Habeus corpus
Sad topic today. Habeus corpus is a legal term on illegal detainment and is the basis of which our justice system is based on. You can’t detain someone for a crime because they are innocent until proven guilty in the UK. You have to bring them before a judge. This is a core tennant of our justice system. Now lets talk about divine justice.
When my dad was terminally ill with cancer…People would ask after him, I’d say “he’s fine” or “He’s comfortable” but in my mind I’d be thinking… “Habeus corpus.” Why? Because the term means “to have the body” or “you shall have the body” and that’s how I felt. We had the body, but the spirit was gone. The man I knew, loved, danced with, gave tea, made comfortable, cuddled, read with, laughed with, made proud, made worried. That man was gone. There was however his body remaining, and that was what we we taking care of. That was what we were holding onto in those final days. I remember him tutting at me when I’d feed him. It had no effect on anyone else but me. He’d tut at anyone trying to feed him. He hated eating, it was painful and he couldn’t keep it down anyway. So he’d tut at whoever was making him eat. My mum would feed him, she was his peer, no problem. My brother would feed him, he’d been a carer before, he was made of stronger stuff. No problem. Me? When dad would tut at me I was 5 years old again, messing around in St Phillip’s church and my father’s tutting was a cease and dissist order if there ever was one. I’d stop in my tracks, because ultimately I was feeding my father. The parent child relationship completely turned on its head. Because he is my father he has authority over me. Yet I was the one in the position of power and he fought it until the last. I love that tutting, it was my last happy memories of him. He was himself when he was tutting, he didn’t want his daughter feeding him and he was making his feelings known. His feelings. Not death’s.
I believe Death is a real being. When my dad was dying, death was taking him slowly, everyday, when I’d talk to him and his eyes were closed, he was with death, but when he would open his eyes, that was life, that was dad and he was with me.
The very last time I was with him, I told him I loved him, I reminded him of all our wonderful memories. He squeezed my hand. He couldn’t open his eyes but he squeezed my hand. To tell me he was still there, he could hear me, he loved me and he was listening. He understood. That was less than 6 hours from death. My last words to him were “daddy, wait for me, I’m coming in the morning. I love you, wait for me” He didn’t wait for me, he couldn’t. Death was ready to take him on his final journey. If death wasn’t an all powerful being that comes for us all, you would set your watch that my father would have waited for me to arrive again the next morning. If death was not real. He would have wrapped his arms around me and given me a hug one last time. But death is real, he did die, not 6 hours after my hugs and kisses. After all the hope, all the strength, all the belief that at the last moment God would spare me the soul crushing loss. My father passed into eternity at approximately 3:30am on the 22nd July 2021. We had the body, for terminal palative care, but within 10 days he went to see his final judge. If Death were not real he would have lived to see his 72nd birthday, if death were not real he would have lived to see my 30th, and my brother’s 40th and 45th. If death were not real, he would have lived to see my wedding day with my forever husband, he’d have lived to tell his grandchildren stories and live to see them graduate and make him proud.
But Death is real and for those final days we were living with Habeus corpus.
We had the Body.
Now we don’t even have that.
God rest him.
Grace and Courage.
Annetta Mother Smith.