This morning, the nursing lodge bus came out at 10am with ‘the men’s group’. It was a great success!
Staff, residents and volunteers
Morning tea
Godfrey’s gang did their contortionist act but were outshone by an impromptu perfomance by the turkeys
Anthony and me
It is happening more and more often now – this evening phonecall from Anthony to tell me he is lost and asking me when I am coming to find him and bring him home.
Obviously it isn’t Ants who rings me because he has forgotten how so I usually speak to him and then to the nurse looking after him and then to him again.
It always ends up okay for him because I manage to reassure him and then the nurse reassures me too.
Usually I am okay because I know now that Ants’ evening confusion is pretty regular, and the staff are wonderful to ring me on his behalf.
But tonight, after reassuring Ants that I would see him tomorrow and him saying, “Okay, my beautiful girl”, I hung the phone up and my knees buckled.
I got up and went outside to feed the birds and they surrounded me while I threw bread, distributed wheat, and sobbed for my lost husband.
Every Thursday morning the nursing lodge has a bus excursion and Anthony usually goes. Last Thursday I arrived at the nursing lodge at around noon to be told that Anthony was still out and that the excursion was to Dardanup (our town!) They’d gone up to the hills just past our farm. So, when the bus returned and Ants was being helped back to his room by the nurse in charge of the excursion, I asked if it would be possible for the bus to come to our place and she said yes!
So tomorrow, they are coming here and I am so excited. The nurse said they might make it a semi-regular thing and I wanted to kiss her feet! This would be a stress-free way of getting Anthony home for a few hours and I am sure the other residents will enjoy it too. They always bring their own morning tea and there are enough staff for any toilet emergencies, so I am definitely in yeeha mode! Anthony seems to think it is a great idea too.
I have told the birds that they will have an audience tomorrow between 9.30 and 11.30am, so they are all practising for Godfrey’s contortionist competition.
Another contortionist
A competing peahen
Woodroffe thinks he will win the competition
Pearl will be performing in the pond
Anthony’s legs and little Ming.
Ming didn’t walk until he was 18 months old. There was no warning; he didn’t crawl or bum-slide or even stand first. He simply went from sitting to walking, to running, to running away, all in the space of a single day. (Actually, it was a single hour).
On that eventful day, I sat him on the grass as I hung out the washing. He liked to sit and play with the wooden pegs and would happily do so for ages. So I thought nothing of going back inside to make myself a cup of coffee.
I’d just filled the kettle when I heard a shriek and, terrified, I dashed outside, thinking, snake? spider? My panic increased dramatically when I saw that Ming wasn’t where I’d plonked him just moments ago. Unable to comprehend this, I stood stock still and listened intently. Another shriek, just behind me and I whirled around only to spot Ming hiding behind a tree adjacent to the clothesline and giggling with delight. And he was standing up!
“Ming!” I exclaimed, running towards him, at which he shrieked again and toddled away, his fat little legs wobbling with the unfamiliar movement. Stunned, I watched him take around 15 steps before falling gently onto his behind.
I rushed up to him. “You’re walking!” It was my turn to shriek with delight. I sat down beside him on the grass but he immediately got up again and began to run, his laughter filling the air.
And so began Ming’s tearaway phase. It didn’t matter where we were – at home, at the park, visiting friends, he would do just that – tear away, as fast as he could. This phase lasted exactly a year and nearly drove us insane with worry because if we weren’t holding tightly to his hand – something Ming hated – he’d be off! With a channel running through our property, and an unfenced yard, Anthony and I had to take turns doing ‘Mingwatch.’
Of course it was much worse if I took Ming into town to shop. He would not stay by my side for an instant, wanting always to dash away, looking for adventure. I was terrified he’d run onto a road or that I’d lose him in the supermarket crowd. Finally, Anthony and I agreed we needed to buy a child restraint.
This “leash” got us plenty of dirty looks (mostly from parents of clingy children, I thought jealously). And once, walking through a crowd of Japanese tourists with Ming straining desperately against the white leather harness, we became (much to my embarrassment) the subject of enormous hilarity, and curious pointing fingers.
Ming was nearly three when the leash was finally discarded. We’d all – even Ming – become so used to it that it came as a shock one morning when, harnessing him up for a day in town, he quietly said, “I’m gonna buy a new mummy for twenny dollars if you doan let me fwee [free].”
His tone was ominous.
I took the leash off tentatively. “You won’t run away?” I asked nervously.
Ming grinned acquiescence and willingly took my hand. “Thassa good mummy,” he said.
In around 12 hours (it’s a bit past midnight here), Ming goes for his driving test to get his licence. I have told him to behave!
I’ve also suggested that it might be a good idea to get into the car, and his friend agrees!
Wish him luck (if you feel like it!)
It’s as if I live in two completely different worlds – two realms of reality.
Both worlds are uniquely beautiful but with sharp edges, like rocky islands, impenetrable.
I wade, frolic , and sometimes nearly drown, in the unpredictable sea between the two worlds but I always make it to one shore or another.
A teenager and an old man – a father and son – two worlds.
Sometimes I dive deep into the ocean of my own world and find treasures buried in the sand.
Usually I just find two – one for Anthony and one for Ming.
Today I found a third in the form of a little island between the two realms.
It is just big enough to build a small hut, the water is fresh, the sun is warm and I can still see.
I can see in the dark – from realm to realm to realm.
Last night Ming and I watched one of those poltergeisty movies and we were so terrified throughout that it became funny and I couldn’t stop laughing! It reminded me of the ghost train incident of many years ago.
The memory still sits in my gut, raw, un-relinquished – a regret that I can’t rewind and delete. I comfort myself with the thought that all parents do heaps of things unthinkingly, unwisely – don’t they?
Tentatively, I reminded Ming about the ghost train the other day, and he giggled. Momentarily relieved, I assumed he was over it. But I couldn’t help noticing that his giggle was accompanied by a slight frown, a slight blanching of the complexion, even a slight stiffening of the limbs.
He was around three years old at the time. We were having a holiday in Adelaide, when we decided, on impulse, to go to the Adelaide Show.
Ming was terribly excited by the crowds, the fairy floss and the ghost train billboard advertisements. He kept pointing to these and saying, “Ming wanna go on that thing, Mummy – pweese!” He was fascinated by the pictures of ghosts, skeletons and monsters.
So I bought us tickets, told Anthony we’d meet him in the closest coffee shop and Ming and I waited in the queue. This is when I had my first tiny qualm. Children much older than Ming were coming out of the ghost train ride looking a little worse for wear and I got a bit nervous. Then, all of a sudden, it was our turn and we were strapped into the tiny cart and off we went.
Just before those horrible black doors opened and we were whooshed into the 2-minute nightmare, I whispered to Ming, “None of this is real, darling – it’s all pretend.” Why, oh why, didn’t I say this to him earlier?
At the halfway point, he was so terrified that, seeing a tiny crack in the wall to the outside – a sliver of light, a glimpse of another queue – he screamed, “Ming wanna go back!” But it was too late. Our cart was thrust, once again, through another set of black doors, and red eyes, ghostly hands and skeletal breath seemed to touch us as we progressed, surrounded by the bloodcurdling screams of those behind and in front of us.
I held Ming close as he began to cry. His fear was so potent that my own heart started to race with remembered childhood nightmares of spooks, of bogeymen – the dark fear of the unknown.
Then, whoosh, we were back in daylight. It was over. I picked Ming up and hoisted him into my arms. He was trembling. I hated myself.
In the car, on the way back to the motel, Ming remained silent while I told Anthony about the ride, how scary it was and how badly I felt. But Anthony just laughed and said, “I’m sure Ming’ll survive, Jules – you worry too much.”
Then, from the back of the car, came a querulous voice. “Andony? Mummy and me neeely got gobbled up by the monsters, but we surbived.”
I made my decision then and there: no more ghost trains. Ever!
This photo was taken a few years ago before the Parkinson’s Disease kicked the guts out of us.
I miss this Anthony so much.
Some people can’t say this simple word, ‘Sorry’.
Anthony got a nurse to ring me the other night just so he could say it to me: “Sorry, Jules.”
“My ‘sorry’ is bigger than yours,” I quipped before we said goodnight,
Sorry.
jmgoyder 