The bravest thing I’ve ever seen was 93-year-old Albert’s decision to die and the days after in which he stuck to his resolve and sank away from consciousness, like a swimmer turning tail and just diving down into the dark.
Albert was not religious, but I’m writing this now because though I’ve been Catholic for a decade, it was only after his final week, in the spring of last year, that I began to understand Easter and the Passion of Christ.
I first met Albert when fate decided to call my bluff. For years I’d bored on to my husband about the need for a scheme to put locals in touch with their elderly neighbours. Then one night out in a north London restaurant, there was a card on the table advertising just that: the Befriending Network.
When I called the next day they put me in touch with an even more local charity, Dorcas, and within days I was matched with Albert (no kids, wife deceased) and committed to visiting once a week. If only big charities were so nimble.
Our first meeting was inauspicious. We were chaperoned by the scheme’s co-ordinator Laura, a beautiful, joyful thirtysomething who’d signed up Albert the week before. Albert sat back in his leather chair, ancient and inscrutable, but it was clear he felt he’d been the victim of a bait and switch.
Our second date, unaccompanied, wasn’t much better. Albert was extremely deaf — both medically and occasionally by choice. I sat opposite him in his stifling flat, sweating and shouting questions. ‘So, Albert, I gather you paint?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Do you paint, Albert?’
‘I’m sorry…’ A gesture to his ear. A sad shake of the head.
When it was time to go, Albert said (not unkindly): ‘Listen, it was my nephew’s idea, this.
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