Certain careers allow for the close-up appreciation of how people live. The commonalities we share, the patterns that exist across cultural and economic backgrounds are thrown into sharp relief when, for example, like me, you are invited to photograph people’s homes.
My job as a real estate photographer, such as it was, afforded me countless opportunities, during which I witnessed all manner of wealth and poverty, every size and style of bathroom and kitchen. But of all the houses I entered, none left an imprint on me quite as vivid as those used to say goodbye to a loved one.
A wake imbues a house with an unmistakable quality - something heavy, something hasty - like you’ve walked into a place where a meeting ended just moments before. It manifests in obvious ways; chairs borrowed from the kitchen table and arranged neatly around the walls of the master bedroom, or the icons on the bedside table, and in ways more subtle; a discarded walking stick, too-numerous teacups left out, the half-finished Webster packs on the dresser. Together, they paint a picture of a house in transition, a formerly complete home now rough around the edges, wounded, and worn out. There is no colour in these places, but a grey pall that I, present only in a fleeting commercial context, was often at a loss to overcome.
People are always surprised to hear that these particular kinds of appointments exist at all, or that I would witness them as frequently as I did. Occasionally, the widow(er) or inheritors of the estate were still there, and they’d talk with me about their life or that of the deceased. I enjoy being an ear for someone, admittedly, and in any case, I probably have more time for that than a realtor. Generally though, the house would be still and devoid of life.
I couldn’t help but tiptoe in these homes, these museums to someone else’s life, lest I knock an artifact off a shelf or make a calamitous noise. In my impatient youth, on a bad day, I’m ashamed to say I wondered why the bereaved were leaving all this for me to clean up.
Of course, they had to turn away. How could they not? There is rarely a genuine salve to be found in art or wisdom, no poetry to ease the burden of watching a loved one slowly succumb to disease. You’re enveloped in their experience, you’re surrounded with their things. You make the tea and comfort them, you adjust the pictures and flip through the photo albums, and then after the beloved finally goes, you’re too tired, and scared, to touch anything. Who has time or mind for dishes and chairs?
Much of the anguish that death invites in its aftermath is in the timing. We can’t ever quite believe someone was taken so young, or, conversely, that their suffering dragged on for so long. When I was a young teenager, my grandmother was taken suddenly by a heart attack. At sixteen, I bore witness to my grandfather’s fight with cancer, his hacking midnight coughs echo in my mind still. A few years later, a friend died when she slipped tragically from a Tasmanian waterfall.
Now having witnessed this past December the assisted-death of my father, I can say with a certain degree of confidence that to be given the unusual twenty-first-century gift of death’s schedule - its time, place, and method - is a most unexpected and extraordinary comfort. It feels novel to talk about - because it still is novel - this ability to check out at will, like it’s another entry in your planner, or a part of your diet. Passed in 2017 by the Labor Government, it came into effect in 2019 and is available to those with the mental faculty to choose it for themselves, if they have less than six months left, and if two other doctors approve. Seen in this context, at least, it makes me smile that my father might’ve even considered it, he being known for - among other things - being very unmodern, a Liberal voter, and exceptionally averse to seeing doctors. Perhaps, then, this speaks to its transformative power. Against the spectre of pain and suffering, religion and values and lifelong habits no longer make sense. They no longer help.
I received the morning phone call from my sister who told me, “He’s decided to go today,” before adding the redundant “…you better come over.” Frustrated though I was that he didn’t wait another few days for one final Christmas lunch, I understood.
One by one the family gathered over the course of the morning and early afternoon. People phoned in from overseas. Grandchildren left new drawings on the fridge. We each took a moment of privacy with him over the next few hours, and he would occasionally rise from his bed, upon his crutches, to join us in the living room for more casual conversation, or to watch one of us shuffle his playing cards, anything to stop fidgeting, anything to soften the final moments when he would return one last time to his bedroom.
A unique feeling fills the room where you know that death will soon quietly arrive; not abrupt and shocking, or violent to the senses, but with warmth and a smile and loving words. There is still so much sadness - someone whom you loved, or you were raised by, or shared history with, is leaving you, and you must make sense of it - but the knowledge that they will not so much be taken by death but, by choice, depart with it, is calming. This feeling lingers in the heart.
When he was ready to go, we joined him, seated around his bed on the foldout chairs I had placed - fully conscious of all the times I had walked into rooms like this - as his partner and eldest son prepared the Drink, double- and triple-checking that the otherwise simple directions were followed to the letter. In these remarkable minutes, there was even room enough for levity, as one or two of us gently joked with Dad. The sun bathed the room in a pleasant warmth. Birds sang outside.
With the Drink made, his partner soon wished him her final loving goodbyes, before he took the cup to his mouth. In two or three minutes, held by her, his brother, and his daughter, he made a vague gesture with his hand in front of his face and, with clarity fading fast, said, “I think it’s working now,” and slipped into unconsciousness. Within twenty minutes, he had peacefully passed. The room fell still, as we wept silently.
As far as death goes, I couldn’t imagine a kinder one. I’m glad my family and I, sad though we are, were able to say goodbye to our very sick, but still very lucid and loving father that day. I can tell you that the existence of assisted-dying laws in the state of Victoria are a great comfort to those, like my father, who have had enough of sickness, and to those of us who watch helplessly from the sidelines, wishing only to an end of their suffering. I wont deny a desire for an extra day or week, but weighed against the pain and anguish he endured, my wants are selfish, and am ultimately happy he was able to see out his life exactly as he wished.
In the weeks since, I’ve returned many times to his house. It hasn’t struck me as anything remotely funereal, or dark, or sombre. I see him at the front door, in the kitchen, the courtyard, his armchair, and at the table, and all are cheerful memories coloured with sunlight, with wine, and his endless laughter.