Lessons about family rarely unfold in dramatic thunderclaps, but death has a way of clarifying what is important and what is not.
Three years ago, my husband, Rob, died unexpectedly at the age of 39. In the aftermath, I learned that what you remember of a person are not the big things. Their whole being is recalled in small gestures, memories you might not think hugely important at the time. The smell of the inside of their jacket, the frequency of their laugh.
There was also a lot I learned about other types of love, because when Rob died these relationships were the ones that anchored me. The biggest and longest of these is the one I have with my parents. Yet it was the relationship I had been the most lazy with, ticking off weekend visits as though I was meeting a quota, or turning up on their sofa hungover and monosyllabic.
Rob’s death was the catalyst for a change, though in truth, I had begun thinking about this some years before he died. It started when I was talking to Mum about how she felt when her own mother died. My family is Hindu and my grandmother was cremated in India. In our family, there is a ritual of placing some of the person’s ashes into a light, buoyant earthenware pot and laying it in a nearby river to be carried by the water. Mum was telling me about that moment. “I didn’t want to let go of that pot. Of her,” she said.
I asked Mum what she wished she had done differently, and she said: “I wish I had spent more time with her. I wish I hadn’t been running off doing other things.”
It wasn’t quite a thunderclap, but I remember thinking: “I don’t want that to happen to us.”
My parents, Jaya and Ashok Shetty, are first-generation immigrants from south India and have been married for more than 40 years. They are both retired and holiday a lot, and have a you-only-live-once approach to life. When I asked how they squared their one-life ethos with the Hindu belief in reincarnation, my dad said: “Poorna, you’re thinking of cats.”
They enjoy their life and they have worked hard for it – Dad as a former surgeon-turned-GP, and Mum working for organisations that redistributed National Lottery money to grassroots projects.
Shortly after the conversation about my grandmother’s death, I started making tiny changes. I offered to help my parents with small tasks around the house, rather than acting as if I were Lady Grantham and it was their duty to serve me. Actively contributing helped me to move beyond my teenage mode.
Then I started spending time with them individually, so they couldn’t fall into their roles of either married couple or parental unit. It began with taking them out alone for their birthdays. Then it became coffees and lunches, long walks when I came to visit. I watched them unfurl as individuals, and they told me stories about their childhood that explained a lot about the people they are today. Dad lost his father when he was very young, but he still remembers the number of his dad’s parking space at the government building where he worked. I found out how Mum felt the night before she was due to have her then-risky hole-in-the-heart surgery, and how it had shaped her.
I learned about their loves before they met each other, the things they were afraid of. Where Dad got his moral backbone from, where Mum got her hustle. Through their stories, I learned compassion and kindness, I heard about regret and dreams and I understood how full and complicated life could be.
But there was still a big gulf, mainly created by my relationship with Rob. He had suffered from chronic depression and developed a secret heroin addiction, to self-medicate his illness. In the two years before he died – when he confessed his drug use – I tried to help him, but we decided we couldn’t tell my parents; we felt they wouldn’t understand. It was more important to create a stable, judgment-free environment for Rob, but the toll on me was immense. We would still go to their house for weekends and Christmas, but I was keeping a huge thing from them.
Rob killed himself in 2015. I was hurting and there was a lot of anger swirling around. It wasn’t aimed at Rob, but there is a lot of rage in grief, and I started taking it out on Mum and Dad. They were worried for me and would call a lot – something I found stressful on days when I couldn’t bear to talk to anyone. I realised that if I didn’t tell them what I needed, I would end up pushing them away.
So I did something I hadn’t done before – I sat them down and explained what I needed. We set up contingencies for if I didn’t want to talk on the phone. I know that they were worried about my future: would I ever meet anyone again? Would I have kids? Would I be happy? I didn’t say: “We can’t talk about this ever,” because it doesn’t help to shut things down. “I’m not saying I won’t ever meet someone,” I explained. “I’m just saying that it isn’t important to me and may not be important to me for quite some time.”
And I had to tell them about Rob’s addiction. I was so scared of their reaction; would they be angry, would his picture be taken down in their house? But they came back with nothing but love and compassion for me. I’m sure they are angry at Rob and I can’t control that, but I can control how we talk about it as a family.
The first Christmas after he died, my parents took me to India. It was a big risk for all of us – we hadn’t spent two weeks alone since I left home 20 years ago, when I was 18. But I knew something had shifted. We talked, but gone was my childish whining and their nagging. We spoke like equals and, more importantly, we laughed.
At the end, when it came to saying goodbye, I said to Mum: “I had the best time – and I was worried we wouldn’t get on.” Mum said: “I know, we were worried, too.” I realised that Mum and Dad aren’t just permanently grateful for my company – that how I behave and act affects them. If I wouldn’t be moody with my own friends or take them for granted, why would I think it’s OK to do that in the most consistently loving and longest relationship I have ever had?
I’m so glad I realised this. Now, I get to honour and nurture this incredible love while they are still here, not just when it’s time to let go and allow the ashes to float away.
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