Eight: The Shift

Joanne, 45

I’ve worked in aged care for three years.

When I was a newly qualified nurse I worked in intensive care and I worked long shifts. I’d go home to my parent’s place – I was a bit of a workaholic in my twenties. It’s not really changed – and we had this little aged care place near my mum and dad’s house.

I think it was only 25 beds. I just liked it. Obviously there was old people there but most of the workers were older as well.

So they were like, “Here’s this young nurse and she’s full of energy.” They’d be like, “Come back and do some shifts!”

I was always saving to travel so I’d pop in there and, even if you hadn’t been back for six months, the staff would always remember you. Just because you were a new face, you know?

I did like it even though I never … unlike Sarah who’s worked in aged care since she was 12 or something [laughs]. Her mum was the facility manager and she used to go and help her after school and her grannie was a facility manager.

I’d definitely never had that feeling that I was drawn to working with the elderly.

I started nursing when I was 18. That was really what I wanted to do. So while all the teachers were going, “Be an architect. Be a doctor.” I was like, “No.”

I had lots of nurses in the family so I was definitely driven to being a nurse.

I sort of liked the wiz bang ICU, ED Nurse.

[Did you need a different qualification to work in A&E?]

Usually it’s just your training afterwards.

I think as you get older, your viewpoint on life changes. Life and death and birth and the whole process. As much as I do like a bit of that high tech stuff, it always comes down to the basics. It’s about your interactions with people.

[There is] still that grieving process and I think once you understand the – I don’t know if you subscribe to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross – stages of grief that you learn as a student nurse, it’s kind of the same thing.

I worked in Spinal ICU and Neuro ICU in Scotland so whether somebody has just changed because they are suddenly disabled through an accident or they might have had a brain growth or whatever, life changes around about them and everybody’s in that grieving process. The family and the person.

I had to deal with death all the time in the ICU. I did a bit of paediatrics which is different again. I actually find it harder when it was somebody old that died.

I was thinking about this this morning when I was doing my teeth. [laughs]

I think, for me, old people would have touched a lot of lives. I think that used to really bother me when I was young. Whereas now that I’m older, I think it is how your viewpoint changes so much.

One of my friends messaged me yesterday and said that, “My dad passed away during the week. He had a good innings.”

I could never understand it as a young nurse. “They’ve had a good innings? That’s terrible. It’s like just giving up. It’s like saying that it’s ok that they died.”

As you experience life a bit more, you do get that.

I actually started here as a nurse. I’d finished my Commerce Degree and I was looking for a job. The job market’s a bit slow for such a niche product that is my qualifications.

I said to Simon that, “I’m going to go do some shifts just to keep my hand in. Keep my registration up.” So I came and did some shifts here. I thought, “Aged care. It will be nice. I can be really nice to the oldies.”

I was on night shift and I was upstairs. A bell went off and this woman had had a bit of a slip but she was back up in her chair. She was quite able-bodied and totally compos mentis. I was just chatting with her and she was really embarrassed because she’d fallen over. I’m like, “Happens to the best of us! I’m quite partial to a wee fall.”

We were just sitting and having a chat and I got her a cup of tea. She goes, “I’m just ready to die.”

“Oh… right. Are you feeling depressed?”

“Oh no. I’m not depressed. I’m really not depressed. My kids have grown up. They’re all fine. I’ve got my grandkids. I’ve had a really good innings. My husband passed away 20 years ago and I’ve just been waiting to die. I’m actually ready to go.”

That was quite confronting. She was still going about her daily business and was in good form but she had just accepted the fact that she’d done everything that she wanted to do.

I don’t know if it’s where I’ve got to in my life or just my exposure to things but even [with] that Assisted Dying Bill, I think people are talking a lot more about death now in a different way. It’s actually ok to say that you ready to die.

Even 10 years ago, we’d all be going, “Oh! We’d better get an older adult mental health and we’d better get her some meds.”

I feel like death is part of life. For me, I don’t fear death. I mean I don’t want to die. I’d quite like to see my kids grow up but I’ve always actually been quite ok with death.

[That could come from the nursing background.]

I think maybe as well when you start nursing so young.

Even now, trying to explain to the kids that death’s just part of life … I’ve got a bit of a thing with if something suddenly happened to me and I hadn’t prepared the kids for the fact that people die and they’ve not lost anyone.

If you’re ok with it, I think you give better care to those people that are in those last stages as well. You’re comfortable to speak to people about their darkest thoughts. Things that they need to get off their chest.

I worked in Wellington ICU in New Zealand. I was like, “Just call me the Angel of Death.”

I’d be on in charge of the ICU and I’d go and do people’s tea relief and check that they were all up to date or go and help with turns or whatever. I had a bit of a run with every time somebody went for their tea and I’d have their patient, the patient would go, “I just need to tell you…”

I remember one story really vividly. This woman was like, “I forced my daughter to have a termination. I’ve never come to terms with it. It’s just the worst thing that a mother could do.”

This woman off-loaded for half an hour. The daughter walked into the unit because we were waiting on her coming. Even though she was still able to talk, we knew that she was dying. Her body was giving up.

The daughter came and she died within an hour.

I do believe that people have those things that they carry with them.

[If they have the opportunity to off-load, they will grab it with both hands.]

I just seem to be that person. “Oh shit. Get the Arrest Trolley ready!” [laughs]

I think I like the fact that I’m [now] a decision maker. I can actually influence the end product if you like. As a nurse, you’ve not really got a great deal of influence in how the shifts work or…

[There’s a strange dynamic in hospitals with doctors and nurses. It can be a difficult relationship.]

Funnily enough, in ICU the dynamic is different from anywhere else you’re likely to work with doctors and nurses. Even ED to some extent but not as much as ICU. Generally the doctors that are coming through ICU are learning a lot from the nurses. It’s a bit of a shift in the power dynamic.

[Was that because of necessity or was that your role?]

The difference is that it’s much more of a team approach in ICU. You’re literally facing death and trauma. Not just actual physical trauma but you are [also] seeing people being traumatised.

It’s really sort of humbling and grounding for everyone. It’s not actually about, “Oh! Look at what I’ve done!” There’s none of that going on because you …

[Quite often you are so busy that you just get onto the next thing straightaway.]

Yes. When I worked in Neuro ICU obviously organ donations are quite a thing. You need them to be brain dead but not completely dead. We’d usually have two people going for organ donation and there might be two or three that were end-of-life. There just wasn’t time … it attracts maybe a different type of person as well.

I’m comfortable in [aged care] because I have got a real thing about equality. My old boss used to go, “You’re such a Socialist!”

“I don’t actually think you need to be a Socialist to be equal.”

When I went last week to speak to Naomi about you interviewing her, I don’t see her and me as being any different. I don’t see the clients as being any different or the families as being any different.

I genuinely think that we’ve all just got a place. We’re all just parts of a machine.

Ok … I’m in a hierarchy obviously. We need to have a hierarchy. I’ve got no issues where I sit in a hierarchy or [with] making difficult decisions. At the end of the day, we’re all just human beings.

[The perception of exploitation and abandonment in aged care] really saddens me.

I’ve never had to put a loved one into aged care but I empathise from the perspective of being a mother of three kids.

With the first two I was like, “There’s no way I’d ever put my kids into daycare. It’s just not who we are.” Me and Simon were always juggling and doing crazy hours … 24 hours a day to try and keep the family going! [laughs]

Then I had this third kid who just tipped me over the edge. I was like, “I really think he needs to go to daycare and I need to go back to work.”

Sometimes I think of it in that context because I think I was probably quite judgey before that … of other mothers that went back to work and the kid was six weeks old and they were abandoned in a daycare centre.

I don’t think people equate the two. It’s so similar. Early years and the latter years of somebody’s life are so similar [that] it’s not funny. I don’t know why we don’t correlate it more. It’s because society’s perception is so different, like kids are worth so much more than old people.

I quite often have conversations with families, even just for respite care. That’s a big leap. Quite often I’ll use that analogy.

[Putting my child in day care] was actually about me being a good parent. It’s just like you being a good son or daughter.

I think the media’s portrayal of it is actually just really deplorable.

[It’s low hanging fruit.]

Because everybody is doing their life milestones later, most people in their 50s have actually still got teenagers at home, young teenagers or even young children.

The prospect of looking after a mother that’s got early onset dementia is just unworkable.

I don’t think you should have to feel burdened as a family. If you feel that it’s a burden to look after a loved one then don’t do it because you not actually doing them a service.

[It could even ruin a relationship that you have quite enjoyed previously.]

When I worked in Spinal ICU, it would usually be the male – 90% of the time – that would break his back.

The wife would sit beside the bed and go, “I’m going to look after him at home. I’m going to do everything.”

“Sssshhhh…. Just keep quiet about that. Give it a few months because it’s only day three.”

I would always really encourage people – almost to the point where maybe it wasn’t a good thing – that you’re actually allowed to be somebody’s wife. It’s actually ok to just want to be the wife.

Once you change that dynamic, it changes forever.

Looking after an elderly parent or elderly relative is no different. It’s fine that first year or two maybe but when it’s like 20 years and you’ve missed 20 years of your life. Where you should have been out with your friends or having your own hobbies and things.

You’ve given [those up] and I don’t think anybody would actually want that for that child either.

[There is often conflict within a family when the choice is made to put a parent into aged care. The question often arises, “Why are you doing that? Why don’t you keep her at home?”]

Why don’t they look after them then?

The person that does the most care at home, that was there for them, mostly becomes our point of contact. They become their Guardian or EPOA. They’re either in charge of their financials or their health decisions.

Say somebody’s mum was coming in and I was having a conversation, I’d say, “It’s pretty easy for the rest of them to say that. Why don’t you ask them to do a rotating roster and see how that works out?”

I think it’s maybe becoming less a source of conflict. You don’t see it as often anymore.

There’s a definitive line where that person’s well enough to stay at home with a bit of support or this person really needs care. Most people see it.

[Sometimes people really don’t want to be in aged care. How do you deal with that?]

We’ve got this old man. Him and his wife came in together and then the wife passed away and he really didn’t want to be here. He was really depressed and wouldn’t let his son come in and visit. It got pretty awful.

We have a support person that will go in. We have a lot of support for people in that situation.

As people come into care or if they’ve had some trauma to deal with – we had a woman recently who’s son committed suicide – we’ll choose someone from the lifestyle team that knows that person really well, that’s got that connection with them, and they then have one-on-one [time] with them. Until we get past it.

Just that support. Somebody that’s unbiased and [will] just listen to them. I have to say that generally people come round then we’ll ease them into doing a few activities, making sure that the environment is comfortable for them.

Generally people get past that. They make friends and they start interacting. Because we’re got a pretty solid workforce, I just think they get those connections as well.

I can’t think of anybody in the building that would be like, “I don’t want to be here! It’s terrible.”

More women than men come into aged care. That only maybe causes problems in the dementia wing.

If you’ve got people that have not got that usual cognition, it can be quite difficult if people get into relationships or have interactions … and the husband is coming in.

We’ve got some fairly young people with dementia and that can be a difficult dynamic.

We had a husband and wife in the dementia wing when I first started. They had two rooms. One was a lounge room and one was the bedroom. He started beating her. We had to move her to a different part of the building. It was pretty traumatic for the family as well.

Sometimes it can be a bit hairy.

[Going back to my early days], I had done my end dissertation on Pneumocystis and it was in the days of HIV. When HIV was just such a big deal and was in the news all the time. We were all terrified that we were going to get it from pushing a shopping trolley.

One of the first patients I ever looked after on ICU came in and we thought he had Legionnaires’ disease.

Legionnaires’ in Scotland is still a summer illness. Usually it’s old men that go to the sunshine and there’ll be a shower that’s got the Legionnaires’ bug in it. If the rest of the family are not that demographic, they’ll not pick up anything. You get them in ICU … you might get three in a year.

This guy came in and they were like, “We think it’s Legionnaires’ disease”.

I was like, “I think it’s Pneumocystis.”

This new grad nurse and they were all like that. Rolling their eyes at me.

“How would he have got that? He’s a married man. He’s got grown-up kids.”

“It fits all the symptoms.”

As a new nurse, it’s all about the criteria.

He was in a side room and it came back negative for Legionnaires’.

“Can we just test him for Pneumocystis?”

Eventually they tested him and he had it. He had full blown, end-stage AIDS and it turned out that he had a male partner on the side.

I was 21. It was really quite earth-shattering for everyone. You had nurses that were still double gloving, which used to drive me bonkers, even as a young nurse.

“Two gloves is going to protect you [better than] one pair of gloves that fit you properly?”

Anyway, I ended up in the side room with this guy because nobody else wanted to look after him. He was on this massive flotation bed, on heaps of drugs and ventilation.

The wife would come in and when she would leave, his partner would come in.

A lot of the staff were real white, heterosexual … it was hard for them to get their head around.

Nearly 25 years ago… it was a really different time.

With my kids, if you don’t gender-type someone properly you get your head ripped off.

“Mum! You’re such a boomer! You can’t say that about people!” [laughs]

Everybody’s just got to be fluid.

[His case] was confronting not because it conflicted with my own personal belief system, it was just the fact that it was so tragic.

This poor woman thought she had this perfect life for 30 years and this guy’s living in conflict.

I wasn’t concerned about infections. I remember the first HIV-positive patient I looked after. I can actually see the woman in her bed in a side room in a Gyni Ward. She’d come in for a Hysterectomy and there was a lot of extra precautions taken.

I remember just talking to her as she was looked at like she was a bit dirty or something.

She was like, “I just really want to go on holiday but I can’t get insurance.”

She was quite sort of ashamed. I remember just connecting with her on a personal level and just trying to always be conscious of – even if something did gross me out – not to be displaying that to her.

In that same ICU that guy was in we also did a lot of burns and plastics. I’m not very good with burns. It’s so disfiguring.

I’ve never been drawn to work in a cancer ward. It’s not my thing. Even though I’m fine with death, all that suffering … the family suffering, it’s like people are in a waiting room ready to die.

Which is what a lot of people think of aged care. I don’t see it as a waiting room. I see it as being just a last chapter of a book.

[‘Supported living’ is probably a nicer term.]

It’s about enhancing their life so that they can enjoy what they’ve got left of their life without feeling the burden of their body.

I’ve only had two people I know come through. One was a woman I know and her mum was in here and the other was the mum of one of the kid’s school teachers. Both in the dementia wing actually.

It was quite nice.

I think going from working in ICU – where everybody is pretty anonymous – to working in the ED of a small town hospital – where you know everyone – then you come here and it’s … I know it’s really comforting for them when you see people that have even a bit of connection with you. They know somebody else who knows you.

“That’s good that you’re here.”

I think it’s just a privilege. I think even if I was an undertaker, I’d actually just see it as a privilege to do those last rites on someone.

As a nurse I’d always be driving home after a shift in ICU, that was usually pretty intense, and I’d think, “I wonder if somebody else is looking after them? Could I have done a better job?”

Then I’d replay my day to myself. It was probably anxiety really. I don’t know. You just want to do a good job.

You get to a point where you’ve been nursing for so long, you like, “Actually, I know that I’m giving everything that I can to that person in that shift.”

I think it’s reflective practice they call it. Because you can never improve on your practice and there’s always things you could do better.

[There’s also a lot of stuff you can’t control.]

It’s about letting go of that. It’s actually about replaying it and going, “No… I think that was ok. I couldn’t have spotted it any earlier. I don’t think anybody else would.”

We had new staff on board and I was telling this story to them, especially the younger ones when they’re coming on.

“I’ve always nursed everybody, no matter where I’ve worked, as if the family are in the room with me.”

If I’m showering someone and I think the family are there, I know that even if that person is striking out … people can be quite violent … no matter what situation I’m in, I always like to think if the family could see me they’d be like, “I’m glad she’s looking after them.”

We’re very conscious of finding triggers so we make sure, when somebody comes in, that the staff are always looking out. How are they at tea time? There are certain things that will trigger people.

If someone doesn’t want to be showered because they are really embarrassed, the staff will stop what they are doing so it doesn’t escalate to a point where somebody is lashing out.

[How do you deal with the lack of appetite in people who are shutting down?]

It’s about trying to find [foods] that people like and accepting that they’re only going to eat a little bit.

A bit like the kid that’s a really picky eater. Nobody’s going to die, even if they only eat noodles.

As long as they are having something. We have nutritional shakes and supplements that we can give them.

It’s not too big an issue. Maybe because we do such a good job with the food.

Meal times are pretty sociable so people want to be part of it.

We’ve got one guy here who – he was a bachelor and I was just talking to Sarah about him last week – only eats biscuits. He won’t eat a meal and he’s quite a big guy.

It’s not for us to change somebody when they are 80 and they come into care. If that’s what he wants to live on …

[How much responsibility do you have with nutrition?]

It’s about having those honest conversations with the family members as well. We do monitor people’s weights and we refer them to dieticians.

We do all that stuff but if someone genuinely has went, “No. I don’t want to eat any more! That’s me. I’m done”, it’s not like a full hunger strike.

Generally they’ll eat just enough to keep them going. It’s just a pure loss of appetite and motivation to eat. We would call the family in and say, “Look. Mum’s really not wanting to eat. Maybe she doesn’t like the meals here. Is there something that she particularly likes?”

The kitchen are good at doing one-off things for people.

I think that pickiness will become more and more. I’m vegetarian and I’ve been vegetarian since I was four. I’ll be a nightmare when I get into aged care. All these vegans, gluten free … special diets are just going to be …

[The whole next generation seems to be allergic to peanuts!]

This is the easy generation that we’ve got just now so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

I lost an aunty, my dad’s sister. She was a mid-wife. Before that she was a nurse and she was probably the reason I became a nurse even though I’ve got quite a few nurses in the family.

I’ve got two uncles and probably four aunties that are nurses. A big Catholic family as well.

In 1979 she was doing her exams and I was five. She used to go through all the bones in the body and she would use me like a study guinea pig.

As she was a real scholar and academic she didn’t really know how to interact with kids of that age. She never had kids of her own.

I remember her talking to me about neurones and that’s what sparked my interest for neurology. It’s always been the area that I was going to work in and why I went and worked in Neuro and Spinal ICU.

I was pregnant with my second child and we were living here. She was only maybe about 51. I was probably closest to her out of the whole family. I was like a daughter to her and she was kind of like more of a mum to me than my mum was, just because we had a connection.

She’d had this cough over the winter. In Scotland, everyone gets coughs and colds. It was such a bad winter that they actually started putting out on the five o’clock news that people should stop going to the GPs … if you’ve just got a cold, you don’t need to see a GP. The GP practices were over-run and plus if someone comes in with a cold they could it to everyone.

So, she’d had this cough and she thought, “It’s just like a persistent cough.”

You talk about the 90-day cough. She was a smoker but an educated smoker … as if that makes any difference.

She sort of kept well otherwise. She was really involved in the Church and she was always helping out people.

She eventually went to the GP and she was riddled. Lung primary but she had quite a lot in her brain so I’m not even sure that the brain wasn’t the primary.

We used to have these quite philosophical conversations and she’d always say, “I wouldn’t have treatment. If it was palliative treatment, I wouldn’t do it. I would just die.”

She gets this diagnosis that’s life-ending and she goes, “I’m going to go and get some radiation.”

“Oh… interesting. We’ve had so many conversations about this. Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Yes. I’m not ready to give up. I can’t believe that my life could be over in my 50s.”

Everybody thinks they are immune to these things [at that age].

My dad’s sister was staying with her when she went for her first radiation. I had this new-born and my brother-in-law died when Denise was 11-days old. I was sort of dealing with this other grief of my only sister losing her husband.

I got up during the night and I phoned Tina. We had this brilliant hour and a half conversation with her where I was just like, “I’ve appreciated everything you’ve done for me. You’ve just always been there for me.”

We had that conversation, not thinking it was going to be the last conversation I’d have with her. That’s how we were anyway.

She went in the day after that call to get her first radiation and I was up during the night. I thought, “I’ll just give her a quick phone and see how it went.”

My other aunty picked up the phone and I wasn’t particularly close to her.

“Hi Carol. How’s it going?”

There was like this silence at the end of the phone. She was like, “Ok.”

In my head, Tina was lying on the sofa and Carol was picking up the phone because it had been a big day. Carol was just not really saying anything so I thought I’d better fill in the gaps.

“If Tina is there, don’t disturb her. Just tell her that I love her and I hope that it went ok today.”

Carol said that they went to the hospital to get fitted then they went to see one of her friends. After that they came home and they repotted some plants.

She goes, “I was asleep and I heard this thud. I got up and Tina had collapsed. I cleaned her all up and I carried her back to her bed.”

Then there was this silence.

“What is it?”

“She’s literally just died. I’ve just come off the phone to the GP. Nobody else in the world knows.”

I’m just like screaming down the phone. I phoned my sister, “Why are people lying?!”

There’s a real Catholic process when somebody dies and my family are quite traditional Catholics. What happens is that the oldest son gets told first. Normally it’s the parents then it goes to the oldest son or the oldest son will be told and he goes and tells the parents.

Here was me, on the other side of the world, breaking the chain. Carol was really conflicted because I’d just rung her at this minute when she’s just died and she didn’t know whether to tell me or whether to do the right thing.

My dad’s one of 12 siblings as well. It’s his side of the family and I think it’s just so engrained in them.

She was like, “I’m really sorry. I just didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to tell you when granny doesn’t even know.”

My gran was still alive then.

That was on the Saturday and on the Monday I was due to go back to work at the hospital. Denise was like three months old at this point. I’ve already lost my brother-in-law and I’ve not got back to Scotland in this time and I’ve just been soldiering on.

I was due to go back into work and I said to Simon, “I just don’t think I can do it. I’m still feeding and I’m just not in the right headspace.”

I had to go back because of our visas. If I hadn’t gone back to work, we wouldn’t have gotten the visa that we’d paid so much to get.

Simon was like, “You need to go back to work.”

I pushed through it and it wasn’t until a couple of years later that eventually it hit me.

I don’t get the whole funeral thing. I know for some people it’s really cathartic and it’s something that they need to do. To me, I’m about people that are living. I feel like the funeral part of it is just about the people who are left behind.

I would just have these imaginary conversations with her. That was a bit of phasing out of that connection. Even when I lived in New Zealand I kept in touch with her. Close contact.

I was in my early 30s when Tina died.

I was just talking about this in the context of organ donation last week. It’s actually quite a humorous side story. I went in next door and the head of community, Maureen, was in there as was Sarah. I think we were all a bit delirious, near the end of the day.

Maureen goes, “Do you know something? I really hate Aboriginal paintings. I just had to share that with you, incase you were under any illusion that I like Aboriginal paintings.”

Sarah goes, “I really hate women’s sport! I hate it with a passion. I can’t think of anything worse than watching women’s sport!”

We’ve got quite a connection so I go, “I really disagree – and have done for a long time – in principle with organ donation.”

Which is so controversial and, as an ICU nurse, it’s controversial. I don’t actually disagree with it per se but I feel like it’s not done very well. I feel like people just go, “It’s very noble to give away your loved one’s organs.”

Everybody’s focus is on the people that are the recipients but they just don’t understand the absolute trauma that can do to a family.

When somebody goes for ‘harvesting’ – even the fact that they call it ‘harvesting’ – you’ve just taken away the fact that that person is a person and now they’re what? … just organs?

I’ve wheeled a number of people … where the family have been sobbing. “How can you do this?! Their chest is still moving. They’re still breathing and you’re just going to cut them open and take all their organs out of them?!”

I think it’s an unspoken downside to organ donation.

It’s like having a post mortem before you’re actually dead. You’re still mechanically … it depends then how you think about the soul.

I believe that the soul leaves the body. I’ve seen it so many times. For me, when somebody actually does die, that final form is just a body.

There’s not enough thought or counselling or time taken with the family to actually go … plus as well, it’s actually ok to not want to give away your loved one’s organs. No matter what they think.

There’s not too much pressure from within the system to get people to donate organs. I’ve been part of organ donation a lot and I’ve never seen it where they feel like they have to talk somebody into it. It’s still pretty humane.

If I was the nurse I’d say to people, “Just so that you understand, I’m not trying to put you off.”

That’s the last thing I want to do when a kid is waiting on a liver or a young adult is waiting on something that can prolong their life.

I really explain to them that I believe – most people tap into religion of some form anyway when they are faced with death – that their soul has left their body. They visually change.

My aunt was buried and I haven’t been back to visit her grave. For me, I feel just like she’s there now and I just can’t see her. If I need to tap into her …

I was like, “Just get me her nursing badge. I just want one thing.”

I knew it meant a lot to her. It’s got like your nursing school on it.

She was a ward sister and she used to live in the sisters’ quarters in this old Victorian hospital. It had really shiny, wooden floors. As kids we used to just slide up and down these floors when we were spending time with her.

Being Catholic, you either go into the priesthood, become a nun or you become a nurse. I grew up very much like that.

I did actually think about being a nun for a short time. I don’t know why I wanted to dedicate my life to the Church but the Church was a big thing. Even though my parents actually never really went to Church. My dad sort of turned his back on the whole religious element for the family and my mum wasn’t a big Church goer.

Quite often I’d just go myself. During Lent, me and my sister would like go everyday to Church before school. We’d get up at like the crack of dawn, walk in the cold, get to the Chapel and then go to school.

It felt safe and secure. I don’t think that it was that unusual. I think it was maybe quite a sociable thing. Maybe we met our friends there and …

I’m bringing up three kids and Simon is such an Atheist … he’s not even Agnostic.

The kids are like, “You’re trying to tell me that you actually believe in God mum? What? You think the earth was created?”

“Just leave me to think what I think.”

Whatever gives you comfort.

[People often need to have some form of ritual as a comforter. Rituals are built into religion so, if you don’t have that, how do you process stuff?]

My niece – who’s now 21 – has never been religious in her life and she’s like, “My dad is just dead. He’s not there. I don’t know why you Catholics are going on about the fact that he’s still here.”

I actually feel quite sad for her.

[Many of us don’t have the tools to process it.]

Whereas, for me, it’s really simple. You can see them and they were in this life with you. Now you can’t see them and, at some point, you’ll pick up their energy somewhere else.

 

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