Elizabeth Hay's ALL THINGS CONSOLED is a book that simply will not let go of me. I stayed up reading it into the wee hours last week, and it continues to haunt me, to invade my thoughts, dreams and consciousness. There are probably a lot of reasons for this. It's a book about witnessing the last years of your parents, a close look at the ravages of extreme age, how, in the last years of life, you are robbed of so many things, and not just physical strength, but sometimes your very ability to think, to recall, to remember. If you are of a certain age, and especially if you have lost your parents, you will most certainly be caught up in Hay's book, subtitled A DAUGHTER'S MEMOIR. I am probably a bit older than Hay, but I still recall vividly the last days and death of my dad, thirty years ago this year. My mother lived much longer, another twenty-four years, and lived her last year and a half in a nearby nursing home. Those are months that I often revisit, racked by guilt, filled with sadness, questioning over and over again whether I did the right thing. Six years ago now. So there is that. And we have also been attending too many funerals lately. A dear friend's mother died only yesterday, and last night my dreams were filled with thoughts of her, and of my own parents, and yes, of Elizabeth Hay's wrenchingly honest and moving story of her parents' decline and final days. All of these things mixed together last night. Her story will not let go of me.
The book's title comes from something her mother said near the end of her life, as she sank gradually into dementia, losing words, confusing them, losing herself, albeit with occasional moments of lucidity. "I'm lost," she said one day, weeping. And, on another day, she said, quite simply, "I've had a good life, all things consoled."
Hay's father, Gordon, was a teacher and principal in Ontario's public schools for all of his professional life. Her mother was an aspiring artist, a painter. Hay's own relationship with her father was a troubled one, in many ways. She recalls, with brutal honesty, episodes in which her father erupted in fits of anger and disciplined her and her two older brothers quite brutally. In one such event, he threw her brother against an iron radiator splitting his head open. A doctor was called in for this unfortunate "accident." In another, she recalls her father dragging her across a room by the hair. Hay's mother always made excuses for these kind of things, telling her children that "he didn't mean it." Some readers might find this inexcusable, but I recall this time in history, when wives always supported their husbands. I also recall physical disciplining from my father, of my brothers and me. We all do. And yet, like Hay, we still loved our dad. When you are a child, your parents are like the sun and the moon. They are the arbiters of right and wrong. So yeah, a troubled relationship. And yet, in those last years of her father's life, as she recalls to a friend -
"... how much hatred I had felt for him over the years. 'But we get along now,' I said. 'All I had to do was kiss him. Give him affection. The affection I never gave him and that he was so hungry for.' … I had seen the effect on my father of receiving a kiss from me. He softened visibly, melted a bit every time. So I made a conscious decision to always kiss him as soon as I arrived for a visit and again before I left."
A kiss. That simple. In his later years, Hay's father also tells of how his own father didn't think much of him, but then also says he didn't think much of his father either. Reading this, I was immediately reminded of Robert Anderson's play (and later a movie), I NEVER SANG FOR MY FATHER, which touched me so deeply many years ago, reminding me how much I longed for my own father's approval and respect. As did Hay long for her father's respect, but, she tells us, he never even once acknowledged her success as an author, and probably didn't even read her books, a disappointment she still feels, I am sure.
Hay's relationship with her mother was much better, so it was especially painful for her to watch as dementia took her mother's mind away. My mom was lucid to the end of her nearly 97 years, but I always knew she loved me. Not so sure about my dad, so I was the family 'weeper' at his funeral. Not so at my mom's 24 years later. Unbearable sadness, but nary a tear.
One other passage that especially grabbed me was something Hay's mother said near the end of her father's life, telling her granddaughter Sochi, "He's not long for this land. I've never watched someone die before. I'm going to stay right here." Reading this, I recalled a letter my mother wrote after Dad died, describing his last moments, his last breaths, and I was surprised when she told me she'd never seen anyone die before, and how peaceful it was, and how she didn't call anyone, how she just sat with him for a while, and how absolutely quiet it suddenly seemed.
Okay. Enough. Looking this over, I can see it's not so much a book review as it is a reaction - a very personal, emotional and visceral reaction to Elizabeth Hay's story. And it's not a stretch either to say I feel 'consoled.' Consoled at knowing I am not alone in my continuing thoughts about my own parents, and how important they were to me. I hope that Hay herself feels this same sense of consolation, having finally gotten it all down, and in such an eloquent and moving fashion. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. My very highest recommendation for this thoughtful, loving and beautiful book.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
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