jmgoyder

wings and things

Oct 9

A perfect arrangement

by jmgoyder

Ming offered to pick Anthony up on Monday and bring him home for the day, then take him back to the nursing lodge in the late afternoon. I can’t believe how much this improved the day for me! It was so wonderful not having to make the two trips, each of which takes around an hour if you count the time it takes to get Anthony in and out of the car and then back into his room at the lodge. It was also great fun for Anthony to have his big son driving him around and Ming got to spend time with Ants on his own during the trips to and fro.

When I take Anthony back to the nursing lodge he often gets really unhappy and sentimental, and saying goodbye for the evening is sometimes a bit tearful for both of us. But with Ming, this doesn’t happen so that is a real bonus. This arrangement was also great because, having done the two trips with Anthony, Ming didn’t feel he had to spend every minute of the day with him. This can be a bit of a strain for Ming, especially when Anthony isn’t making any sense or doesn’t speak at all.

Anthony and I spent most of the morning in the kitchen while I made chicken and vegetable soup for our lunch. Then he wandered around the farm (wonderful!) until he became too wobbly. Back in the kitchen he watched me make a blue cake while we caught an old episode of Midsomer Murders on the television. The cake wasn’t quite cooked when it came time for Ming to take Anthony back so I surprised him with it on his return. As you can see, he was nonplussed.

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Ming said he will drive Anthony back and forth whenever he can. This is a perfect arrangement.

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Oct 6

The way to a man’s heart?

by jmgoyder

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Ming’s Sunday breakfast: I spread half an avocado on two pieces of wholemeal toast, then cooked eight bacon rashers, two sausages, three eggs and one tomato. It took me around 10 minutes to prepare. It took Ming exactly four minutes to consume.

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I took Anthony out to the Dome this afternoon where he demolished an enormous piece of chocolate mousse cake with extra cream. I sipped my coffee and watched in amazement.

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After taking Ants back to the nursing lodge and settling him into his room, I came home to find Ming sitting in the living room hungry. I am not sure if he has forgotten where the kitchen is, or forgotten how to open the refrigerator which generally has food in it, but he appears to have some sort of mental block when it comes to feeding himself. So I gave him his requested snack of strawberries and cream with some reluctance. He ate it unreluctantly.

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Oct 5

A rabbity argument

by jmgoyder

Ming and I had an argument the other day about our rabbit plague. He said they were attracted to the wheat I feed the peacocks, guinnea fowl, geese, duck etc. I said, what nonsense – everyone around here is being rabbit plagued!

It was only when I went outside to feed the birds the other afternoon that I realized Ming is absolutely right!

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Oct 4

The Australia puddle and other Spring things

by jmgoyder

The puddle in our driveway has held the shape of Australia for weeks and weeks and even had a Tasmania, but the latter evaporated a couple of days ago, before I remembered to take a photo. I wish I had, as it might have made me famous! I’ve decided not to get that Australia-shaped pot-hole filled with gravel now, in the hope that next Spring it will once again rain relentlessly and re-create the Australia puddle, with Tasmania, on our driveway. Then I will take lots of photos and have an exhibition and get rich. The reason I didn’t take the photos this time was because it was raining and I didn’t want to get drenched to photograph a puddle (I think that is more for the professionals.)

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A blue wren (very hard to photograph because they are so tiny and so fast!) After several attempts to get him in more natural surroundings, he landed on one of Anthony’s salvaged washing machine insides, that we use for an outside barbecue.
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A rare vision of Uluru looking calm. He is usually feisty, having to compete for the wheat with all the winged creatures.
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G9 in a tree. I have never seen him her do this before (even though I know that, at sundown, she flies up into the wattle trees for the night with all the other peafowl).
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Ming, with the dogs.
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Something wonderful happened today; I became a great-auntie for the first time. A beautiful baby was born and I mean this sincerely because, let’s face it, most babies are quite ugly for the first few days/hours – but not this one! She is exquisite! In respect of the new parents’ privacy, I will ask them before putting any photos of the kid on my blog.

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Sep 29

A midnight visitor!

by jmgoyder

Yesterday evening when Anthony sent me home he was worried about me being myself on the farm with Ming away for the weekend. I reassured him by saying that I love being alone (which I do). But I was disappointed that my idea of staying the night at the nursing lodge didn’t work out. Well I am so glad it didn’t work out because at ten minutes past midnight, someone knocked loudly on the front door and frightened the hell out of me (I was in the middle of watching a murder mystery on television). I thought Ming must have decided to come home from Perth after all so I opened the door without hesitating.

Well, it wasn’t Ming. It was a young hairy guy looking for his lost dog! I said I hadn’t seen it and closed the door thinking it was a weird time to be looking for a lost dog. Then I realized there probably wasn’t any lost dog and the guy was probably casing the joint (is that the expression?) So I peeked out the window, through the blinds, to make sure he had driven away – yes, phew – then I watched the rest of the murder mystery.

If I had stayed the night at the nursing lodge, it is almost without a doubt that we would have been burgled!

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Sep 25

Underneath: a poem to Anthony

by jmgoyder

Underneath the black and white tiled linoleum in the kitchen are the original tiles.
We couldn’t rip them out because of the asbestos, so we just covered them over.
The ridiculously expensive lino almost immediately developed little holes
from my high heels, your bentwood chairs and, more recently, the stab of your walking stick.
Do you remember how I invited the manufacturer’s assistant out here to get a discount on that lino, how he told me to stop wearing heels, how I told him where to go? We got the discount on the basis of a faulty product and you were proud of me for fighting for this.

Underneath the canopy of your thick eyebrows (when did they get so thick?) your eyes only twinkle occasionally now and sometimes I can’t get even get your lips to move into a smile, no matter how hard I try with my jostling words, silly antics, tear-restrained hugs.

Underneath the muteness of your nursing home bed, I lie on a soft carpet of imagination in the hope that you will have a good night’s sleep in which you forget that I am not there with you. And, while I am on this soft carpet, I will try my hardest to erase your fear of losing me because that will never happen.

Underneath the ugliness of this disease, I see the beauty of who you are, and always have been – a big caterpillar, bypassing all of the butterflies, and becoming a vivid part of the sky.

ps. So glad our son, Ming, no longer reads my blog; he would vomit -ha! Actually, if I read this to Anthony, he probably would too, so I guess this is just for myself and the blog.

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Sep 13

Self-censorship

by jmgoyder

During the time I taught creative writing units at the university, I remember saying to the students, “Just pretend your parents aren’t looking over your shoulder and write freely; don’t censor yourself!” This was very effective in some ways (a lot of powerful writing was produced), but it was also problematic in that sometimes I would become privy to secrets never shared before. So, over time (I taught for nearly 20 years), I changed my instructions to, “There will be no gutspill please!”

Well, blogging is now a well-established form of published writing and self-censorship is probably a conundrum that many bloggers wrestle with. When I began my blog here on WordPress, I used my own name but, in an attempt to be semi-anonymous and private, I called Ming, ‘Son’ and Anthony ‘Husband’. Eventually I began calling them by their real names (with their permission) and I felt comfortable doing so despite some of our situations being uncomfortable.

This week I have had the self-censorship wrestle with myself, yet again, because I was writing about Ming, and I realized that maybe the issues we were having were better kept within our little household. So I deleted two posts (realizing of course that they are still readable via email notification but I offed them from the blog).

But yesterday’s post deletion (my 3rd in two days – how embarrassing) was different. In that post I had related an anecdote that could have been misconstrued as black humor about an issue that is, and never will be, funny. I didn’t receive any negative comments, but I still felt a bit yucky about my anecdote; hence the deletion.

Today, I discovered a blogger whose experience with grief and loss is so profound that it took my breath away. I am yet to make contact with her, beyond following her blog today, but I want to because she has drawn my attention to issues I didn’t want to recognize, not just in my own life, but in the general community.

I am glad I deleted that post.

PS. Internet is only working spasmodically until new modem is figured out.

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Sep 9

Annie get your gun!

by jmgoyder

Well last week I finally got my firearms licence and was able to collect Anthony’s rifle from the lockup. It was a rather strange rigmarole which began three months ago when a policeman came to the door and frightened the hell out of me (because I keep getting speeding tickets – another story). He said he had come to seize the guns because Anthony’s licence had expired due to nonpayment of annual fees. I said I had deliberately let that go because Ants was in a nursing home now, so not in any fit state to shoot, and that I had no idea where the gun cabinet key was but his brother probably had the guns anyway. The policeman said he would go across the road and ask the brother and give me a few days to find the key.

So, as the brother did have the rifle, but said he didn’t have the other three guns (an air rifle and two shotguns), the policeman seized the rifle and put it in the lockup place for me to pick up when I got my own licence. Then I had to search for the gun cabinet key. Now you might be wondering why on earth I didn’t know where this was but (a) I have never known Anthony to shoot anything and (b) pre-nursing home, he had a habit of hiding strange things in strange places throughout the house and (c) when the new gun laws came in way back when, we got the gun cabinet and it hasn’t been opened since – nearly 20 years ago!

I didn’t even know what was in the stupid cabinet except I recalled Anthony putting a bunch of antique walking sticks in it (yes, he was eccentric even before the Parkinson’s disease). Anyway, after a 3-day search of all the nooks and crannies, I found a zillion keys, including the one for the gun cabinet.
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Inside was one rotting old shotgun (which had to be seized and destroyed) and the walking sticks.
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You see, I have to shoot the rabbits before they dig up the foundations of the house. Of course I am not relishing this horrible task, because I love animals, but these rabbits are taking over. Here is one of the bigdaddies flirting with one of the peahens – argh!
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I will get a better shot of how MANY rabbits are here tomorrow. If I can’t do it with the camera, how will I do it with the rifle? Oh dear.

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Sep 8

I will not lose my sense of humour!

by jmgoyder

Yesterday and today, despite visits from many friends and family, it was just Anthony and me. Yesterday his eyes got wet when I had to leave, and today his eyes went blank when I had to leave because he didn’t understand why I had to come home and leave him at the nursing lodge.

I wish I could laugh it away.

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Sep 6

Prince

by jmgoyder

I only have one white peacock (named Prince) and two white peahens. Prince’s tail feathers are fully grown now. I will try to get a photo of him doing the fantail thing soon.
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My young human prince (son, Ming) has rediscovered his princely ways. Obviously a lot of his recent angst was to do with having unwittingly fractured some of the titanium in his spine post scoliosis surgery, and having to quit milking cows, and feeling emasculated by not being able to ever lift anything heavy. We have now seen the surgeon again and Ming is scheduled for revision surgery in the next couple of months. It has been a bit of a dramatic couple of weeks with tears etc. but over that now and have bought ramps and a trolley to help us lift stuff that is too heavy. Example: as we don’t get a rubbish collection, we have to take stuff to the local dump. Today it was some heavy stuff but the trolley + ramp thing worked beautifully! Such a relief.

Ming’s biggest sorrow is that he won’t be able to carry his bride over the threshold! (BTW there is no impending bride yet!)
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