Don't shoot the horse

Above all, don't say "She had a good innings".

Those who deal in probates will be familiar with the experience of the clients sitting opposite with drained faces, dabbing their eyes with your proffered Kleenex. As solicitors we are not formally trained to deal with grief. We feel uncomfortable at a display of tears and offer meaningless platitudes. We try to show compassion and say we know how they feel. But we don’t – not until someone really close to you dies do you (or certainly I) have any idea what they are going through.

Here, without injecting too much emotion is an insider's glimpse of what those clients suffer before they reach your office.
The call came while I was abroad. My mother (who until then had been as alert and sprightly an 86 year old as ever you are likely to find: only a few weeks earlier she had been riding her horse) had suffered a stroke and was in hospital.
The first reaction is to try to find out more, and your first experience is that you find yourself trying to run through treacle. It was painfully slow to track down the telephone number of the hospital, and having obtained it, difficult to establish which ward she was in. The hospital records go on postcodes, and I could not remember hers. Many minutes on hold found her in an assessment room, but nobody was available to talk to me. And when they did find the doctor, they lost him on the telephone system.

Even though there was nothing I could do, I tried to get home as quickly as possible. Inevitably when you hurry, everything militates to slow you down. The pilot on our flight called in sick and it took an extra hour to find a replacement. On arrival in England the luggage was delayed, and the bus to the car park was nowhere to be seen. And the motorways were clogged. And every slow caravan and tractor was out enjoying a slow weekend.

After a long age I reached the hospital and was assaulted by that characteristic smell - antiseptic and polish - enough to induce illness even if you are fit.
And there she was, intubated, unhappy but alert, a crumpled version of the person I had seen only a few days earlier. A doctor to the very end, she told me that her sixth and seventh cranial nerves had been affected.
And two hours later she was gone.

At first you don't believe it. It is like a sharp pain. It hurts acutely, but death has not found its way into your mind. The acceptance of the reality takes many days. But there is no time for that. A lot has to be done.
The starting point is the return to the hospital to deal with the first of the paperwork. The patient affairs office is located near the chapel of rest. A box of tissues sits next to the flowers in the waiting room.
"Do you want to see her?" said the kindly lady. I declined the invitation. She thought that was a wise choice. "Better to see her at the undertakers. It is a little dingy at the mortuary."
With that she handed me the little bunch of possessions which had accompanied my mother to hospital, and a certificate to enable the death to be registered.

Next stop the undertaker
It is best to rely on personal recommendation. You really don't want an undertaker who is too unctuous in his references to "the loved one" or indulges in too much wringing of hands. A business like approach is far easier to cope with. Decisions have to be made: burial or cremation (Prophetically my mother, had pointed out two days before she died the exact spot in the village churchyard where she wanted to be buried), type of coffin, how many cars, funeral announcements and many other details you do not want to think about.
And then you have to register the death. An appointment is always necessary, and you will need to have certain basic information: her date and place of birth, occupation, and husband's details. You are asked for her medical card, but don't spend too much time looking for it as it is not essential.
Nowadays registration is computerised - well almost. Everything is entered on the computer, which prints off the death certificate. But it is also dealt with manually – and don’t try signing in your own pen. It all has to be completed in special non-fading ink.

And so to the funeral……
We decided on as cheerful a funeral as was consistent with the sadness of the occasion: lively music, evocative readings by her grandchildren, the coffin swathed in the American flag – a celebration of a life rather than the mourning of a death. The congregation in the church was startled that her coffin was taken out to Copland's Hoe-down. Fortunately the coffin bearers did not break into a dance as they processed down the aisle.
Then the saddest moment of all when the coffin is lowered into the ground and the reality hits the crowd of onlookers that this is truly the end of a life; and she will never be with us again.
Even in the grimness of death there is still room for laughter. My mother had always owned a horse. A few days after the funeral I had a call from a neighbour that she had obtained quotes to have the horse put down. Which would I like to go for? This was the first I had heard of it. A well meaning friend had taken it upon herself to sentence the horse to death. I could feel her turning in the grave. "You have that horse put down and I'll come back and haunt you."
So the horse, not realising how close it came to becoming dog meat is now living out its retirement in our field.
I had always thought that people want to grieve in private. They don't. It is a help to talk, to receive visits and telephone calls. Those letters which we struggle to write to others are a help. It is good to know that you are in people's thoughts - especially those letters which have a little anecdote or past history.
But if anyone says again that my mother "had a good innings" I will personally take a cricket ball and ram it into their mouths. No matter how rich and fulfilled the past, it is no comfort to be told that there is no future. Besides, she never played cricket!

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in October 2000. (the horse lived on for another 5 years)