jmgoyder

wings and things

Oct 9

Love story 104 – My beautiful husband

by jmgoyder

I finally got hold of Anthony on the phone this afternoon, and again this evening, and he was fine that Ming and I didn’t visit today. I told him about the counselling session and how Ming’s rage was against his illness, not him and he understood.

It is 32 years since I fell in love with him and nearly 20 since we got married and produced the beautiful brat. It has definitely been an interesting relationship which all three of us recognize, and the heartbreaking stuff is relatively recent. No – that isn’t quite accurate but at the moment I can’t talk about that stuff.

Anthony was always the absolute life of the party, the loudest laugher, a friend to everyone who came to visit. As a teenager, I was half appalled and half in awe of his amazing, charismatic presence. His ability to embrace friends and relatives in his big muscly arms. I miss those days so much and Ming loves to hear about an Anthony he never knew.

My beautiful, patient, resilient, suffering husband. Missing him is like being smashed in the face with my own clenched sobs over and over and over again.

Family LOVE STORY

39 Comments »
Oct 9

Good questions!

by jmgoyder

When do you last remember being a kid?

Today, when the counsellor asked Ming this question he had to think for a long moment before admitting that it was in primary school – seven years ago.

When do you last remember having a dad?

The answer was the same – primary school. Ming remembers Anthony picking him up every day when I was at work. It was Ming’s first year in high school when Anthony’s health began to deteriorate dramatically.

Of course these questions were asked after Ming and I had already divulged various details about Anthony’s illnesses, my grief and Ming’s anger. I had shed tears about Anthony, Ming had explained his wanting to be in control and we had laughed a lot. The counsellor was surprised by our mutual willingness to seek help. She said that usually one person is willing and the other reluctant. Ming immediately said, “I just want to fix our relationship.” More laughter.

It was also mentioned that Ming and I are more like siblings or partners than a mother and son – yes. It was good, it was great, it was exhausting so we came straight home instead of going to see Anthony because he is at the heart of the conflict between Ming and me and it seemed best to take our lighter selves home rather than risk a visit that would make Ming heavy with anger and me with sadness. Selfish? Yes. I have already tried to ring Ants but no answer so I guess he has been seated out in the sun which he loves. When I do get hold of him I will tell him about the appointment and reassure him that I will be in tomorrow for a red wine.

On the way home Ming asked his own good question:

Why didn’t the counsellor give us the answer to our predicament?

“That’s next week,” I said, laughing my head off!

Family Friendship

31 Comments »
Oct 9

Hope

by jmgoyder

In the morning, Ming and I are going into town to an appointment with someone who will help us to cope with each other, the farm and Anthony’s deterioration.

I told Ants about this appointment when I saw him this afternoon with my red wine and he wanted to come along too but I said I couldn’t take him as it was too early in the morning etc. etc. and then I finally admitted to him that Ming’s anger would only be exacerbated if Ants were present.

“So he hates me then,” Anthony said, spilling his wine.

“No, Ants, he hates both of us at the moment,” I said.

“But why?”

“Because you are so sick and I am so sad.”

“Okay – just come here afterwards.”

And we will.

Family Friendship LOVE STORY

52 Comments »
Oct 8

Love story 102 – Rooster routines

by jmgoyder

This Anthonyless house has become a place of procrastination and rage and lassitude. The garden is overgrown, the house needs a sweep, the washing keeps getting rained on, and the meals don’t happen.

This Anthonyless house has lost its routine because he is no longer living here and motivating us to keep up. In very different ways, Ming and I are both in that limboland of depressed energy – he rages and I cry and, no matter how many times we climb up into the sunlight, we keep falling back down into the pit again.

Today, I was going to cook Ming a breakfast of bacon, eggs and tomatoes but, instead, I slept in.

Today, Ming was going to mow the lawns but, instead, he is playing his guitar and watching a movie in his room.

Today, I was going to visit Anthony in the nursing lodge at 11am but I’m not going in until 4pm now because  …

EPIPHANY!

If I go in at 4pm with a bottle of red wine, I can emulate what we used to do every afternoon at 5pm at home; we would routinely have a pre-dinner drink. Yes! It has to be 4pm because in the nursing lodge dinner is at 5pm; there is a routine! So, if Ants and I have a drink together and a few olives at 4pm maybe he won’t get this confusion thing later in the evening after I’ve gone home. I could make this a regular routine thing that we both could look forward to!

Perhaps, if this is a regular routine, things will improve emotionally for all three of us? I don’t know. Some of my other haphazard ideas have gone to the wall – showing him my blog didn’t work, wheelchair-taxi rides home didn’t work, taking paperwork in to do with him didn’t work etc. etc.

It wouldn’t have to be every day. I haven’t been able to get in every day anyway, so it could be every second day. I could work this around picking up Ming from music school and his cow-milking schedule somehow. Yes!

I have to give the credit for this routine epiphany to Malay, our biggest and most regular cockadoodledooer! He says that routine is vitally important in terms of organizing the day.

Malay: I crow at 4am and 4pm on the dot. It keeps me sane.

Me: Okay, so how do you know what the time is?

Malay: Julie, I am a rooster!

Me: Oh sorry.

Malay: When you go in this afternoon, I will be crowing for you and Anthony. After all, you both raised me from a chick.

Me: Thanks, Malay.

This Anthonyless house is full to the brim with Anthony – roll on 4pm!

Family LOVE STORY Wings

37 Comments »
Oct 5

Little licks of laughter and love

by jmgoyder

When Ming was a baby I used to call him ‘my little beautiful’. I would accompany this with tickling so that whenever I said ‘my little beautiful’  he would giggle and gurgle with the delight of anticipation.

I love laughing. I LOVE LAUGHING! Lately, though, there hasn’t been much to laugh about so my thirsty sense of humour seems to be grasping at the tiniest little things and latching onto them. Yesterday, for example, Ming and I were in a shop choosing birthday gifts for three of his friends – one girl and two guys. Ming had decided to buy perfume for the girl and cologne for the guys so we were examining the contents of the locked glass cabinet when he pointed to a tester bottle (you know, so you can test if you like it or not by spraying it on yourself). He said, ‘That looks like a good brand, Mum – Tester.’

I looked at him, thinking he was joking, but his expression was serious. ‘That’s a tester, Ming.’

‘Oh, do you know it?’

‘It’s a tester – it’s not a brand.’ By then I was nearly hysterical with laughter and Ming was blushing as the shop assistant opened the cabinet.

This incident keeps leaping, unbidden, back into my mind and making me laugh all over again.

A bit later  on in the day, we met my mother and our visiting cousins at a restaurant overlooking a bay. As my mother and I stood at the counter ordering our food, she said the strangest thing to me. She said, “Where’s the water?” I pointed to the bay so she headed back to the cousins and Ming who were seated almost on top of the bay. I wondered if perhaps my mother might be losing the plot. Once I was again seated at our table, she asked me again and I suddenly realized she meant drinking water. Again, I became nearly hysterical with laughter; we all did.

I guess you had to be there!

Then, last night, when I rang Anthony at the nursing lodge to say goodnight and he said, ‘Hello, my beautiful,’ and my heart grinned.

Family Friendship LOVE STORY

38 Comments »
Oct 4

Do you ever trash your own blog posts?

by jmgoyder

I just trashed a rather sarcastic post I wrote yesterday because when we saw the skin cancer surgeon today I felt a little abashed. You see, I had wanted him to go see Ants in the nursing lodge, make a judgement about the skin cancer and schedule the operation; after all, his rooms are only a few streets away from the nursing lodge. Instead, Ming and I drove into town, picked up Ants, took him to the appointment and then back to the nursing lodge. Ants was fairly mobile so it wasn’t too much of an ordeal but I get very nervous taking him anywhere now due to various offshoots of Parkinson’s Disease that can happen suddenly.

This surgeon has operated on various of Anthony’s skin cancers before but not for several years. He is rather delightfully eccentric and so is his wife, who manages the practice, but I am a little uneasy with them because we had a bit of a red tape kerfuffle years ago and I got a bit cross. This time I decided to be polite and accepting of the red tape because the system requires it and perhaps my previous sarcasm should have been directed at the system? Or maybe I have a teensy anger problem at the moment, as does Mingy.

The internet is an interesting space in all its complexity but, due to the lack of censorship, it can also be a place of extreme havoc and a space in which the weaving of hate is possible. This happens on Facebook, on WordPress and on all sorts of websites. Sometimes I write something that I might not actually say; this is cathartic but also maybe a bit cowardly. For example, I wrote about my BNDN (Best Next-Door-Neighbour) yesterday  more effusively than I actually spoke to her. Conversely, I have written to, and about, the unkind people in my/our life because if I tried to say these things, the door would be slammed or the phone hung up.

A beautiful relative tried to censor my blog a few times until I told her off because self-censorship is my speciality. I guess that’s the trouble with having friends and family reading your blog. You have to be so bloody careful what you say. One blog friend told me that none of her family or friends know about her blog and I think she was very wise! When I taught Creative Writing at the university I would always devote a lecture to the self-censorship conundrum because it is such a huge dilemma when you want to write something but you are scared someone will disapprove. I used to say, “Just pretend your parents aren’t looking over your shoulder. Write bile, write rage, write blood – write passion!” It seemed to work but it had its drawbacks because when it came assessing those assignments, it was like being hit by lightning in good and bad ways.

I am sometimes too honest for my own good and this week my anger has leaked into my posts because I didn’t know what else to do with it. That’s okay and I am fine with that. Nevertheless I did feel a little lighter trashing that post. Does anyone else do this?

blogging

51 Comments »
Sep 30

Love story 100 – Do males always love themselves this much?

by jmgoyder

Prince (our only white peacock): I just love the smell of my feathers – glorious!

King: I know what you mean, Prince – I love the angles of my shadow on the lawn.

Okay, years ago – well before Ants and I got married and had Ming and well before Ants got so sick – I asked him to explain his arrogant, strutting self-posturing.

He said (and I will never forget it), “Jules, men have to love themselves just in case nobody else does.”

Oh!

Animal Family LOVE STORY Wings

24 Comments »
Sep 29

Butterfly haiku

by jmgoyder

The utterfly looks

for the B that will heal it

under the grey rocks.

The utterfly has

enormously big nostrils,

like big purple eyes.

The utterfly finds

its missing B in the hug

of an old, old man.

The utterfly finds

its missing B in the smile

of a young, young man.

The utterfly speaks,

sheds its mothy shabbiness,

enfolds its own B …

And becomes a butterfly.

Animal Uncategorized Wings

47 Comments »
Sep 28

A stitch in time

by jmgoyder

Years ago, when I was working as a nurse in Perth, I was walking home one day and I suddenly felt a peculiar pain underneath my left lower rib. It was like a stitch or a slight cramp. It persisted off and on over the next few days until one morning it woke me up. As I got dressed I realized I was shivering even though it was summer and the pain was definitely more than a stitch. I didn’t have a car in those days so I decided to walk to the closest doctor’s surgery which was about two kilometres away. By the time I got there I was actually holding my side in agony, sweating profusely and feeling faint. The doctor immediately sent me to hospital in a taxi and after many hours of waiting and tests I was diagnosed with a severe kidney infection and ended up on a drip and very sick for over a week. After I was better I decided never to forget that kind of strange stitch-like pain, subtle to begin with, but soon agonizing.

Two days ago, during my little blog-breather, I was cleaning out my office when I felt the same stitch-like pain and that night I tossed and turned with the shivers – a fever. This time I didn’t wait and saw the doctor immediately who took samples and, long story short, yes I have a kidney infection again. Thankfully it isn’t as progressed as last time so I am on a course of antibiotics and that should be that.

I might be very good at looking after people who are sick but I am very bad at actually being sick. When I twisted my ankle the other week anyone would have thought I’d had my foot amputated; when the rooster clawed me and gave me a skin infection I limped around for so many days that Ming told me to stop my nonsense; when I then got asthma for a week I allowed google to scare the hell out of me; and now this.

The three things that scare me most about being sick are these: firstly, I am easily scared; secondly, I am needed; and thirdly, my family and friends will say, “you aren’t looking after yourself – you’re run down” which will make me feel guilty for being sick.

How come, when I am no longer working and no longer having to physically look after Anthony, I am run down?  Of course there are logical reasons like not eating healthily enough, not exercising, not getting enough sleep etc. etc. – we all know the drill – but now that I am beginning to admit-to-admit I am a little tired, I think it is simply that I am so sad. No, I don’t mean depressed, although of course that is a factor, I just mean plain old sad – sad about Anthony and his Parkinson’s disease and not being home with us anymore; sad that he is sad; sad that Ming is angry.

Chronic illness sufferers are so much more heroic than ‘come-and-go’ illness wimps like me. I salute them for their courage, determination and wit – and have met many via blogging. They don’t make a fuss about a stitch; they don’t let the sad stuff get the better of them; they soldier on, unfalteringly beautiful, and Anthony is one of these people.

Oh – google has just become my friend again – it says, “It is usually young women who develop kidney infections.” Ah, it’s good when a stitch makes you young again!

blogging Family

45 Comments »
Sep 25

Counselling

by jmgoyder

There used to be a real stigma attached to the idea of counselling – i.e. that you needed someone to help you sort your emotions out etc. This is no longer the case with most schools employing professional counsellors (psychologists or social workers) and many people seeing counsellors on a regular basis. Ming and I have sought this kind of help a few times, especially during the months when Anthony was still home but deteriorating fast, Ming was getting angrier by the day and I was getting beyond sad.

As I’m sure is obvious from various posts in this blog, I have not adjusted nearly so well as Ming has to Anthony’s moving into a nursing lodge. I guess I had always envisioned that one day Ants and I would both be old people (him 90 and me nearly 70), sitting in rocking chairs on our front veranda, and Ming would be gone, exploring the world in one way or another. I had no way of knowing that instead it would be Anthony gone away and Ming and me here together.

We are not coping well with what Ming continuously refers to as ‘our relationship problems’. The fact that he even cares about our relationship astounds me; after all, he is 18! He gets very angry with me, then gets the guilts and that whole vicious cycle repeats itself. So we have decided to seek the help of a counsellor again. Ming wants a man this time (our previous psychologist was a woman and she was great but it seems Ming is now at the age when he needs a man-to-man talk with someone). The trouble is the guy who has agreed to help us is on holidays for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I emailed Ming’s primary school headmaster because he has always understood and liked Ming and he agreed to come over tomorrow afternoon to talk to Ming about his angst.

As I was driving Ming into music school this morning (well, he was driving to practise before his driving test in a couple of weeks), we were having our usual bitsy verbal wrangles. So I told him that Henry (name disguised to protect the innocent) was coming over to counsel him tomorrow, and Ming thought is was a great idea – phew!

This was our conversation:

Me: I told him you had angst issues.

Ming: What’s angst?

Me: Aggro.

Ming: Yeah, but that’s only because of you.

Me: What – the fact that my presence irritates you all the time?

Ming: No, not ALL the time, Mum.

You gotta laugh!

Animal Family

40 Comments »
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