Self-Checkout at 11:35

How a trip for storage boxes became the day my father’s long decline finally ended.

I have had a somewhat… interesting day.

With most Saturdays, plans in my life tend to be nebulous. With my husband who works shifts dotted all across the week, we’ve never really built in much of a couple type habit for weekends. There’s no regular farmers market we pop into for freshly plucked squash for a day of baking, nor is there necessarily a jaunt to the high street every Saturday to sit with a coffee and a croissant to people watch and let time run away.

I would love to imagine that if we had regular time off together that we would go to a park-run every Saturday to gracefully sprint with all the other middle-aged and near-middle-aged suburbanites, but let’s not kid ourselves that this would be very far up what I would enjoy as an activity.

Today was one of those rare days that we both had off work - and we found ourselves with a Saturday to fill. As we lay in bed with the fur daemon purring in between us, thinking what we actually felt like doing, and getting stuck with ideas, we fell back on what we usually tend to - a project.

I have to confess here that over the past few months, my study at home has started getting a bit out of hand. In between working from home, a huge collection of new bits and bobs related to my new Dungeons and Dragons hobby, compounded atop a Lego habit and an incessant need to buy books, plants and throw cushions, it had begun to look, to put it mildly, like a rat’s nest¹.

And so, a project was chosen - declutter and store.

To do so, however, a trip to Ikea was necessary, and so after getting ourselves showered, shaved and made semi-presentable, we jumped in the car, and on the way, I started scurrying my way through the Ikea app to identify exactly what I needed.

We arrived early and with purpose, a parking space close to the door, and there may have even been a little strut. Confident and prepared as we entered though, there is still something disorienting about stepping into Ikea at 10:15 on a Saturday morning - the blast of conditioned air, the faint scent of chipboard and imploding relationships, the soft tyranny of arrows on the floor telling you where you are allowed to go. Couples negotiating in hushed tones. Children flopping theatrically onto display sofas. The aspirational glow of staged living rooms that suggest you too could become a person who owns coordinated cushions. It can all be a bit overwhelming.

Photo by Zheka Kapusta on Unsplash

We shook all that off, and took our usual route. Past the kitchens with the fascinating drawers that I covet and the suspiciously spacious studio flats with some seriously questionable design choices and straight into the office section.

I found it almost immediately: a desktop lifty thing called “Elloven” for my computer screen. Clean lines. A tiny flat shelf underneath. Wide enough to slip my keyboard under. Beaming with the anticipation of ergonomic adulthood and a nice neat desktop, I placed it in the trolley with a small, triumphant nod, as though I had just secured a rare artefact.

And just at that point, I felt the vibration on my wrist from my Apple Watch - my mum was calling. It was 11 o’clock.

Now, when my mum calls unexpectedly these days, there is always a sudden shift in the air and every time she does, I can feel my heart skip a beat and my stomach fall an inch.

While I was still standing there in the office section, eyeing out a particularly nice ergonomic chair, she told me she thought it was happening. That my dad had seriously and suddenly deteriorated. That things were moving quickly.

I gave my husband the phone. He spoke with the nurse who was with my mum. He had a clinician conversation. He reassured my mum, he gave the nurse encouragement. He gave the phone back to me.

My mum looked devastated, and all I could say was that I understood. I said we’d wait. I asked her to call me when she knew more. I said all the practical, sensible things one says when standing beside a stack of flat-packed Scandinavian ambition, being politely jostled by a woman with a pram and a screaming toddler.

I ended the call and my immediate response was to pivot - quite literally - and make a beeline for the cafe. Strong coffee. Immediate. No sugar. If the world was going to insist on tilting, I could at the very least introduce caffeine into the equation. My husband, steady and wordless and entirely himself, followed.

We sat with our coffee in the Ikea cafe not saying much while around us people queued for meatballs and debated cake slices. A toddler was shrieking about a spoon and it sounded eerily like the same toddler with which I had been jostled a few minutes before. An elderly couple shared a slice of almond torte. Life, as ever, was audaciously continuing.

We had been through this many times before. Each time there is a wild dive, and then recovery. My husband said he didn’t think that was the case this time. Being an ED clinician, he knows what he’s talking about. I started steeling myself.

After the coffee we briefly considered making our way back to the car and heading home, but decided to go back in. Largely because we were nearly done, but also because we were now in a liminal space between being bereaved and not. A waiting area for death, or the notification of it at least. There’s no real etiquette for what you should or shouldn’t do at that point. The only concession I could think to make was taking my phone off silent mode - something I hadn’t done in years.

Which is the point where this morning became slightly surreal.

For the next little while, I moved through the warehouse like I was an automaton. I remember the sensation vividly - pushing the trolley, scanning shelves, lifting boxes down mechanically. Fabric storage cubes. Cable organisers. A desk tray. Ticking them all off on my little written list.

I was performing normality with deeply impressive technical accuracy.

Somewhere adjacent to the children’s section - a detour I do not recall consciously choosing - I picked up a stuffed otter. I have no logical explanation for this.

It was soft. It had that slightly melancholy stitched expression that suggested either wisdom or constipation. I placed it in the trolley without discussion. My husband looked at me, then at the otter, then back at me. He wisely decided not to interrogate the moment.

It was only later that I realised it was, in fact, two otters. A large one and a smaller one attached together, as if mid-embrace. A full otter unit. A generational duo.

So there I was. Storage solutions. Ergonomic monitor stand. And a parent-and-child otter set nestled between stackable boxes.

We made our way to the checkout. I began unloading items onto the conveyor belt. Scan. Beep. Slide. Scan. Beep. Slide. The familiar dance and music of consumerism. As the otters reached the scanner, my phone rang. Audibly. For the first time in years.

11:35.

My mum’s voice was different this time. Quieter.

My dad had passed away.

They suspect it was a pulmonary embolism. It had been quick at the end.

I stood there in the fluorescent glow of a self-checkout lane, one hand resting on a plush otter, while the receipt began to print. I looked at my husband while my mum was still talking. I mouthed “it happened” to him. He gestured for me to go outside.

I spoke with my mum, and very honestly, didn’t know what to say. I said I’m sorry that it’s happened. I told her I love her. I told her I would let her know when I had booked our flights. I asked if I should call my sister. My mum said no, she would call her later at a reasonable time in New Zealand.

We hung up and my husband and I walked towards the car. The mechanical mundanity of it all still baffles me a bit. It feels like it should have been… bigger. More dramatic.

My dad’s passing has been years in the coming. Many of you will know that it has been complicated. Illness. Decline. Several last minute trips down to South Africa. Fights with care homes. The slow erosion of the man he once was. There has been anticipatory grief layered upon anticipatory grief - an eroding grief that stretches out over months and years until you are almost convinced you have already done the hardest part.

And yet.

When my mum said the words, there was a jolt. Even though I had known this was coming for months if not years. Even though I knew it was close. I still felt a bit gut punched.

As I write this, my heart is very sore. It isn’t an overwhelming pain, but an ache - like when you’ve just banged your leg into the coffee table and you’re sitting down on the occasional chair trying to regain your composure while swearing under your breath.

Alongside and in between the ache, there is also relief - relief that my dad is no longer struggling. Relief that my mum no longer has to live in that constant, suspended state of waiting. Relief that the long corridor of deterioration has finally reached a door.

I’m in the process of reconciling those two supposedly conflicting feelings.

I have a few things to arrange here in London, and then I will be flying out to South Africa very shortly and will likely be gone for a while. There are arrangements to make. Family to sit with. Mum to support. My sister to keep updated. Friends to thank for their incredible support.

I am being exceptionally well looked after. My husband has been steady and kind and practical. He drove. He made sure I ate something when we got home. He carried the boxes and the otters up the three flights of stairs up to our flat. He hugged me tightly in the car park of a Swedish furniture warehouse while my brain tried to process what had just happened and told me we’d be okay. I believe him.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone here. Genuinely. Your kindness, support and encouragement over the years, as this chapter has unfolded in fragments only half seen, has meant more than I can easily articulate.

For now, things may be a bit quieter here at Bearly Politics. Or they may not. I have a tendency to write through things. But there will be travel. There will be time away.

Today began with shelving plans and ergonomic ambition. It ended with a receipt, two otters, and the knowledge that my father’s long story has come to a close.

1. My husband, potentially more accurately would say it looked like a whore’s handbag, but I would obviously never say that in polite company.