The Sweet Smell of Dying

Yesterday I sat holding the hand of a dying man. Kath, the woman holding his hand before me said John’s hand was warm and that he was warming up her hands, but I think this was wishful thinking. Or perhaps not, maybe he was warmer then.

Everyone needs one of these, right?

Johnny, good old Johnny, was a good man. He was 94 years young and had known me and my siblings since we were little tykes. My father used to take our family to Balmoral Beach regularly on a Sunday - for a BBQ put on by the North Sydney Joggers Group, of which my father was part of. The group would jog early before the lunch time BBQ. Johnny, one of the oldest of the group, was the one who would hand out sweets and salty crackers to everyone present and that included the just-finished-their-jog joggers. Salty snacks and sweets was the last thing they wanted to eat after a sweaty run, but they took them anyway to please John. In recent times Johnny would bring a stack of the weekly Aldi catalogue to dinner at North Sydney Leagues Club, handing them out one-by-one to everyone at our table. My, how John loved Aldi. He must have spent thousands of dollars on things he did not need nor ever use. In fact, my father is now walking around in a pair of Aldi joggers courtesy of John. Never been worn. Aldi chocolate was the best chocolate said John. 

John was generous and kind and loved talking to anyone. Sometimes you had to be careful because John could take an innocent anecdote and cause an avalanche of trouble with other people. He often got the story wrong. As annoying as that sometimes could be, that was John and he meant no harm whatsoever. He lived a simple life in Mosman and never had any children, but certainly a partner of sorts in Marge. We used to take him on holidays with us to New Zealand,Tasmania and Melbourne. He was always a good sport, although he did tease me when I got sea-sick on the boat ride over local seas on the Tasmanian Spirit. He trooped on as usual!

There are many accidentally funny stories about John, mostly remembered by my father. Sometimes John would tell me little things about my family that, of course, I already knew. I would cheekily humour him “Really, my sister doesn’t like peas?”

John was scared of getting cancer and life, being extremely cruel, brought him stomach cancer. He went downhill fast. From living independently in his two bedroom apartment to residential care in a retirement village to palliative care at Greenwich Hospital where he only lasted a couple of weeks.

Yesterday I sat holding the hand of a dying man. I felt his hand become cooler, his breathing more laboured, struggling against the gurgling build-up in his throat. Every now and then his body would slightly move about but his eyes never opened again. I’m quite sure he knew we were there, that he knew he could leave us soon after we left the hospital. I held his hand and it looked strong with colour, veins and freckles, unlike the rest of him snuggled up under sheets and a blanket, a husk of who he had been. He looked peaceful, however.

A group of us talked to him and around him, sharing memories as one does, with plenty of laughter. As I sat next to him, I noticed a smell that was quite sweet and neither pleasant nor unpleasant to my nose although I have heard it described as sickly. Gentle, but pervasive, it reminded me of how a dead baby bird or dead mouse can smell soon after death; indeed hard to describe. Johnny died about 40 minutes after we left him which provoked strange emotions within me; sadness, relief for John, and somehow gladness that that we - his family, really - were able to be there with him for his last hours. I’m sure old Johnny could hear us nattering away by his bedside with groovy jazz playing along.

My father was John’s carer up until the end which meant that John was in our lives regularly offering us sweets, chocolates (#aldi) and Aldi catalogues. You might say that John was family and that he and my dad were ‘besties’. Which brings me to my next blog; a gripe and ponder on the what-has-become-loose term ‘besty’. Until then...embrace life.

 RIP Johhny A.