The bewilderment that Adrian Chiles describes is very familiar – one might even say, predictable (I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened, 20 March). Nothing can prepare you for the loss of a parent. There is no roadmap for bereavement. Losing a parent means an enforced “stepping up” on the generational ladder – it’s a step nearer to death. Perhaps more importantly, it’s a step further away from childhood, now the all-protective figure has gone. We mourn the person we remember from long ago as much as the person we sat with last week.
However long-expected, the finality of death is always a shock. The platitudes abound – “a long life, well lived” – and comfort nobody. The sheer tedium of the administration, the registration, the organisation of a funeral, the contacting of old friends, can alleviate the initial shock, but it can also feel, as Adrian describes, like a repeated hammer blow of a horrible reality. Later, the disposal of effects feels intrusive, offensive, unnatural – clearing a house is like dismantling an entire life; intimations of mortality on a grand scale.
