war started because Dying with Dignity released a campaign video and they have gone full-on-fear.  If you want to watch it, the link is here:
https://twitter.com/dignityindying/status/1170706863677161473?s=20

The video shows a clearly grieving woman talking to her son about her father and showing him pictures and talking proudly about his life.  Then the boy asks about how granddad died and what she says and the pictures don't match.  She says all the things that you read in the books, written by palliative care doctors: the things you want to believe.  She says he had cancer and when they couldn't do any more because it had spread he was moved to a hospice, where the doctors and nurses did everything they could to help him and then when the time came he was happy and it was like drifting off to sleep.  The pictures showed the flashbacks that the woman had of those times, which included her dad writhing in pain, struggling for breath and saying, 'This can't go on any longer.'

It is a distressing video because her memories are distressed.  It is horrible to watch your parent die.  That is a fact.  There is no getting away from that.  Even if you can genuinely say, 'when the time came he was happy and it was just like drifting off to sleep,' then it will still have been horrible.

The medics working in End of Life (EOL) care are outraged about this video.  They think it is scaremongering and want it taken down.  I can understand that but I think they are wrong.  This is just another opportunity for honest discussions about death.  One of those medics, Kathryn Mannix (who wrote a brilliant book about dying - With Death in Mind), is often the voice of reason and has a very calming approach to death is particularly distressed by this video.  In her book, she clearly states that she is against offering people the choice of euthanasia in terminal illness and it seems as though her main argument is that if you offer people that choice then they feel pressured into taking it.  She writes about a man who came from Holland, where assisted dying is allowed in terminal illness because he felt pressured by every doctor asking him if he was sure he didn't want his final shot.

The medics on Twitter have responded to the video saying that in all their years in the job they have never seen anyone die like this.  When people reply to say that their loved one did have a bad experience they seem to be told that it's just because they don't understand death that they feel like this.

I read Dr Mannix's book when my Mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer, six months after my dad died.  I thought I needed to be prepared.  I had watched Dad die and had a sneaking suspicion that some of the things that we thought had gone wrong were because we didn't understand the death process.  I thought that if I understood more then we could make sure that Mum had better care and we would feel better about it.  When Mum's final 72 hours were nothing like described in the book I was quite cross with it for misleading me.  I spent ages feeling let down by this random doctor that I had never met.  Then she went on Griefcast (this podcast is the best thing ever and you should really listen to it, whether you are bereaved or not - it's so human) and I listened.  I still liked her, the things she said and the calm way she said them. I still think there is a place for telling good EOL stories.  We need to know that dying can be alright. I tweeted to say that I had enjoyed the podcast and had forgiven this doctor because she said that not all deaths were normal.  I know that my Mum's wasn't entirely normal because when I told my GP why I couldn't eat or sleep and was bruising myself in my sleep, having constant flashbacks every time I closed my eyes, she gasped and said, "Yes, that would be difficult.  Don't expect to get back to work for 18 months.  I had a colleague who dealt with something like that and they had to give up medicine." I know it wasn't normal because the nurse who came out in the middle of the night without the drugs we had been promised she would have to help was sobbing as she left.  We knew it wasn't entirely normal because we overheard the district nurse and the hospice nurse whispering about something stercoraceous and possible catastrophic haemorrhage.  I'm so glad I heard those whispers because at least I was able to look up those words.  I can't imagine what kind of state I would be in if I hadn't been prepared for the possibility.  I honestly think I would have always have thought it was something I did that caused it, rather than it being something that can (and does) happen with liver and abdominal cancers.

No one told us that this way of dying was a possibility.  No one mentioned it to my mum. I can understand that no one wanted to frighten us but I would argue that we need to know.

When I was pregnant, I read every book on birth there was.  I knew everything that could go wrong and some of the things you could try to mitigate against them.  I knew that it was unlikely to be painless but I also knew that there were several options for managing that pain.  I knew that if it all got too much there was an option of a cesarean section.  In the bad old days, women didn't know any of this.  They were given a wet flannel to bite down on and many of them died in awful ways.  Lots of babies had horrible, traumatic births and didn't make it.  And people didn't talk about it because they didn't want to scare each other.  Then medical advances were made and people lost their connection to how to give birth naturally.  Now, we are embracing that both options are possible and people actually support each other.

EOL physicians argue that we have forgotten how we die.  They say that when grandma died at home and we laid her out in the front room or carried her out of the house on the chair she was sitting in when she died we knew what death was.  They say that since hospitals and the NHS we have forgotten that people die. I would also argue that as we've got better at treating the acute illnesses people die in more complicated ways.

The people from Dying with Dignity and the people who have commented on the video to say that their experience of watching a relative die matches that experience would like assisted dying to be part of EOL care.

I am confused about the argument that people haven't really witnessed their relatives suffer. It seems to me that there is a disconnect between what doctors and relatives think is happening.  From my experience, some of this is due to how little of the patient a doctor actually sees.  It's the relatives that see the wincing in pain, that hear them say, "If I were a dog...".  When the patient gets in front of the doctor they say, "Oh, no.  It's not too bad.  I don't want to be any trouble."  I still doubt that you can die without there being any pain and I'm sure that, just as in childbirth, fear makes that pain worse.  If doctors get the medication right then that pain might not be there at the point of death but the relatives will have seen pain at some point.

Mum didn't want to die and I don't think she'd have taken the option if she had been given it but she might have in those last few hours, if they had talked to her about what could happen, rather than whispering about it behind our backs. Dad would absolutely have taken it, except that Mum would never have let him.  Even on the day he died she thought he just needed to pull himself together.

Assisted Dying might not be the answer we think it is but I would like to see it not dismissed without discussion.  If we could keep it as an option - like a C-section.  Something that isn't what everyone would want but might be the best option in certain circumstances.

I'd be really happy if the medics could write an honest guide to what you could expect when dying, where they explain that death is caused by the organs failing and how the symptoms you get are related to the organ that fails.  I'd also be very happy if they considered assisted dying as an option.