jmgoyder

Last October it was my mother’s birthday (she is one year older than Husband) so my gift to her was a weekend with Son at the best, and most difficult, golf course in Western Australia. I knew I had to do this while Son was still young enough to want to do ‘Grandma stuff’ and my mother knew it too! Anyway, it was a great success as you can see from these pictures!

It was just after this golf weekend that Husband’s condition began to deteriorate rapidly. That’s what happens with Parkinson’s disease when someone has had it for nearly ten years; the disease becomes voracious – monstering and masking all the best efforts in terms of medication and doctors’ advice – obliterating the future.

No amount of filling these grey-black weeks with the birds, a cuckoo clock, and a beautiful Irish terrier, could compete with a disease that mocked us, a disease that disempowered us, a disease that swallowed Husband, Son and me into a Jonah’s whale vortex with no chance of escape.

Hence, for the first time in Son’s nearly 18 years, Christmas was a great big fizzog, with the usual joy supplanted by multiple weepings – Grandma, Son, Husband and me.

So, that evening, my mother and Son exchanged notes and this is what they said to each other. I wasn’t privy to these emails until a day or so later.

An excerpt from an email from my mother to Son 25 December 2011:

This has probably been the hardest Christmas you have ever had hasn’t it. Moving from childhood to adulthood is an ongoing transition anyway, but Christmas zeros right in to the heart of things, and for you, the childhood anticipation and wonder is having to be replaced so suddenly and harshly because it’s all tied up with your dad’s illness and the trauma the family is going through.

I am just so glad you had those beautiful gifts for your mum. She is so devoted to you and gosh, she wouldn’t be surviving this stuff without your strength and the love you have for each other.

I love and admire you more than you’ll ever know, and when I can’t be there to take care of my daughter, and I know she’s falling apart, it is such a comfort that I know she has a son like you, to help shoulder it all.  Years from now, you’ll look back on this time and know that this is what has formed your strength of character, and made you a man. But right now though, you are a boy/man and have a right to feel hurt and confused. I am always available if you need me. You know that don’t you. I love you so much Darling. Gma xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

An excerpt from email sent from Son to my mother the same night:

Your the best Grandma and this is the best family / life anyone could ever imagine to have. I am indeed too lucky. In so many ways there’s a lot of good and some bad never 50/50 I grown to realise life gets harder but it also gets much better! There is always hard patches that seem to get worst over time but the that makes the good so much better! Therefore “Life really does get better and better!” I will always remember that saying you said years back “dark can never go into light – But light can shatter dark” & I thank you so much for your help. Todays a new day and I feel real good!

Thanks Grandma xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I am very lucky, aren’t I, to have such a wonderful husband, son and mother!