Tuesday, January 10, 2006
The Transformation of Bernard Merry
My dad died last Wednesday. I know that such a thing is expected to be an occasion of mourning but that does not describe my experience.
My dad was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1919. His mother, Margaret Merry, was not married to his father. In fact his father was a married man and, of equal importance, not a Catholic. Margaret was banished from the family home in disgrace and gave birth to her son at the home of a friend. One of her sisters came to visit just after the birth and reported back home: “….and she was feeding that bastard as if she had a right to.” My dad told me this himself when he was in his seventies, it was the first time I had ever heard him speak of it.
When dad was two years old his mother was sent away by the family to enter domestic service on the Isle of Wight. My dad was then raised by his grandmother and his aunts and uncles, of which there were many. He was treated as an embarrassment to the family and made to feel unwanted and unloved. Despite this his natural intelligence, wit and enterprising nature saw him through and allowed him to eventually become a very successful and skilled engineer with his own firm and small workforce.
But he carried this sense of terrible family disgrace heavily in his heart. His mother married a local gravedigger called Eric and they finally left the Isle of Wight and moved to Stoke where they lived in a large, cold house in the grounds of Stoke cemetery. When I was a child my mother used to take me to visit Margaret. But the family disgrace was so strong that I was always told she was my aunty, my dad’s sister. Since all the other relatives who were really his aunts and uncles and were claiming to be his brothers and sisters were much older than him also, this did not seem odd to me. When you are a child all adults seem pretty much as old as each other anyway. Only after her death was I told that she was my grandmother, but not until my dad was in his seventies did I hear some of the details of the whole sorry affair. He was never able to acknowledge her as his mother and she never acknowledged him as her son. She spent a lot of time with our family, she often came away on holiday with us and there always seemed nothing my dad wouldn’t do for her. But he had no memory of her ever putting her arms around him and hugging him, or of anyone else in the family doing this when he was a child.
It was difficult for my dad to deal with emotional issues and he had no experience of how to be a father or loving partner. He never quite shook off the darkness of his childhood. One of my sisters saw him in hospital on Boxing Day. He was slipping in and out of dementia and his demons were taking control. He was agitated, haunted and frightened. He kept trying to get out of his hospital bed and flee but was too weak to stand up. My sisters and I worked very hard on visualising him stepping into the light, until finally things changed. When I saw him, five days before he died a marvellous transformation was taking place, he was almost glowing. He was terribly affectionate towards me, holding and stroking my hands, arms and hair. Very unlike anything I had ever experienced from him before. As I sat with him he seemed to be truly in the “now”. His dementia meant that all the events in his life were mixed up and he was processing them in a random fashion. He would pass from an incident in his childhood to something from when I was small to an incident in the army to something going on in the ward, but it was all happening now for him. I had a real sense also that he was leaving his body. He was largely peaceful and seemed to be letting go, one by one, of all the things that were plaguing him. It was an awesome and beautiful experience.
I continued to help lead him into the light when I returned home, right up until the night before he died. During that night I felt him leave his body. The next morning I got a call to say that hospital believed he had had a stroke as he was completely unresponsive and was expected to die at any time. But we knew that he had gone already and that his consciousness was released fully into the light. His body was really no more than a car ticking over when the driver had left.
Around about 6.00pm on Wednesday 4th Jan his heart ceased to beat and he was officially declared dead. But to me he has never been more alive. Finally my dad has shaken off nearly 87 years of darkness and remembered who he truly is.
Bernard Merry born April 21st 1919. Born again January 4th 2006.
My dad was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1919. His mother, Margaret Merry, was not married to his father. In fact his father was a married man and, of equal importance, not a Catholic. Margaret was banished from the family home in disgrace and gave birth to her son at the home of a friend. One of her sisters came to visit just after the birth and reported back home: “….and she was feeding that bastard as if she had a right to.” My dad told me this himself when he was in his seventies, it was the first time I had ever heard him speak of it.
When dad was two years old his mother was sent away by the family to enter domestic service on the Isle of Wight. My dad was then raised by his grandmother and his aunts and uncles, of which there were many. He was treated as an embarrassment to the family and made to feel unwanted and unloved. Despite this his natural intelligence, wit and enterprising nature saw him through and allowed him to eventually become a very successful and skilled engineer with his own firm and small workforce.
But he carried this sense of terrible family disgrace heavily in his heart. His mother married a local gravedigger called Eric and they finally left the Isle of Wight and moved to Stoke where they lived in a large, cold house in the grounds of Stoke cemetery. When I was a child my mother used to take me to visit Margaret. But the family disgrace was so strong that I was always told she was my aunty, my dad’s sister. Since all the other relatives who were really his aunts and uncles and were claiming to be his brothers and sisters were much older than him also, this did not seem odd to me. When you are a child all adults seem pretty much as old as each other anyway. Only after her death was I told that she was my grandmother, but not until my dad was in his seventies did I hear some of the details of the whole sorry affair. He was never able to acknowledge her as his mother and she never acknowledged him as her son. She spent a lot of time with our family, she often came away on holiday with us and there always seemed nothing my dad wouldn’t do for her. But he had no memory of her ever putting her arms around him and hugging him, or of anyone else in the family doing this when he was a child.
It was difficult for my dad to deal with emotional issues and he had no experience of how to be a father or loving partner. He never quite shook off the darkness of his childhood. One of my sisters saw him in hospital on Boxing Day. He was slipping in and out of dementia and his demons were taking control. He was agitated, haunted and frightened. He kept trying to get out of his hospital bed and flee but was too weak to stand up. My sisters and I worked very hard on visualising him stepping into the light, until finally things changed. When I saw him, five days before he died a marvellous transformation was taking place, he was almost glowing. He was terribly affectionate towards me, holding and stroking my hands, arms and hair. Very unlike anything I had ever experienced from him before. As I sat with him he seemed to be truly in the “now”. His dementia meant that all the events in his life were mixed up and he was processing them in a random fashion. He would pass from an incident in his childhood to something from when I was small to an incident in the army to something going on in the ward, but it was all happening now for him. I had a real sense also that he was leaving his body. He was largely peaceful and seemed to be letting go, one by one, of all the things that were plaguing him. It was an awesome and beautiful experience.
I continued to help lead him into the light when I returned home, right up until the night before he died. During that night I felt him leave his body. The next morning I got a call to say that hospital believed he had had a stroke as he was completely unresponsive and was expected to die at any time. But we knew that he had gone already and that his consciousness was released fully into the light. His body was really no more than a car ticking over when the driver had left.
Around about 6.00pm on Wednesday 4th Jan his heart ceased to beat and he was officially declared dead. But to me he has never been more alive. Finally my dad has shaken off nearly 87 years of darkness and remembered who he truly is.
Bernard Merry born April 21st 1919. Born again January 4th 2006.
