Health | jmgoyder

Adjournment

by jmgoyder

Ming and I were in court again today but, due to a glitch in communication between the police and our lawyer, his case has once again been adjourned – for another three weeks.

I thought today was the day Ming would finally plead guilty so I was a bit agitated as we waited in the waiting room with a fascinating assortment of other criminals. Ming was dressed in a white, collared shirt and black pants (not jeans) but, on the way into town this morning, the button on his pants popped off so, not being the type to have a sewing kit in the car, I just told him to make sure the zip was up when he faced the magistrate but not to fiddle with it too much because that might look a bit odd. This was made a bit difficult by the fact that his shirt had to be tucked in at our lawyer’s advice.

It was weird to be sitting and waiting, more worried about Ming’s pants than the outcome, and my recent hand condition (the pompholyx I wrote about awhile back, which has come back again), started to erupt in front of my eyes. It was like a scene from a science-fiction movie!

All of the little blisters on my hands started to join each other until, one after another, big blisters formed – between my fingers, on the palms of my hands and on my wrists. Okay – gross-out alert here – then, as I rubbed my itchy hands together nervously, all of the blisters started to burst and leak, then re-form, again and again. Ming was so disgusted and concerned by my leaking hands that he, too, lost focus on the court case. This was our conversation before the hearing:

Ming: Will you stop rubbing your hands, Mum!
Me: Look at this blister! OMG it just appeared, Ming!
Ming: Don’t touch it, Mum. Oh please – I am going to vomit!
Me: Your zip is down again.
Ming: What? Oh, okay, don’t worry, I will pull it up again when I stand up.
Me: There’s the lawyer Ming!
Ming: Don’t shake his hand, Mum, please!
Me: Don’t show him your zip, Ming, please!

Lawyer: Hello, you two.
Ming: Hello (stands up awkwardly to shake lawyer’s hand whilst surreptitiously pulling up his zip).
Me: Hello (sitting down with my hands in my pockets but with a big grin on my face to make up for not shaking his hand).
Lawyer: It could be another adjournment.

He was right!

[Note: I am taking off tonight to spend time with friends at a chalet nearby so will catch up with other people’s blogs on Monday – in meantime have a great weekend!]

Family Friendship Grief Happiness

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The smile

by jmgoyder

Not quite sure how a light-hearted bird blog transmogrified into Julie’s gutspill but I am hoping to turn that around again soon. Tomorrow is Ming’s second court hearing so I guess I am a little bit anxious because I have just found out that this is when he will plead guilty. Apparently there is no risk that he will be whisked off to jail tomorrow so that is good and I am no longer sure what the hell I am crying about any more. Sad and happy tears look exactly the same, so it’s confusing.

Queenie camouflages the chicks so well that they are almost invisible to predators. I wish I could do this for Ming but he is a little too big and obvious!

Yesterday afternoon I took two beers into the nursing home and Anthony and I had a drink together (the way we always used to at home). I apologised for my melodrama yesterday and he just said ‘Any time, Jules – I know you.’ Mmmm!

Then we had a rather weird but lovely interchange:

Ants: I just want you to come home.
Me: You mean here?
Ants: Yes, here – Bythorne.
Me: We’re not at Bythorne now, Ants, we’re at Wattle Hill Lodge.
Ants (trying not to look confused): That’s right.
Me (trying not to notice his confusion): Exactly – this is our second home.
Ants: So why are you leaving?
Me: Because I have to take dinner home to Ming.
Ants (hallucinating): Is that Ming there in the corner?
Me: No – he’s at Bythorne.
Ants: So where are we now?
Me: Wattle Hill.
Ants: So where is home?

At this point, I felt a bit lost, so I knelt down in front of him and threw my arms around him and said (rather profoundly I think now haha!) “Wherever you are, Ants, that is my home.”

And I finally got a bloody smile!

Animal Family Friendship Grief Happiness LOVE STORY Parkinson's disease Wings

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Ten degrees of joy

by jmgoyder

Ming and I saw his surgeon on Friday and the X-ray shows that Ming’s spine is now almost back to the way it was after his first surgery. I won’t bother putting the stats here – just to say that he is now ten degrees straighter than he was after he fractured two titanium rods. But the best thing is the residual pain/ache (since fractures) has gone.

The surgeon said that Ming, despite feeling better now, needs to take another six months for the inside healing to happen. He said that the bone stuff they used was very expensive and had enzymes that needed to do their work. I am glad he told us this because Ming and I were beginning to leap around with joy a bit too much (well I was!)

One of the hardest things for Ming is that he can never, ever, lift anything too heavy, or twist and turn like most of us (yesterday, when I turned around to look at something, he said, ‘I wish I could do that.’) I pretended to play a violin of sorrow until we both cracked up laughing.

Bravo Ming!

Family Friendship Grief Happiness

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Motherhood

by jmgoyder

It has been fascinating to watch Queenie and the peachicks out and about. They roam freely now everywhere and are quite used to my presence. Sometimes they forage on the lawn just outside my office door where I can watch them and talk to them through the fly screen. It’s almost as if they have come over to say hello.

I still haven’t found a mate for Baby Turkey, but I promised him I would by next week and he perked up a little bit.

Godfrey and Zaruma, despite being male, continue to guard the ducklings. They are out and about for much of the day now too, always with the two male mothers guarding them – Godfrey with hisses and Zaruma with a little smile on his funny face.

This morning my mother came over and we cried together and it was like a gift of rain on a rose bush thought dead, but now budding again; it was like a single dewdrop until you see there are hundreds of them; it was like a hidden stream, full of pebbles and tadpoles and lilies and, well (I can’t help myself here!) ducklings.

Motherhood is a powerful thing.

Animal Family Friendship Grief Happiness LOVE STORY Wings

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A disco duckling, a haughty gander, and a very depressed turkey

by jmgoyder

The little duckling in the centre of this photo is distinct from the other two because s/he is smaller and paler. But, after what I witnessed the other evening, I have decided to call this duckling Michael Jackson.

I had put the gang, including ducklings, into their yard for the night, then turned the hose on the avocado tree which is right behind Ming’s shed where he now lives. As soon as I turned the hose on, Michael Jackson squeezed through the fence and began swimming in the growing puddle. The other two ducklings (the ‘Twins’ because they are identical) followed Michael Jackson to the puddle, so I had to let Godfrey out again in order to herd them back in. He gave me his usual ‘look’ – a combination of ferocity and disdain.

At that very moment, Ming began to play his guitar very loudly and the birds and I got a bit of a fright. Well, little Michael Jackson went crazy and I nearly ran to Ming’s shed to tell him to stop the noise until I realized that the duckling was actually dancing! It ran around in circles, twirled around in the puddle of water, threw itself at the twins and frolicked madly. When Ming stopped playing his guitar for a few moments, the duckling just stood still, as if waiting, then, when Ming resumed, the whole happy dance thing happened again. It’s one of the funniest things I have ever seen and I wish I had it on video.

Godfrey watched fondly, as I did, then I turned the hose off and he herded Michael Jackson and the twins back into the yard.

The only lonely one now is Baby Turkey because we lost Bubble, his main companion months ago. Baby Turkey now prefers to be in his own yard, away from the happiness of the geese and ducks. He sleeps a lot but when he gets up he still looks so sad. I have decided to try and find him a mate, a female turkey, so that he will be happy again and am hoping that the place where I got the ducklings will have one to spare. They have turkey chicks so maybe they will sell me one of the mothers.

Baby Turkey’s loneliness is a constant reminder of Anthony’s. I have not been allowed into the nursing home for a few days because I have a chest infection, so Ming and my mother have been in several times and I am relying on phone chats with Ants. He doesn’t understand that I am sick; he just seems to think I am neglecting him and I got a phone-call the other morning from one of the nurses, to say he didn’t want to get out of bed. I ended up speaking to him but he was quite incoherent. This is the first time I have known him to be like this in the morning because this usually happens in the evening.

I don’t know why the quote ‘This is how it is’ resonates so powerfully for me; after all, it is a statement of the obvious. I like it though because it beckons some sort of response, it curls around a sort of question, and it invites a sort of acceptance.

Sort of!

Godfrey and I have agreed to disagree, and I still love him.

Animal Family Friendship Grief Happiness LOVE STORY Parkinson's disease Wings

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How Queenie puts her peachicks to bed

by jmgoyder

This evening I sat outside from around 5 – 7pm as Queenie began the ritual of taking her kids to bed up in the avocado tree. First, she wandered around with them following her, digging into the ground with her big feet to give the chicks insects, showing them how to drink from a shallow bowl I’d put near the avocado tree, finding the wheat always there for all of the birds. At first I was a bit alarmed to find the little family out of the pen as early as 5pm but I guess they are now a bit beyond the pen and like to wander around the yard and back paddock freely. King (obviously the dad) stayed with them for ages, protectively.

I have maintained a respectful distance but they all come close to me anyway; they trust me and seem to rather like the flash of the camera. The photos I have put here show their long, but enjoyable, journey to bed but this is the first time I have seen the finale. I was amazed to see how the two peachicks can actually fly quite high now from branch to branch, up and up, and until they reach their mother. Queenie clucks until they get to her.

Of course the two peachicks are still extremely vulnerable; they might be taken by crows, they might drown in the pond (now that they are out of the yards), but I am hopeful that wise Queenie will prevent these possible catastrophes and King is right by her side for much of the time.

In watching this beautiful bedtime ritual, I remembered how much the birds helped me cope with the misery of Anthony’s illness, the nursing home process, Ming’s spinal operation and so many other things. Now the birds are helping me to cope with a whole new set of miseries which I blogged about yesterday, then trashed because it was all too sad. In trashing the post, I guess I also trashed the comments and I apologize for this and am grateful for those comments. Now I think the best thing is to get back to these beautiful birds for awhile.

As usual Gutsy9 became really jealous and insisted that I took her photo too.

Tonight, I would love to be one of Queenie’s peachicks, up high in the avocado tree, under her gentle wings.

But I am a bit too big!

Animal blogging Family Friendship Grief Happiness LOVE STORY Parkinson's disease Wings

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Arthur’s funeral

by jmgoyder

Ming and I went to Arthur’s funeral today and I guess, in all such occasions, there is a sense of disbelief that the person is gone. It felt surreal. I tried not to let my mind do the memory play thing – making poached eggs for breakfast for the workers when I was 17 and Arthur was middle-aged, listening to talk about the football and politics, watching him play around with Ming when he was a toddler, sitting on his veranda with Anthony before Anthony had to go to the nursing home, roast duck, turkey or chicken on special occasions like Christmas, Father’s day, Arthur’s birthday, organizing him going into a nursing home when the worker’s hut nearly collapsed, visiting him with Ming and Ants, kissing him on the cheek to say goodbye two weeks ago, not knowing it would be the last goodbye.

Arthur never married or had children and he was a bit of a loner, but he loved just being here, sitting on the veranda. He was way more supportive of my bird idea than either Ants or Ming when I first started getting chooks, geese, peacocks etc. and always gave me the thumbs up (until I got the emus and then he gave me the thumbs down and shook his head!) “Oh Jules,” he would say with a grin.

He was different, unusual and a bit reclusive but one of the things that has struck me over and over ever since Arthur died is that he is the only person I have ever met, or am likely to meet, who is totally without guile.

I wanted so much to show him the new peachicks and now it is too late.

This little peachick salutes you, Arthur, as we all do.

Animal Family Friendship Grief Wings

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How not to be haunted

by jmgoyder

I don’t know how not to be haunted by the car accident last October. That Ming was at fault is a no-brainer, but that five beautiful children were injured is only slightly alleviated by the relief that they are all okay now, physically.

Psychologically, I don’t know. One niece emailed me to say she was shooting basketball hoops better than ever before and she quoted ‘you have to fall before you fly’. Her younger brother’s broken leg has healed and he can play football again and his twin sister’s wise smile shows me she is okay too. My other niece, who was in a spinal brace for three months, is now back to school, has a new kitten, and is enjoying life again. Her best friend (also in the accident) has fully recovered from a complicated arm fracture.

But we, the parents, are all still haunted by the shadow of death that loomed that night; the phone-call from Ming, the mutual panic, the helicopter taking my younger brother with his son to the city, the screaming cries of my sister-in-law and my shocked mother on the front veranda as I threw myself into the car and drove madly around the district, unable to focus on where the accident had happened even though it wasn’t far from home.

I remember stopping the car finally and ringing my friend who immediately went to the scene of the accident. And I also remember – vividly – hoping that if anyone were to die, it would be Ming, not the other kids. Obviously I would never tell Ming this but it’s true and I still maintain that, but am unsure of course.

How the hell do people cope when someone is killed, or permanently injured, in this kind of stupid accident? And how, as a family, do we cope with the aftermath of what has happened to us? I don’t know.

I have made so many mistakes in my communication with some loved ones over this that I feel like giving up and just succumbing to absolute despair. When I stopped the car that night, unable to find the accident site, I wanted so much to just die myself – such a coward I guess. I was terrified!

Ming’s phone-call that night: “Mum, I’ve had an accident; everyone is alive.” His sobbing voice will haunt me forever. Okay, so I probably shouldn’t be dwelling on this but how can I not?

So I watch the new ducklings until the haunting feelings go away.

Family Friendship Grief LOVE STORY Wings

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Anthony’s 78th birthday yesterday

by jmgoyder

The photos are courtesy of my ma, Meg, and nieces, Jane and Ashtyn. It was all fairly low key because of Anthony’s inability to cope in a crowd (with Parkinson’s disease, it is very difficult to focus on more than one thing).

Ants, Ming and I spoiled each other with birthday gifts yesterday; mine was a ridiculous amount of cheese; Ming’s was a Scottish kilt; and Anthony’s was a shirt that he was not enthralled with. And the sprinkling of friends and relatives was perfect. Jane, as usual, gave us all presents, Ashtyn took a million photos and my ma did the tea and coffee stuff. Geoff, a wonderful guy who used to work here, brought a cake which was great because Julie (not me, my sil) was complaining about the lack of one haha!

Ming took Ants back to the nursing home at around 4.30pm because he was exhausted. I would have invited more people but it would have been too hard. I did invite a few more but they couldn’t come which was actually a relief because I couldn’t remember who I had invited! Plus Ming and I wanted to take Ants over the road to have a drink with his brother but, by 4pmish, we could see this would be impossible. It took three of us to even get Ants into the car to go back to the nursing home, but I didn’t cry for a change.

Small parties are the best! Happy birthday, Ants.

PS. Would anyone like some cheese?

Family Friendship Grief Happiness LOVE STORY Parkinson's disease Wings

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Say ‘cheese’!

by jmgoyder

Today is Anthony’s 78th birthday – February 4/1936. Ming and I didn’t do much for our January birthdays in terms of gifts because we decided to ‘save’ our birthdays for Anthony’s, if that makes sense. Ming is about to go and pick Anthony up from the nursing home to come to the farm for the afternoon. As Ants can’t deal with crowds anymore, I have just asked a sprinkling of people over; after all, it is a workday, not a weekend.

Ming suggested we get each other two presents each so he and I exchanged ours this morning. I will show you more of the ‘goods’ later when I have photos, but just want to show you what Ming got me!

Well, technically, the blue cheese is for Ants but we all know that I will eat most of it!

Ahhhh – cheese bliss!

Family LOVE STORY Parkinson's disease

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jmgoyder

wings and things

Adjournment

The smile

Ten degrees of joy

Motherhood

A disco duckling, a haughty gander, and a very depressed turkey

How Queenie puts her peachicks to bed

Arthur’s funeral

How not to be haunted

Anthony’s 78th birthday yesterday

Say ‘cheese’!

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