How caring for a dying parent can be the greatest achievement of your life: In an age when so many consider elderly relatives a burden, one man's inspiring account
- - Charlie Otterly cared for his mother for 13 years after she was diagnosed with multiple
myeloma - - The TV presenter doesn't regret one moment of the time spent looking after her
- - Jessica Ottely died in 2009 after fulfilling her dreams of visiting Macchu Picchu
By CHARLIE OTTLEY
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Jessica Ottley was 44 when she gave birth to son Charlie, pictured here aged 6 months
When I was born, my mother, Jessica, was 44.
I think the last thing she or my dad had expected when they sent off my 13-year-old brother, Richard, to boarding school was the prospect of changing dirty nappies yet again.
I was almost certainly a mistake.
But accident or not, my childhood was bliss. Then, 26 years after I arrived, everything changed.
In 1996, when my father, Lionel, died suddenly of pancreatic cancer at 73, Mum was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, aged 69.
The last time I saw her, almost four years ago, Mum was about to come out of hospital and I was about to go away on a short work trip.
I looked her in the eye and scrunched up my face in the way she always did when peering over her bifocals. It was a little tease that always made her smile.
‘Don’t you dare pop off while I’m away or I’m not coming to your funeral!’ I told her. We shared a knowing smile and I left confident that she’d still be there when I got back. She wasn’t.
Mum had a much slower and more painful form of cancer than Dad. Her disease attacks plasma cells in the blood and spreads through the body eating away at the bones.
Her doctors told us she would live between two to four years — none of us expected her to survive for 14.
Without hesitation, I resolved to be there to look after her and make sure that the twilight of her life would be as comfortable as possible.
It turned out to be more of a commitment than I could have imagined, but I don’t regret a moment of it.
That’s why I shocked and saddened to read the piece in the Mail last week by Tess Stimson, where she explained why she was pleased her parents had died early, sparing her the torment of caring for them in the indignities of old age.
For Charlie, caring for his mother who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 69, was one of the most rewarding experiences of his life
I can honestly say my experience of caring for my mother in old age was the most rewarding one of my life.
Mum was born in 1927, the daughter of a commander in the Royal Navy, and met my father Lionel — who worked in insurance — while doing a lap of the debs’ circuit.
She went on to be a fantastic mother to us. When I was a baby, she would read me the Voyages Of Odysseus and Tales From The Faerie Queene until, by the age of six, I was devouring the Lord Of The Rings, books by the naturalist Gerald Durrell and anything else I could get my paws on.
Once, I attempted to fake my own death after she had punished me for typically miscreant behaviour. I lay in the corridor, a plastic dart wedged in playdough sticking up from my jumper, tongue protruding from the corner of my mouth, just like I’d seen in Tom & Jerry.
I heard her footsteps approach. Stepping over me without a pause, she continued downstairs with the words: ‘Dinner will be ready in half an hour!’
It is this practical approach to life that stood her in such stead when things started to fall apart.
Shortly after Dad’s death, I was offered a job in Los Angeles as Hollywood correspondent for a major news agency.
Despite my concerns about Mum, she was still relatively robust and it was the opportunity of a lifetime, so I took it.
But we knew Mum’s illness was terminal and eventually, as she deteriorated, I was forced to make a decision about what was most important.
On his deathbed, my father had asked me to take care of Mum. It was a conversation I cannot easily forget.
I sat with him until the very end, holding his hand as he took his last breath, quietly as the sun was beginning to rise over Twyford Down, near our home in Hampshire, and I was determined to do the same for her.
Charlie at the age of 23, greeting his mother who is just two years away from being diagnosed with multiple myeloma when this
picture was taken
They say you enter this world alone and leave it alone. They say a lot of things.
And so sitting in Los Angeles, I was confronted with a dilemma. Would I stay in a city that thrives on fantasy or head home to face the real world and fulfil my promise to Dad?
As the youngest of three siblings, without a family of my own, I was free to make that choice. I didn’t need to consider it for long. I put my career as a writer and TV presenter on hold and moved to the cottage opposite Mum to be as close to her as possible.
In hindsight, it was a big commitment for a twentysomething bloke like myself to make — but I felt that my mother was such a remarkable woman I owed it to her to do all I could to prolong her life.
And so, over the years, my older sister, Victoria, and I were on constant standby, dealing with a litany of health problems and emotional challenges (my brother, Richard, had long moved to Australia, but helped as best he could).
In the early days of her diagnosis, Mum was still quite mobile, driving and hobbling about thanks to regular radiotherapy and various operations to hold her crumbling bones together.
Towards the end she was bedridden and unable to move.
Charlie's father Lionel (left) died suddenly after being diagnosed with with pancreatic cancer in 1996
For the first few years, we usually just had to make her breakfast, help with heavy things such as unloading the shopping and bringing in logs for the fire, and general housework.
In later years, we had to administer her pills throughout the day, help her get dressed, get her in and out of bed, cook her meals, bring cups of tea and, equally important, be on call to console, support or distract.
It was around this time that I took a job as a presenter for the Travel Channel, but I always put Mum first. If I had to be away on a shoot, I always made sure there was someone she knew who could be around each day to care for her.
There were good days and bad days, times when she would look at me bright-eyed as I shouldered through the door to her bedroom, armed with a tray of her preferred breakfast — porridge, yoghurt, toast, stem ginger, a banana and a pot of tea.
But sometimes, Mum would be unconscious and almost impossible to wake. On one occasion she was barely breathing, unable to respond. I had to carry her to the car and drive her straight to the hospital. Thankfully, they were able to revive her.
Pictured here in 1972 with his mother, Charlie says although there were 'good days and bad days' to his mother's care, he regrets nothing
Each morning I would take a deep breath as I walked down the path to her cottage, not knowing whether she would still be there.
There were countless occasions when all the family agreed: ‘This time it’s definitely going to be curtains’ — for example, after the cancer ate through her hip and she had to have it rebuilt with wire, plastic and metal rods.
That was shortly before she took up golf.
She was also an avid bridge player, probably enjoying several thousand games in those final few years, and a devoted grandmother to my sister’s children, Edward and Claudia.
While she was still pretty mobile, she was able to accompany me around the world on some programmes I was filming. Together, we went cruising up the Danube and the Rhine, on a trip to Prague, ventured to Spain several times and, most thrillingly, to the Peruvian Amazon.
This expedition took place in 2005. It was the culmination of a dream that she had harboured all her life, but had never been able to fulfil.
Money for lavish holidays abroad was scarce with three demanding children to care for.
As a youngster growing up on a sheep farm in Tasmania (my grand-father’s naval career sent the family far and wide and to unexpected places), Mum’s prized possession was a history book on the world’s great wonders.
So started the seeds of a dream to one day sit out on a rock and gaze over Peru’s ancient city of Machu Picchu.
With the help of my great friend Nick, who flew her out to join me after I had finished a job in Peru, we made her dream a reality.
She could still walk with the aid of a stick, but it was a controversial journey, to say the least. Mum’s doctors opposed her travelling, even refusing to give her the appropriate jabs beforehand. But we both agreed that you might as well die doing something you enjoy.
Ancient Inca ruins aren’t particularly well known for their disabled access ramps. And upon arrival I quickly realised there was no way she could manage the steps, so the only thing for it was to carry her, a trek that took such a toll on my legs that the next day it was a photo finish between which one of us could hobble the fastest.
Jessica Ottley was diagnosed with the disease in the same year that her husband Lionel died at the age of 73
Charlie (right), his brother Richard (centre) and sister Victoria were on standby for years, dealing with a litany of medical problems that surrounded their ailing mother
But as she reclined on an ancient carved stone looking out across the view she’d dreamed of since her childhood, she cried with pure joy and not a little disbelief that she had made it after so many years, against such tremendous odds.
It will always remain one of the most precious memories of my life. I took a video of Mum’s journey and try to watch it at least once a year on her birthday, armed with a mansized box of Kleenex.
For anyone who is interested, you can see it on the internet by searching ‘Jessica Ottley and Peru’. Mum and I made our way home from Peru and for the next five years her health continued to deteriorate.
The day after I said goodbye to her for the last time and left her in hospital, I flew out to South Africa for the Travel Channel. She went home and continued to do well for the next six weeks.
Shortly before Christmas, however, she caught pneumonia. She died on December 22, 2009, her birthday, as I was racing back to be with her.
I was in a cab on the way to Durban airport when her nurse called. It was the beginning of a very long, hollow journey home to arrive at the cottage in time to pay my last respects before the undertakers came to take away the body.
It was a terrible feeling — relief that she was no longer suffering combined with a sort of emptiness and profound exhaustion.
Charlie recalls how though his birth was unplanned, his childhood was filled with happiness thanks to the love of his adoring mother Jessica
Today, though, when I look back, the pain I always feel at the loss of my parents is tinged with joy and a sense of pride. I believe in a Mediterranean approach to family life where children should try to look after their parents in old age or infirmity.
For me, this is the way the world should work. After all, my parents gave me their undivided attention for the first 18 years of my life, so it was only fair to return the favour when the tables were turned.
I think the reason my mother managed to defy medical predictions and almost achieve a world record for living with her type of cancer is because she was surrounded by so much love. My sister and I often joked that we were doing rather too good a job of looking after her.
After being with Mum for those last years, I simply can’t understand those who put their parents in a home or remain distant when the end is near.
It might sound like a contradiction to say that it is vital to give the terminally ill or extremely aged something to look forward to. But by making the time they have left as bearable as possible and by filling it with distractions and small joys, you also give them a reason to want to keep living.
Mum took great vicarious pleasure in our achievements and was determined to stick around as long as possible to find out what was going to happen next.
I also believe it’s vital to make peace with your parents before they die. I was lucky, when Dad was in what we dubbed ‘the Departure Lounge’ of Winchester Hospital, that I had the chance to sit down with him and tell him how much I loved and admired him.
Having wanted to see the world's wonders since she was a girl, Jessica Ottley fulfilled her dream by visiting Machu Picchu in Peru
Charlie carried his poorly mother to the top of the steps so she could gaze over the ancient city in Peru
And I will never forget Dad declaring how proud he was of me and the career I had chosen.
It was a conversation that made losing him somehow easier to cope with. Since then, I have told more than one person to bury the hatchet and sort it out with their parents if they have become estranged.
Jessica Ottley died on her birthday in December 2009
There will undoubtedly be many reading this who have endured far worse suffering and traumatic times looking after their parents or loved ones than I did. And they deserve our support and recognition.
But there are some who will find excuses to justify their refusal to help those close to them.
A former girlfriend once said that I spent too much time caring for other people and it was clearly a diversion to avoid dealing with my own problems.
This kind of wonky logic makes a weakness of strength and paints selfish behaviour with a veneer of mental fortitude. But I believe that love, like charity, begins at home.
Since Mum died, it has taken me more than three years to get back on my feet.
But I am now involved with The European Nature Trust, an environmental charity that works to save the last great forests of Europe.
For the first time since Mum’s death, I feel that my life has meaning and purpose.
Only occasionally do I have the odd twinge of regret.
It is more than ironic that I spent nearly 13 years looking after my mother, during which time she nearly died countless times, only to fail to be there for her at the very end.
But I also can’t help but wonder whether I had to leave before she could.
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