A SHORT HISTORY OF FALLING

Everything I Observed About Love Whilst Dying

Joe Hammond

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019

Copyright © Joe Hammond 2019

Cover photograph © Harry Borden

Cover design by Jo Walker

Hand lettering by E Cousins

Photographs here and here © Harry Borden

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The afterword was first published under the title ‘I’ve been saying goodbye to my family for two years’ in the Guardian in December 2019.

Joe Hammond asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008339944

Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 9780008339920

Version: 2020-12-14

Dedication

for Gill, Tom & Jimmy

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Tumbling

The Body

Doctor Tiago’s Hydroelectric Power Plant

Cuckmere Haven

Losses

The Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

Gill

Mooto Nuney Disease

Fathers

What Dying Really Feels Like

Arrivals

Afterword

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Foreword
by Gill Hammond
Things I have learnt about death whilst living

How do you decide upon a day to die? For us, we had to find out when the doctors we needed were available; then we took note of the school holidays coming up, and finally we looked at the carer rota in place for that month. Who could we trust with Joe’s death as much as we had trusted them with his life? It was a ludicrous situation really.

The next step was a meeting with the relevant doctors. What incredible women they were throughout this whole, surreal journey. They asked us, ‘How did we imagine the process might unfold during which Joe would receive a huge amount of morphine to sedate him enough that his ventilator could be removed?’ This was his wish – to withdraw from the treatment that had been keeping him alive these last six months. We were bemused. What were the options!? Apparently, some people choose to watch television and the programme of choice for their final breath of life is ‘Countdown’. This gave Joe and me the giggles, and we said we thought we’d manage without any more conundrums than we had already.

How do you mark the days before the final day of your life? My top tip (in case you’re interested) is to keep it simple. Our daily lives aren’t fanfares and parades. In fact, the beauty of life is in all the tiny moments that are far more difficult to say goodbye to. The hand on a foot. The shared opinion on where the furniture should go. The stories of Tom and Jimmy’s day. The excitement at seeing a woodpecker. A small fragment of the many moments before that final day.

Why am I sharing this with you? Well, that day arrived and it was the bravest thing I have ever witnessed. But it was also transformational in my understanding and acceptance of death. Death is coming to us all and I feel there is some new, unteachable knowledge to be gleaned from Joe’s decision to allow it to come. To face it and know it. I think many people’s understanding of death is no more nuanced than a Halloween-style dread. I know mine used to be. In fact, I don’t know whether my younger self would even have wanted to pick up this book! And Now? now, I am relieved: sad, but no longer scared.

Why did Joe end his life? Well, it would have ended at some point and this disease wasn’t going to give up. Other people may have chosen differently, but for Joe life had to have meaning and his increasing isolation from the world and particularly from the boys meant that he did not want to continue, and he wasn’t afraid of dying.

I don’t know where he is now and that is hard, but I do understand that nothing really dies and that matter just transforms into other forms. Tom and I have discussions about atoms and wonder whether daddy’s atoms might just be dancing around us right now. No one knows for sure either way – so why not?

When I first met Joe he was wearing cords, a blazer, a leather satchel and of course, his black rimmed glasses. He looked like someone who should be on University Challenge but despite this, I was drawn to him. It wasn’t love at first sight – it was curiosity and intrigue. To be honest, my immediate impression was that he might be interesting but he would be a bit wimpish, a bit wet – someone who wouldn’t want to take a risk in life.

I can tell you, very specifically, the ways that led me to fall so much in love with Joe.

1 When, after only knowing me a few days, he walked across Oxford to come and light a fire for me in the flat where I was living because I couldn’t get it started and there was a power cut.

2 When I watched him dive into the sea and fling himself with such abandon and joy from cliffs and off the edge of waterfalls.

3 When we strayed from our boring package holiday to navigate the heavily armed guards at the Egyptian/Israeli border just to see what could be found on the other side. This was two days before the hotel we ended up staying in was bombed.

4 When we stood at the stage door of the Royal Court stalking the actress Lindsay Duncan to give her a letter and a script. She replied later that night to say she must perform his monologue and she did!

5 When we roamed the frosty back streets of Paris for hours without a map or any idea of which way to get back to our coach. I was less impressed by Joe’s determination to nurse some camembert cheese in his lap the whole 12-hour journey home, emitting frequent expressions of despair about its core temperature.

6 I fell more in love when I finally realised that I had to stop completing Joe’s sentences because although Joe thought and spoke far slower than me, in reality, he said more with much less and his brain interpreted the world in such a unique and beautiful way.

7 Then came the day when he asked me ‘What are you thinking?’ I was perplexed. I wondered what I was supposed to say, but his manner and tone made me realise that he really wanted to know and he wanted me to tell him the truth. I don’t know about you – but no one had really asked this of me before.

This simple question became so integral to our relationship. Something was created that became the foundation to everything in my life from that moment on. It was the simply complex notion of truth.

I knew that Joe would always tell me the truth and more importantly he would listen to my truths – even if they were hard to say or hard to hear. And this gave birth to something so precious and beautiful: trust.

For the very first time in my life, I knew exactly what love is. In my mind these two words united together as integrity. The huge presence of Joe was made more solid and substantial by his quest for truth and in the trust we found from sharing this. Joe lived by the Bettlheim quote: ‘If you speak the truth then words come easily,’ and what a beautiful craft he made with those words.

Joe always said that his work in schools for excluded, dysfunctional boys or in some of the most challenging care homes for young people was purely to finance writing. It’s funny though, he kept ending up there. There are far easier ways to earn money! But in these places honesty and trust were at their most critical. Children, but especially those dispossessed, see things with such clarity and don’t stand for the bullshit that most of us churn out. It gave Joe a perfect training ground for parenting, and anyone who saw him with his boys will know what power his solid presence has had upon them. I know this is embedded in their hearts and will bring them strength as they figure out the coming phases of their lives.

I’m aware that Joe might be starting to sound like a man of pure virtue, almost saint-like in his qualities. Of course, he was as flawed as all of us and we had our difficulties.

Tragic situations are, however, incredibly revealing – they illuminate our character, bring clarity and show us our most honest selves. I was in absolute awe of how Joe navigated this crazy disease. He sifted through his life to bring close the people and things that mattered most. He let go of everything that didn’t enrich our lives and he channeled his energy into sorting out his affairs, both the practical and the emotional. He never asked ‘Why me?’ and he told me there was no time to feel sorry for himself: such valuable lessons for living. He wanted to leave this world knowing that the boys and I were safe, and he made extraordinary things happen to achieve this. Humour and joy were part of everything – right until the very end.

So, I look back on our time together. And I remember Joe’s face the day he returned from a 40-mile motorbike ride in Indonesia with six live crabs in his backpack. Or the pout on his face when he posed in the party wig that he would happily have worn every day. Or the pride we felt over a bucket full of mulberries he made us gather from Crystal Palace park with a step ladder on the day of the London riots. Or the joy at eating his homemade kimchi and the satisfaction he had seeing great vats of the stuff in our fridge. Or the wily way he would get his Nigerian friends to cook him Jollof rice by stoking rivalry between them! But it was with Tom and Jimmy where you saw the soul of Joe at work. Nothing mattered more to him than his two boys and he was – without exaggeration – an inspirational father.

I was privileged to hold his hand to the very end. I kissed him as he took his final breaths. I witnessed his bravery and spirit and I hope I can continue to find this strength within me. I am grateful for the time we have had. I am grateful for our cheeky, charming children. I am grateful for the food he cooked and the curious things that would make him laugh. I am grateful for his huge arms and loving embrace. I am grateful for all the things we taught each other and the integrity that glued us together and I am incredibly grateful for all the adventures, both the whacky and the tough. He would actually have been useless on University Challenge.

My grief is eased knowing that Joe is to be found amongst my friends but also with you, the reader, who will take this little journey into your lives. And I am comforted to know that at the end, it really is okay.

Tumbling

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