The first thing my landlord ever told me was that she was dying.
The delivery wasn’t dramatic. It was more like how you’d mention a leaky downstairs shower or a neighbor’s evening band practice. “It’s cancer. Ovarian,” Jane* told me as we toured her three-bedroom house in South London, waving her hand as if swatting a mosquito. “But don’t worry, I’m not planning on going anywhere just yet.”
Jane was tiny but carried herself with a bravado I recognized in my own mum, a quality that seemed to come with age. I guessed that she, like her, was also in her early 50s.
Despite our 30 year age gap, Jane had the far busier social life, while I – new to London, knowing no one – struggled to find my footing. The neighborhood was cheap, messy, and vibrant. It wasn’t unusual to hear people shouting outside a shop or see teenagers tearing through the streets on bikes as I walked home. I felt clunky there, out of place. But for all her quirks, I told myself that Jane was still far easier to live with than the average 24-year-old roommate.
Every now and then, she’d tell me stories from her younger years. Her many loves, the wild places she’d been, the husband who had died in the house years earlier. I never quite knew if she exaggerated some bits, but I enjoyed them nevertheless.
For months we existed around each other in the humdrum of normality. Conversations about the weather, the government, whatever I had made for dinner that night. We had the intimacy of polite roommates rather than real friends, but it worked for us. I didn’t have a habit of thinking about her illness and she seemed to like it that way.
Only once did I see the mask slip, when I came home late after a weekend in Amsterdam. A storm had turned my one-hour flight into a thirteen-hour bus ride across Europe. I was barely holding myself upright when I stepped into the kitchen, and Jane, out of nowhere, wrapped her arms around me. I could feel that her frame was now bony, almost fragile, but the hug was fierce. I froze. Had we ever hugged before? For the first time in a while, it hit me. Not just her illness but the loneliness she was hiding.
By March 2020, eight months into my stay, we had settled into an unspoken routine: I went to work, she’d putter around the place or meet friends. And then the world shut down.
Jane was completely cut off during the pandemic. Instead of a steady stream of visitors, I was the only one in the house with her. That also meant she was the only one at home with me.
Jane was completely cut off during the pandemic. Instead of a steady stream of visitors, I was the only one in the house with her. That also meant she was the only one at home with me.
Her stubborn, sometimes controversial opinions or conspiracies started to leak out. When I started working from home, the WiFi would mysteriously “shut off” because she didn’t want to be exposed to the radiation. I avoided pointing out that her regular chemotherapy was radiation too. I bit my tongue often, reminding myself of the average London rental prices. Not to mention there was nowhere to leave or go to mid-lockdown.
The days started to blur as we sheltered in place together. I started noticing the signs of Jane deteriorating around me. First, she stopped sleeping upstairs. Then, she stopped making her own tea. Then, she simply stayed on the sofa. Yet somehow, maybe selfishly, I convinced myself she would pull through again as she always did. I couldn’t comprehend what would change for me if she died, stuck in a flat and closed off from a world that was closed off billions of times over.
One day, Jane’s two daughters and their boyfriends arrived unannounced with overnight bags. I barely knew them, yet suddenly we were sharing a house, forced together by this completely bizarre situation. I overheard their hushed conversations about me in the kitchen, making it clear that I was no longer just a tenant. I was a grief intruder, stuck with nowhere to go. No one was moving house mid-pandemic. No one was offering up spare rooms to strangers. So I stayed silent, trying to disappear. Awkward smiles in the hallway, stomach tight with guilt for just existing. Wouldn’t I feel the same as them?
The next evening, Jane died. Peacefully, in her bed, just as she had wanted. Her children invited me to say goodbye so I stood there, awkwardly, wringing my hands in front of her. In the end, I just thanked her. For the home, for the quiet final months that we had spent together.
Jane’s body lay in the living room for two days. There was simply no one to take the body. The morgues were overflowing, makeshift ones set up in parks. So for two days I worked downstairs in the kitchen, taking video calls, pretending there wasn’t a dead body in the next room. How could I tell them that?
Jane’s body lay in the living room for two days. There was simply no one to take the body. The morgues were overflowing, makeshift ones set up in parks. So for two days I worked downstairs in the kitchen, taking video calls, pretending there wasn’t a dead body in the next room. How could I tell them that? Pretending I couldn’t smell the sickly-sweet smell of death creeping down the stairs. That night, when I had to walk past her to get to my bedroom I held my breath, heart pounding, eyes fixed straight ahead.
When they finally came to get Jane, I was left in the house; this time, alone. I wandered around on autopilot, head down in my routine. If I thought about what had happened for too long, would it even feel real? Sometimes it would hit me and I’d have nightmares that left me so shaken I slept in the bathtub, the only room with a lock.
Months later, relief came. The lockdowns eased and I could escape. The house was put on the market and I found a new place and moved out. Before leaving, I stood on the front steps for a moment, jangling the keys in my hand. I was thinking back to over a year earlier, Jane, standing in the same spot, eyes bright, ready to show me around.
“But don’t worry, I’m not planning on going anywhere just yet.”
Years later, in the aftermath of the depths of the pandemic, thinking about Jane feels surreal. How we’d spent all that time together and then, suddenly, she was just… gone. How the world had shut down and completely upended our lives.
And how ultimately, eventually, everything just carried on without her.
Faith Holloway is an L&D consultant specializing in grief in the workplace based in New York City.
*name has been changed
