Fribourg / Freiburg

Farewell to my father, Charly

Just before Christmas, I visited my parents at Düdingen, in the canton of Fribourg. My father Charly, who had been ill with cancer for four years, was in good spirits. The cancer seemed to have been defeated by the many sessions of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and other treatment, and he was looking forward to the year 2000. He was looking forward to another trip to London and to a journey to Portugal with friends from university days. On the last day of my holiday, my father drove me to the station in Düdingen. He bade me “Adieu”, and waved goodbye for a long time.

On 30 January 2000 I was shocked again when I saw the ‘2000’ in the inscription ‘Charles – 1934–2000 – Brülhart’ on the wooden cross that stood behind Charly as he lay in the mortuary chapel at Düdingen. I gave a start. 2000, the year of hope, had become my father’s year of death.

On his desk, my mother and I found his ‘medical diary’ for the last weeks of his life. He had written down every detail: on 21.12. 1999 the doctor had told him that there were no traces of cancer visible on the computer images … but that a new problem had arisen. His platelet count was very low, too low. The doctor didn’t know why. For my father, there was another month of ups and downs, of hope and hopelessness.

The bare figures, in Charly’s neat handwriting, show this in their own way:

I now believe my father understood the message the figures were bringing him. Later on my mother told me that on the morning of 29 January 2000 he had cut up the Christmas tree and had eaten lunch at the station buffet in Düdingen with my aunt from Canada; in the afternoon he had rested, and at half past seven had watched the news with my mother. Then he went to bed, exhausted by the taxing day he had imposed on himself.

On 30 January 2000, Joy woke me at three in morning, a phone call from my mother: “Charly has died! From an internal haemorrhage,” she wept over the phone. I hadn’t been quite awake, and I asked Joy: “Is it true? Or was it a bad dream?” “No, it’s true,” said Joy, “your father’s dead. He died an hour ago.” I was standing around, lost, in our London flat. To be sure, I called Düdingen again: my sister Carla answered. I knew it was true.

Thanks to Easyjet, by eight-thirty that morning Joy and I were on a plane to Switzerland. We talked about something odd that had happened the evening before. We had invited friends to dinner, and had decorated the table with little nightlights in glasses. Around eleven o’clock the flames of two of these candles shot up some twelve inches high. I was the first to see this ‘fire,’ and in attempting to put it out had burnt two of my fingers. Had my father been in touch one last time, to say “Adieu”?

By half past two we had arrived in Düdingen, at the ‘parental home’ at Lerchenweg 7. My mother, my two sisters and other relatives were gathered around the wooden coffin, crying, tears streaming down over my father Charly. In December I had seen him sleeping and watching television on the Le Corbusier chair in the living room. Now, in the same place, Charly was lying motionless and peaceful in his coffin.

I stroked his hair, touched his face and hands. Joy had been right: it wasn’t a bad dream – Charly was dead. He was without speech, and I was speechless. A dialogue among the living was now no longer possible. I wept, the family wept, we held to each other. I became aware that at that moment a life without my father was beginning: a life without his advice, a life without his support, a life without his helpfulness, a life without his smile, a life without his life. Memories of him will remain and live on.

There remained a few more minutes of mourning and leave-taking in the intimacy of the family. At four precisely two men from the undertaker’s arrived. From the windowsill, IFOR the cat, a good friend of my father’s, watched the two men close the coffin and carry Charly out. When they crossed the threshold, I too knew that Charly would never again come back to the house. Goodbye for ever!

Then, time ran its course. There was almost no time left to mourn. Neighbours and friends came to visit, talking about Charly’s life, talking of their painful loss. The evening prayer and the funeral had to be arranged, letters of thanks had to be written and the gravestone had to be chosen. There was the funeral and the meal afterwards. Church and tradition lay down the course of these hours and days. We found peace and time for mourning and reflection only on the Friday, the day the urn was buried in the new cemetery at Düdingen.

When we saw the urn we realised – as never before – the transience of our lives. A few days ago, Charly had been among us, a man among his own kind. And now, just a little heap of ashes. This moment brought peace, questions, and discussion. Questions about one’s own life, about one’s own approaching death. Discussion of how and where one would choose to go to ones rest. Was there life before and after, or only before?

My father Charly’s life was part of my life. With his death, part of my life has died as well. A colleague of my friend Athi’s who had suffered the same loss wrote to him: “It is as if parts of one’s own roots are dying off, and the weakened but still standing tree starts to sway. Grief settles in, snatches of conversation echo still: arguments, perhaps misunderstandings that can no longer be set right.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Brülhart
Düdingen, London, February 2000