An Extraordinary Life

She was in her late eighties when I first met her and she turned out to be one of the most inspirational people who I've ever had the good fortune to know.

My parents-in-law were both teachers and my wife and three of her five siblings followed in their footsteps. My mother-in-law first met her thirty or forty years ago through work and, despite their twenty-five year age gap, they quickly became close friends. She was a gifted teacher, full of verve and energy. A devout Catholic, she never married and chose instead to devote her life to helping others.

Most people, finishing work at sixty, look forward to a contented retirement. However, her only contentment came from action. "What's the programme?" she would regularly enquire, when everyone else merely wanted to relax. As one stage of her vocation came to an end, another began: she moved to Rwanda to continue her mission to assist and to educate. She described it as the happiest time of her life. Whenever she returned to visit England she seemed distracted, clearly longing to return to Africa. She loved the directness and lack of cynicism of the Rwandan people.

I had heard so many stories about her that meeting her shortly after our wedding was a potentially daunting experience. In person, however, she was almost comical. She was a small woman - the top of her head was barely level with my chest. She had the demeanour of a little mouse, scurrying here and there. She also had a twinkle in her eye and a mischievous sense of humour. Never afraid of saying what she thought, she told me that I was too tall, that our niece was a demanding child and that I ought to consider myself a very lucky man.

When civil war tore her beloved Rwanda apart in the mid-1990s, she was forced to return to England and consequently we saw much more of her. She saw a lot of herself in my wife, who, in turn, never forgot the long-standing kindness that had been shown to her family. When she was diagnosed with cancer, we made a conscious decision to see more of her.

The more I learnt about her, the more I respected her. Having no husband or children, she gave everything she could to other people. Her family took advantage of her generous nature, but still she gave more. She signed her lovely house over to her nephew and moved into a small 1930s flat, which was crammed with mementos of her life. It was a sparse, shabby mess of plants, pamphlets and photos, but each object held a fascinating story and we loved going to see her.

She visited my wife's school occasionally for extra-curricular events. She particularly enjoyed the public speaking contests. Despite her years (or maybe because of them?) she had an easy, natural rapport with the pupils. After her visits, they always made a point of asking after her and she after them. (I later discovered that she had personally financed numerous students through college over the years, one of whom I actually met.)

As the cancer took hold, she found it harder to cope with the physical demands of life, but her vitality never left her. She stayed with us over the Millennium Christmas and New Year period. Despite the fact that she could hardly stand, she insisted on coming into the kitchen to give me "moral support" as I prepared the Christmas dinner. She admired my cheap but effective vegetable peeler, commenting approvingly, "very good, no waste," in her brisk, clipped tones.

For a couple of days between Christmas and the New Year, she had to return home to see her own relatives. Clearly not looking forward to it, with a roguish smile she outlined her plan: "I'm going to move ALL of the spare chairs into the bedroom, LOCK the windows and turn the heating UP - hopefully they'll last about an hour and then LEAVE."

For years, ever since the extent of her health problems had become apparent, she had insisted that she would outlast the twentieth century. It was probably inevitable, then, that in early 2000 her cancer took a turn for the worse and she was soon hospitalised. During a period of respite, she returned home and wrote us one of her wonderful letters. This extract is typical:

"After getting excited to think I was at last GOING OUT OF THE HOUSE again and 'walking' (= shuffling!) around for 30 seconds, I collapsed into the nearest chair, puffing like a steam train and decided it was 'NO GO!'. The spirit was very willing but the flesh weak."

She was soon back in hospital. Realising that the end was near, one Tuesday evening we visited her. She was clearly in pain and as hospital resources were scarce she was getting almost no attention. She had been placed in a geriatric ward, when she should have been receiving specialist cancer treatment. We speculated that she had probably specified "NO fuss."

Watching her writhing in agony, my wife noticed her name spelt wrongly on the marker board above her bed and snapped. She charged into the nurses' station and demanded that appropriate pain relief should be administered immediately. Reluctantly they complied and as the drugs kicked in she was able to whisper to us. Her main concern was whether Inez, one of my wife's students, would be able to get the university place that she wanted.

This was the last thing she was able to say and she lapsed into an agonising battle for breath. She clasped my hand and I realised that she was fading. I had never seen anyone so close to death - in fact, I had feared and avoided my grandparents' final days and had always felt this to be unresolved business.

She fell asleep but carried on breathing. We were two hours away from home and had to make a difficult decision. Knowing how strong she could be, we chose not to stay with her - we had no idea how long we could have been there. However, the next morning when we phoned the hospital, we found out that she had died a few hours after we left.

Characteristically, her last words were an enquiry about someone else's welfare. Her parting gift to us had been the privilege of witnessing, calmly and without fear, the end of her extraordinary life. Her flesh finally grew cold, but her spirit lives on in our memories. I have no idea whether we'll ever join her in the place in which she believed so fervently. However, if we meet her again it won't be a moment too soon.

Posted by Hg on Thursday 13 June 2002 at 21:43.
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