I have never loved anybody as much as I love you.
Calm before the storm?
Today Ming was charged with a crime (related to the car accident four weeks ago) and the case will be dealt with in court in the next month or so. After the police station, he and I went to the criminal lawyer recommended and we were given some very good advice. It has been a day full of expected shocks and unexpected shocks, like the possibility of jail, but Ming is okay with whatever punishment he receives for this stupid mistake in judgement. He is more concerned for the children who were injured in the accident and so am I.
It doesn’t bode well for Ming but neither of us care about that because it is nothing compared to the mix of relief and anxiety about all of the children’s recoveries and healing, especially my girl still in hospital, and my boy having to bend his leg for the first time tomorrow, and for the friend whose broken arm got infected, and to my two girls who are still in neck braces.
The fact that none of the families have laid blame on Ming has been a wonderful thing but that is irrelevant to the case and to our concern for the kids. I already loved those children but, until now, I didn’t know how much and it is up to the sky and beyond.
I hope that this temporary calm will make the inevitable storm more manageable for all of my family and us but obviously we will have to all wait and see in different ways.
What’s more important – to love, or to be loved?
Yesterday, after doing hours of paperwork and three related appointments, I finally got to Anthony’s lodge at 5pm and something in his face lit up. “My beautiful girl!” he said (now that I am 54, being called a girl always works a charm on me). We gave each other the usual hugs and kisses and then I sat down to tell him the latest about my nieces and nephews, my Centrelink adventure and other things, and poured him a small whisky. I knew I couldn’t stay long as I had to get groceries before the shops shut, so he got a bit upset when I had to go. I managed to jolly him out of that somehow and left reluctantly.
At the doorway to his room, I paused, as always, and said to him, “I love you so much, Ants” and he said, “When you go I won’t have anyone to love.” So then of course I ran back to him for one more hug and he was okay, knowing he would see me tomorrow (which is now today).
After getting groceries, I headed for home with his words resonating and I realized, for the millionth time, what an amazing person he is to want to give love more than to receive love.
Ming, at 19, doesn’t really understand why I go into the nursing lodge, take Ants out for cake and coffee, and/or on my errands, or home on weekends.
Me: Because he is my husband!
Ming: But how can you stand it, with Dad like he is? It’s no fun for you and the psychologist said you’re supposed to be having a bit of fun in your life.
Me: Because I love him and I can make it fun now I’ve stopped succumbing to the sadness so much. Anyway, I like going to cafes and so does Ants.
Ming (bewildered): Okay, whatever.
One day, when Ming is married to someone (who I hope will be amazing!) he will understand something about love that I didn’t really ‘get’ until now: that the gift of love is found inside every moment that you give it and not in how much you receive it. I certainly didn’t see it this way when I was his age so why should he?
So to both my beautiful boys: I love you.
I found out today that Anthony and I are ‘illness separated’.
Ming and I were at Centrelink (Australia’s social security service) this morning to pursue job possibilities for him now that he is not supposed to do manual labour. He is still working for our neighbours as a dairyhand but only for three days a fortnight, and with no lifting allowed. As many of you know, this is because Ming tried to lift something really heavy in our shed a few months ago and actually fractured some of the titanium in his ‘new’ back. He will be scheduled for further surgery in the next couple of months, after which he will obviously have to quit milking the cows for good.
So we were at Centrelink with a the doctor’s certificates and other paperwork that might help Ming claim some sort of interim allowance before and after the next surgery, when (whilst waiting for her computer to reboot) the beautiful woman serving us chatted with me about this and that and she took an interest in my own circumstances. As I had previously received a carer’s allowance when Anthony still lived at home, I was on the system, but she could easily see that I have had no income of any sort for nearly 18 months and haven’t been able to claim any social security help due to living on a farm (asset). She asked me about Anthony and, when I told her he was now in a nursing home, she said, “Well that means you are separated.” I said, “No, no!” Then she said, “It’s okay, I just mean you fall into the Centrelink category of ‘illness separated’ and, as such, you could probably do with some financial assistance.”
She then said she would do anything she could to assist us in our Centrelink pursuits. I was so grateful I nearly got teary and then suddenly she realized that Ming (whose Scottish name is spelled Menzies) used to play football with her own son and, even though she and I had never known each other back then, I not-so-instantly recognized her!
I am feeling a bit uncomfortable about lodging a claim for financial assistance but, on the other hand, Anthony and I have, like so many, paid a fortune in taxes over the decades, so why not? It’s difficult for me to get another job at the moment because I spend a lot of hours with Anthony every week – either here or at the nursing lodge; and it’s difficult for Ming to commit to another job until he knows about surgery (next appointment with surgeon in two weeks).
One of the things I am so grateful for is the fact that my beautiful, now incapacitated, ‘illness-separated’ husband, has had enough savings to sustain us so far. And that we are living on his/our beautiful farm.
A perfect arrangement
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.
Ming said he will drive Anthony back and forth whenever he can. This is a perfect arrangement.
The way to a man’s heart?
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.
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.
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.
Gutsy9 is a girl after all!
For those who don’t know, or who have forgotten (as I had until I looked it up on my blog!) last year, on December 9, I discovered a peachick running around outside, apparently abandoned by its many possible parents. So I picked it up and from that moment on, it became my kid via the interesting phenomenon of imprinting. I raised that chick with great joy and for its first week of life took it everywhere with me, inside my shirt, to the nursing lodge, to the shops – even to a restaurant once!
I called the chick 9 (because of the hatch date), then Gutsy (because Ming thought it was a gutsy little thing) and now Gutsy9. A few weeks later a friend came over (who also has peafowl) and said G9 was pied (a hybrid of white and blue) and most likely a male. But, when my friend saw a recent picture, he recognized immediately that G9 was a female after all and I am so delighted because I am overrun with males – son and husband, two male alpacas, two male dogs, predominantly male geese and ducks, AND, half of our peafowl are males, which is annoying for the females (especially now that it’s mating season!)
I love remembering G9’s first days – in Ming’s hands, on Anthony’s lap, and on my shoulder.
Whenever she hears my voice G9 gallops (yes gallops!) to me. Of course, she is always hoping for bread, a favourite treat for all of them, but even when I don’t have bread, she will sit beside me to have her neck stroked. The other peas watch this little ritual with fascination because peafowl don’t like to be touched and, even though they will all take bread from my hand, they shy away if I try to pat them. At least they all accept G9 now – they didn’t to begin with. In fact, they seem to sort of look up to her, amazed at the way she follows me around the garden, doing little twirlies, around and around, like a funny little puppy!
I wonder if December will bring more chicks – I hope so!
Self-censorship
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.
Prince
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.
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!)
Middle-aged? No way – I’m only 54!
I’ve just realized that not only am I, technically, middle-aged, but I have been for some time. Shock! This realization has been due to a series of health mishaps in the last month.
1. A gastric virus that had me bedridden/bathroom-ridden for two weeks, and a subsequent suspected cracked rib;
2. A rotten tooth that had to be extracted, culminating in an ongoing dry socket infection.
3. An eye test that revealed I need glasses for both distance and reading, and that I have early signs of macular degeneration, and that my strabismus (squint) is quite pronounced due to the fact that I can only use one eye at a time.
4. The flu (the sniffy, coughy, fevery one).
5. Confirmation of cracked rib today due to re-fracture.
Okay so this morning I had to take Anthony to our doctor for the routine burning off of multiple skin cancers but I made a double appointment so I could discuss my ailments as well. As a result I am on two courses of antibiotics for my tooth infection and the flu. Then I took Ants out to brunch. He was fairly mobile at the doctor’s but by the time we got to the restaurant, he needed the wheelchair. Hoisting him out of the car into the chair and racing into the restaurant because it was windily raining, then twisting us both into the far-too-small disabled toilet, then getting us to a table, I must have re-cracked the rib because, as we ate our meal, I experienced an increasingly severe pain to my right side every time I bent or turned. Once it was just to get Ants’ feet off the footplates of the wheelchair and I think that was the clincher. By the time I got him back to the nursing lodge, it was agony, so I raced down to the walk-in chiropractor (my brother is a chiro but he is away at the moment) and he confirmed that my rib was indeed fractured.
The doctor, optometrist and chiropractor all used the phrase “at your age” which I found alarming until I got home and googled “middle-age”. That’s when I made my discovery so I am sitting here quietly now, absorbing the fact that I am middle-aged.
Oh well, I guess I don’t need to stress about any wrinkles I have anymore because you’re allowed to have those when you’re middle-aged. And that’s a great relief!
This photo was taken before I was middle-aged. The little alien on my lap is Ming, now 19.
jmgoyder 