jmgoyder

wings and things

The pink sky

I watch the sky pinking from our front veranda and, breathing easily now, again, I wonder with a deep curiosity about your strong voice to me on my mother’s phone yesterday. Your voice was louder than usual, and comforting. You remembered my few-and-far-between asthma attacks just as you remembered the drama of how we turned orange from too much carrot juice years ago. I couldn’t believe how strong your voice was; you sounded so normal and in control; your voice wasn’t whispery, you didn’t sound confused, you helped me.

I have now drawn the blinds on a pink sky gone dark and am into day two of no steroids for the asthma. Some friends/commenters have suggested that this asthma attack may well be due to emotional stuff and I am quite willing to accept that possibility. Perhaps the ongoing, relentless, anticipatory grief of losing my beautiful husband has gotten the better of my psyche. Perhaps seeing our son’s grief and bewilderment has turned everything I once saw as pink into a dull grey. I don’t know.

It is probably a terrible pressure on a single son to ask for the pink in the sky to come back, but I know, without any doubt, that he can do this. Ming.

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Once upon a time 7

He took me out for dinner. This had never happened to me before – this ‘out for dinner’ thing. It was at a place called Eagle Towers (which was, a decade-or-so later, the venue we chose for our small wedding reception).

I don’t quite remember which ‘goodbye’ this was but I think it must have been the first because I was so shy and ecstatic that this gorgeous man was taking me on a ‘date’! I was about to go somewhere; I think it was Sydney, but it might have been up north, or Europe.

We had a beautiful meal and he ordered a half bottle of champagne. I was shy, overjoyed, transparently in love; he was funny, loving, respectful of my youth, encouraging of my adolescent ambitions.

I wanted him to ask me to stay. I wanted him to say “please don’t go, Jules” and maybe he would have said this if it hadn’t been for the fact that he didn’t have enough money to pay for our dinner.

It was $42 and he only had $41 (I remember this so vividly!)

He drove me back to my parents’ house, walked me to the back door, hugged me fiercely and said, “Why do you have to go, Jules?”

 

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Friendships forged in nursing homes

When you place someone you love into a nursing home, the beginning is a blur. You don’t notice any of the other residents or their relatives; you don’t notice the staff. You fill out the forms and you answer the questions about incontinence and constipation and immobility with a gentle smile on your faked face. You cry secretly and often but you become very good at hiding your ongoing, endless grief behind an enormous smile….

…. until you meet someone who is experiencing the same kind of thing with her wonderful, but ailing, mother. N is the most amazingly resilient woman I have ever met. She ‘lives’ two doors down from Anthony’s room and she has the most beautiful laugh and the most poignant cry.

It only seems a moment ago that we were all playing a game of ‘Memory’ in the dining room – N, her daughter, Ants and me. Sometimes we were joined by others; sometimes we were asked to move to another room because our raucous laughter was too loud; now both N and Ants are too incapacitated to partake in such games except in a pretend kind of way.

These two wonderful people, Ants and N, survive and embrace each moment of each day with a kind of stoic acceptance.  And, within the tragedy of our ongoing grief, N’s daughter and I have become friends.

This friendship means the world to me because it is forged in the steel of our shared heartbreak. Thank you, Shaz

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Food, glorious food

One of the things I often say to Anthony, when I am leaving him to come home, is that I am going grocery shopping. As he was, and still is, a great lover of food, our grocery conversations often flow like this:

Me: I need to go to the butcher shop before they close. Do you want me to get some steak?

Anthony: Yes but not, not ….

Me: Not T-Bone?

Anthony: Fillet.

Me: But I love T-Bone! Why do you always insist on fillet?

Anthony: Better value.

Way back when Ants was home and still fit, his method of cooking steak on the barbecue was absolutely brilliant. He had it down to a fine art and wouldn’t let anyone help. The steak was always absolutely mouthwateringly delicious (as were my accompanying salads of course!) Apart from our many merry guests over the years, the only additional accoutrement was hot English mustard; wine and beer were a given.

Oh how I miss those days!

Anthony’s dementia means he is spared from the kind of nostalgia I feel because ‘those days’ are still here somehow and this afternoon he happily sent me off to the butcher’s for tonight’s steak.

He doesn’t know that, while one of the wonderful carers is feeding him his dinner right now, I am home, steak-less but smiling with these very happy food memories….

And eating yesterday’s popcorn!

 

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The outings

It became impossible a long time ago for me to take Anthony home, or out for a drive etc. because he is just too immobile. But one of his many nephews, Michael, makes a point of coming down from Perth regularly and actually enabling such an outing.

Michael always liaises with me about what time of day, and we make a tentative plan. So, a few days ago, Michael arrived promptly at 10am and, with the help of one of the nurses, we got Ants into Michael’s car and drove down to the Dome cafe.

Over the years, this has been a regular occurrence and I love it because, without physical assistance, I can’t get Ants out and about but Michael makes this easy. It is a fantastic gesture and each of those mornings in Michael’s car, with all of us sipping coffee and Anthony gobbling his own, and Michael’s cake or biscuit has left an imprint.

Thank you, Michael.

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Dementia dialogues

I was writing these snippets on Facebook but, now that I’m having a break from Facebook (because I keep getting confused about what I have written where!) I’m just writing them here.

As I was trying to reposition Ants in his armchair the other day, this was our conversation:

Anthony: You’re such a great big thing aren’t you.

Me: What? How dare you!

Anthony: Well you are!

Me: That’s only because you’ve become a tiny little dandelion!

Anthony: Yes, but I have power.

Me: Oh you do, do you?

Anthony: You still love me.

Well, he does have a valid point!

 

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Shenanigans

I remember the day, decades ago, when I discovered an enormous spider in the kitchen of Anthony’s house. Anthony was milking the cows and his mother, who we all called ‘Gar’, was having her afternoon nap, and I was trying to get the lumps out the white sauce I was trying to make on the Aga, to mix with the tinned salmon. I was nineteen and, even though I’d lived in Papua New Guinea for three years and I wasn’t afraid of spiders, I thought it best if I killed this particular giant.

So I found the fly spray and used almost the whole can to crumple the spider onto the kitchen floor. It died simultaneously with the white sauce which I only just rescued the Aga from (another story).

When Anthony came in from milking, I told him about my heroics proudly. He was aghast.

Anthony: You killed Martha?

Me: What do you mean?

Anthony: Martha is our pet spider, Jules.

Me: Oh no, I’m so sorry.

Anthony: Mum will be devastated.

Me: But you didn’t tell me you had a pet spider. Why didn’t you tell me?

Anthony: Where is she?

Me: Your mum? She’s resting.

Anthony: No – where is Martha?

Me: I’m so sorry but I put her into the outside rubbish bin. (I begin to cry).

Anthony: Jules – I am kidding!

Okay, so over 35 years later, I am sitting next to Anthony in the nursing home and he is boringly slumbery, so I put my face up close – nose to nose – and shout “Wake up!” His eyes open but he doesn’t focus. I keep my face close to his and all of a sudden he launches up in his armchair with an unexpectedly loud “BOO!”and nearly head-butts me.

Me: You scared the hell out of me, Ants!

Anthony: That was the desired effect, my dear.

 

 

 

 

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Elton John

Elton John made a guest appearance on one of those daytime shows  yesterday and so I put the volume of Anthony’s television up. As soon as Elton starting performing, Anthony began to wave his arms and tap his knees.

Me: You should be a conductor!

Anthony: Yes, I’ve been told that before.

I love these moments of hilarity!

 

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Uncanny

Today I arrived at the nursing home in time to feed Ants his lunch after which he also consumed three chocolate bars – a Cherry Ripe, a Boost, and a Mars Bar (thanks, Mel!)

He chewed through all of this chocolate slowly – very slowly!

Me: Are you chewing every mouthful one hundred times?

Anthony: Yes, because I am enjoying it one hundred times.

But that’s not the point of this post. Even though Anthony’s previously loud voice has become such a whisper, this is what he said next:

Anthony: I can’t stop thinking about what X said yesterday.

Me: What? Was X here?

Anthony: Yes and he said “Where is Julie; we need Julie.”

And Ants actually repeated this a couple of times, and was adamant that X had said these positive words about me. So, whether Ants is deluded or not, I choose to believe it.

Good.

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Impasse

There is always a dilemma when you want to write a story that might hurt other people the way the story’s reality has hurt you.

Recently, I have wrestled with how to reconcile forgiveness with writing the truth of my decades-long relationship with Anthony, including all of the pitfalls.

The “love story” and “once upon a time” posts began to retell a story that has already happened. But, as soon as I ventured into writing the ugly bits of the story, I received some pretty nasty flak; some advice to be careful what I write;  and, paradoxically, some encouragement to keep writing the story; etc.

So, in order not to upset people, I’ve decided to continue writing this story on a different blog – an anonymous platform – from which I can divulge, in story-telling detail, the truth.

In the meantime, this blog will remain positive.

 

 

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