Last Week

Last Week opens with an illustration rendered in soft shades of black, grey, and white. The words of the pull quote above are on the opposite page. In the centre of the drawing is a vase with flowers. To the right, there’s a clock, the second hand sweeping just past the top of the hour; to the left, a framed photo of a woman strolling energetically down a path, dressed in a wet-suit and flippers, holding her swimming goggles and waving at the photographer.

Each page introducing each day of the last week begins with the same illustrative and text format: the verso is illustrated with an image of a slowly-opening flower bud, and on the recto – the right-hand page – we read the day of the week. The end of each day is marked by a two-page wash of charcoal black. On Monday, we learn the identity of the woman in the photo. It’s Flippa, so-named because every day of the week, “no matter the weather, she swims in the sea”, (p. 12) and everyone along her three-block walk down to the water hears the sound of her flippers as they flip, flop and flap. But, she can’t swim anymore, and when her grandson, wearing her goggles, walks into her bedroom, she tells him that he looks like the creature from the Black Lagoon. Who’s the creature from the Black Lagoon? Before Flippa can tell him, the phone rings, and there’s no time to explain.

On Tuesday, “if it’s not the phone, it’s the door buzzer.” (p. 21) Flippa’s grandson has a job: greeting the visitors, hanging their outerwear, and receiving their food offerings. The fridge is packed with dutch ovens and casseroles, and Flippa’s son – Dad – wonders how all that food will ever be consumed. Dad sleeps in the guest room adjacent to Flippa’s room, and our young narrator sleeps on a foldout couch near the kitchen. He sees his father’s shoulders shaking, and knows that Dad is crying.

On Wednesday, everyone is crying: Dad, the narrator, visitors. And, it’s messy, unrestrained, and nobody is trying to hold back: “We gush and gulp and sob. It’s a sloppy business. No one seems embarrassed, though.” (p. 29) Nor should they be and besides, there are plenty of Flippa stories being told, and with those stories, plenty of laughs. Plenty of memories, too, of things gone wrong, and things that went right. But whatever is wrong with Flippa cannot be made right.

By Thursday, more changes take place. That flower bud now has a tiny fruit forming at its centre. Flippa is having a good day, a day which she spends alone with her grandson while his dad goes to the airport to pick up the boy’s mom. After all the visitors’ coming and going, “for a whole hour, it was just us two,” (p. 36) sipping tea in the kitchen, the walls decorated with framed family photos. As Flippa nears the end of her earthly journey, she tells her grandson the story of his birth. From the start, he has been an old soul. When he arrived in the world, fully formed, eyes wide open, he didn’t cry. Flippa says that he just looked around the room and “took us all in. The doctor, the nurses, your father, me. Your mother most of all, of course. She’d worked so hard to set you free.” (p. 36) Coming into the world isn’t easy sometimes, and leaving it isn’t, either. It is a powerful moment: each has been and will be there for each other. Flippa has a regret: she’s not going to taste this year’s tomatoes. And that’s when her grandson gives in to tears, and they hold each other tightly.

On Friday, Flippa has visits with friends from her church, her book club, the neighbours, and a distant relative. Flippa’s daughter-in-law is a doctor, and Dr. Mom “knows how to make people pay attention. It’s a good thing she’s here to take charge. Dad is a mess.” (p. 44) Flippa’s last visitor is Mr. Bark, her longtime fruit-and-vegetable vendor. On that page of the story, both Flippa and Bark appear in the centre of tomato blossoms, and they are smiling. As they have for years, they banter about the condition of the tomato plants he sells her. They laugh, they hug, they say goodbye, and after that, for the next two days, it’s only the four family members.

By Saturday, there’s a fully-formed tomato on the blossom stem. Things have come to fruition, and Dr. Mom explains the process that will take place the next day, on Sunday morning, when Flippa’s doctor will come. Three drugs will be administered, and when her grandson asks, “Will it hurt?”, “No,” said Mom. “It’s very gentle.” (p. 53) Painlessness is a good thing because, right now, Flippa hurts, and pain is tiring. After that talk, Flippa’s grandson dons her wet-suit, goggles, and flippers, and walks down to the beach. People stare, point, and laugh, but he doesn’t care. When he returns, he snuggles into bed with Flippa who encourages him to ask her anything he wants to. He wants to know, “Are you sure?” She is sure, and that is what he needed to know.

On Sunday, he is the first of his family to rise, and he goes out to the balcony, taking in the blue sky, the warm sun. Suddenly, he sees a splash of red: “one small, perfectly ripe tomato.” It’s a gift, and, being a polite child, he thanks “whoever need to hear.” (p. 60) Then, he takes his grandmother’s good-bye gift inside.

Whether one is an adult, an adolescent, or a child, the death of a beloved family member or a friend is difficult, even when we know that it is imminent or that their illness has caused intractable pain. When someone has made the choice to have medical assistance in dying (MAiD), struggling to understand the reason for that person’s choice brings additional emotional distress. In the “Afterword”, Dr. Stefanie Green, president of the Canadian Association of MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) Assessors and Providers, offers a short informative piece, “Learn More about Assisted Dying”. Dr. Green acknowledges the confusing and conflicting emotions that can be experienced: anger, sadness, happiness at good memories. And then, there’s a difficult choice to make: should you be with the person at the end, or not? She offers strategies for those who might find it too difficult to bear witness to death. Most importantly, Dr. Green stresses the importance of being informed rather than being kept in ignorance. “Contrary to our instinct to protect children, research has shown that children who have more end-of-life information have less anxiety, better trust in health-care professionals and better psychological well-being.” (p. 63) Two valid and reliable websites are offered as resources for information about kids’ grief, and, having viewed them, I recommend them, regardless of the circumstances surrounding a death. I read Dr. Green’s essay several times, and I found it gently comforting. We never learn the name of Flippa’s grandson, and we don’t need to: his story is universal, the experience of all of us who spend time in that liminal space that exists as someone approaches the end of his or her life.

I commend Bill Richardson and Emilie Leduc for finding the words and the images which work so well together and make Last Week a truly compelling and unique book. I sniffled my way through multiple readings, each time discovering something new in both the text and in the illustrations. Reading the book was an emotional experience, and I think that writing and illustrating it must have been equally so. This is a book that would be an excellent resource for elementary/middle school counsellors, healthcare workers (doctors, nurses) working in palliative care settings, as well as any trusted adult who must deal with the situation of family or friends who have chosen MAiD. Any child experiencing the death of a loved one might find comfort in this book. I think that Last Week could be a resource in an elementary or middle school’s professional library, and it certainly deserves acquisition for a public library’s collection. Teacher-librarians choosing to acquire it for a school library collection should consider whether or not their school’s culture might find the topic of MAiD objectionable. I do not believe that this book counsels MAiD, but that’s my personal perspective. However, if a school has a religious tradition with strong objections to MAiD, as a teacher-librarian, I would be ready with a rationale for acquisition.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend Last Week. It will make you cry, make you think, and remind you to value the simple nuances of our lives and relationships because we are human beings spending time on this earth, but once.