A Difficult Death
I was 35 years old before I saw my first dead body. I suppose that tells something about the protective society in which I grew up.
Ken Partridge lived with his mistress on the seventeenth floor of a luxury block of flats overlooking Camps Bay. He wouldn’t have called her his mistress – they regarded themselves as being “virtually married.” The wedding rings were already bought, and waiting in the cupboard. The problem was that his divorce was not finalised. His wife was contesting it, and fighting him in court about the divorce settlement, as often happens when a lot of money is involved. (And sometimes when a little money is involved.) So Ken and Chantelle lived together as if they were married.
A year earlier they had invited my wife and me to spend a day with them at Hout Bay on his beautiful yacht. It was a glorious day and we really enjoyed ourselves. But I had the uncomfortable feeling as a pastor, that by being there I was somehow giving too much approval to their lifestyle, and I felt a bit used.
Then, quite suddenly, cancer struck. He was rushed in for emergency surgery. He recovered well, and their doctor said that they had got everything. For six months all seemed well. Then the cancer came back with ferocious force. It was a virulent liver cancer, and the doctors declined to operate again. They suggested that Chantelle contact Hospice who would come to their home and help to control the pain, and to make Ken as comfortable as possible.
So I began weekly visits to their flat. While I felt uneasy spending so much time in the bedroom of a couple not married to each other, I grew in my admiration for Chantelle. She served him as well as any wife could have done, coping with all the unpleasant and unromantic chores and rituals associated with advanced cancer. She never complained, and was a constant source of encouragement and strength to him. It’s no easy thing to remain positive and affectionate while someone is retching his heart out day after day. What do you say when you see an adulterer showing such Christ-like love? It was only when she broke into a diatribe about how difficult Ken’s wife was being, that my feelings of uneasiness returned.
One day, near the end, Ken was really restless – often a sign that death is near. Although he was desperately ill and tired, he couldn’t stay lying in bed. He kept sitting up and putting his feet on the floor. I believe this is not unusual in the last stages of dying, and perhaps arises from a desire to keep contact with the earth. A few days later, the sister from Hospice had told her that Ken probably wouldn’t live more than another 24 hours. In my experience, those wonderful people are pretty accurate about these things. So I promised to stay near the phone. (There were no cell phones in those days.) But a day went by, two, four, six … and incredibly, he lingered. I couldn’t help wondering if this is one of those cases where unfinished business didn’t leave him free to die.
Through all that time I tried to stay near to a phone.
Then, on the eighth day, the phone rang. “He’s gone,” was all she said.
“I’m coming,” I said, and headed for my car.
Within 15 minutes I was knocking on the door on the seventeenth floor. I found myself nervous. I had never seen a dead body before. How would I react if she wanted me to see him? She opened the door. We hugged. She cried, but looked serene – almost triumphant. She had seen it through. Then she said, “Do you want to see him?” obviously wanting me to.
“Of course,” I lied.
It really wasn’t bad. Of course, he looked dreadful. His skin was yellow and waxy, and his features dreadfully sunken. But I had got used to that. In fact he looked better now that he was free of his suffering. What surprised me most was that he wasn’t frightening. He looked, well, like himself.
She hadn’t even called the doctor yet, she had waited until I arrived. We prayed over Ken’s body, and then she phoned the doctor. We had tea and waited, with Ken lying between us.
I knew the doctor. He was a hail-fellow-well-met sort of fellow, who liked his work. But was a bit of the prima donna. (He had a magnificent bass voice, and had made guest appearances in our church.) He walked into the bedroom, and shook his head. “Shame,” he said. “We knew when we first opened him up there was no hope.”
Well.
I thought she was going to throw him out of the seventeenth-storey window, she was so angry. “How dare you?” She screamed. “You told us after the operation that you got everything, and that he would be fine. Who do you doctors think you are, playing God with people’s feelings?”
Who indeed.
The funeral was awkward. His wife and children, whom I’d never met, insisted that the funeral was for them, not her, to organise. And they made it clear that she would not be welcome there. I did my best to negotiate. We couldn’t argue that, in fact, she had no real rights, and would have to let the family have their way. They agreed not to make an issue of her presence, as long as she didn’t sit too near the front.
I thoroughly disapproved of Chantelle's way of living. The Bible is perfectly clear that it is a sin to live with someone you're not married to, and that we will always pay a price for it one way or another. But I could not help feeling very sorry for her in the face of the rigid, hard faces of Ken’s family.
So I led the service with the front row full of people I didn’t know, and with Chantelle sitting like some ordinary mourner near the back. But, in the service, I couldn’t keep silent about her Christ-like care of him.
Afterwards, she gave me some of his old ties.