When Turtles Come Home

by Victoria Hoffarth

  To give some background information: once a legal guardian has been appointed, everyone, including family, loses all their rights and obligations towards the “Ward of Court”. Especially disheartening to me was losing my rights to know what was happening to my husband. Legally, doctors could not give Paul and me feedback about Klaus without the permission of the guardian. For example, I obviously wanted to find out exactly what kind of dementia Klaus suffered from, along with other details about his illness. Up until the time he died, he had no trouble recognising either me or Paul, talking to me in English, and to the nurses and caregivers in German, giving his opinion about various issues. The problem with mass immigration, he said, was that Germany could get indigestion. Still, he did keep forgetting things and, when stressed or tired, became disoriented. But he retained his love for good food and enjoyed meals and trips outside. However, the guardian required us to have explicit permission each time we took Klaus out.

  We met with the judge just once. She emailed us just once. After then, regardless of my attempts at further communication, we were unable to have further dialogue for which we had so fervently wished. My letters and emails went unanswered. We also visited her office but were unable to secure another appointment. Needless to say, this caused a great deal of frustration. I wanted to show her the details of my personal financial resources, in case she thought we were poor relations from a developing country simply emerging out of the woodwork upon hearing of a possible windfall from a sick and helpless old man. I also wanted to explain our Asian culture of caring for our sick and elderly.

  In the meantime, I proposed to the guardian that I become her private, fee-paying client so she could give me some time in order to update me with medical information regarding Klaus. This offer she readily accepted, claiming she received too little pay from the court for too much work. This was obviously a conflict of interest. Finally, disregarding the advice of most people, including Caritas and German friends who warned me against challenging the courts, I consulted a lawyer. By the time I found a bilingual family lawyer from a big law firm in Düsseldorf, my arrangement with the guardian had gone on for several months. Klaus, however, fearing retaliation, discouraged me from continuing with the lawyer’s services, after he (the lawyer) had only made one telephone call to, and had a failed appointment with, the guardian.

  *

  It seemed to me that, not only Klaus, but Germans in general are afraid of challenging authority. Patients and their relatives do not ask their doctors detailed questions and doctors never seem to have the time for them. Evidently, patients implicitly trust these authority figures and are reluctant to question them. In the several hospitals in Münster where Klaus stayed in the course of the three years, we would ask what the pink pill was for, or the little white oblong one, but none of the nurses appeared to know, some were even annoyed by our questions. It was simply enough that it was on doctor’s orders.

  Nonetheless, the lawyer had, perhaps inadvertently, already done what I most wanted him to do, i.e. persuade the guardian to loosen her grip on us and to give us access to information without having to pay for it following each monthly statement. After her brief conversation with my lawyer, suddenly we could talk directly to any and all of Klaus’s doctors, take him out to any place to eat wherever and whenever we wanted, only notifying his caregiver/s. Although we had no say in any financial transactions, we even had access to online information about his bank accounts!

  However, Klaus was later forcibly transferred to an old people’s home. “Kidnapped” was the word he used. I presumed that either the authorities thought that he was a hazard to the community, or that they were simply convinced that they knew best what was good for him.

  We tried to recreate his own apartment’s living room in his new bedroom at the nursing home, transferring some of his books, his antique collection, and his favourite furniture. Over time, as he felt more settled there, Paul and I started to enjoy a period of stability. This, however, did not last long. Klaus was back in hospital soon, having fallen from his bed and fractured his shoulder. It pained me to think of my own stupidity. His bed could easily have been adjusted to a safer height by simply stepping on the lever which controlled it, but I—and everybody else—had overlooked it. One night, when I wanted to raise his bed guard before I left, I was told it was illegal. I should have insisted.

  Whilst in hospital, it was discovered that he had kidney failure, which required dialysis. Klaus had a lengthy history of hypertension. During his stay in the home, it became uncontrolled. The home did not have a resident doctor and his family physician—who should have visited regularly—failed to do so. When I finally met his doctor, it had been six months since he last visited Klaus. I asked him about this but he said it was standard. Again, I should have insisted he visit more frequently, although in retrospect, I doubt it would have done any good. By then, my husband’s systolic blood pressure was going as high as 220, possibly partly because I heard he wasn’t taking his pills regularly. Ultimately, I did not know whether this resulted in his kidneys to fail or whether it was the kidney disease which led to his uncontrolled hypertension. I tried to ask my doctors in London, but they could not help much without seeing either the patient or his medical records. Even so, they gave me a bird’s-eye view of what could go wrong in hypothetical situations.

  Klaus stayed in hospital for about two months. When he was suddenly released, I thought it was because he could receive his regular dialysis and other treatments as an outpatient. However, he was to pass away in the nursing home only a few days later. I asked myself why. Why did they take away his medication after they released him from hospital? Why weren’t they planning to send him back for dialysis as an outpatient? Perhaps his legal guardian had decided that, because his quality of life was so poor, it was best to let him go. Did the guardian decide without informing us because she thought Paul and I would object? Paul and I just didn’t understand. Perhaps, neither did poor Klaus. The day before he died, when he was already so weak, he was still asking Paul how he was doing.

  This all occurred in spring—the flowers were abloom. All I was asking for was one last summer. Klaus and I had fought so much during our marriage that it would have been the one last thing I could give him. He was looking forward to these long drives and delicious meals whilst basking in the sun. Perhaps the guardian was right and I was wrong. Perhaps I was being selfish by wanting him to stay a few more months so he could see the flowers. He so loved flowers. Perhaps they knew what I didn’t—that he was going through needless suffering. It didn’t help that he was stoic in the face of illness.

  Still, I remained very angry and resentful, knowing Paul and I could have taken infinitely better care of him if the court had only allowed us to do so, giving the guardianship to Paul, or at the very least changing the guardian as we had requested. Grieving, I asked anyone who would listen: how could the German state, reputedly a beacon of democracy and humanity, deny the human rights of the family? How could the state think they knew the needs of an individual, and could care for them better than their own family? Don’t Germans feel their personal freedom being stifled by the state as it intrudes into their private lives? Perhaps the state does not trust its own citizens. It treats them as though they could not make correct decisions, and it expects them to obey. So the court thought Paul and I didn’t live in Münster and I couldn’t possibly care for my husband from thousands of miles away, but they knew that we knew that as well. I asked the guardian this question after Klaus’s death, and her answer was “But that is the law”. I still grapple with these issues and they haven’t given me closure.

  Until recently, Germany was not an immigrant country, and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to accept more than a million migrants was unprecedented. Although in the short term, the country will have the problem of integrating many of these new migrants; in the longer term, it will make Germany more diverse and multicultural. This will ameliora
te the German love for a well-ordered world, for putting systems in place so as to simplify messy human affairs. To give an example: I remember one time I complained that Klaus was running out of soap. I thought the home would then give him some, so I simply waited. Finally, after he had totally run out of soap, I was informed that the home was providing soap only on Thursdays, and he would have had to wait until then in order to get a fresh supply. I was forced to search for an open store because it was a Sunday, and most stores in town were closed.

  In time, Germany will hopefully be more tolerant of people’s idiosyncratic needs which cannot be accommodated in a cookie-cutter approach to life, where discipline and the idea of individual needs being subservient to the community will be balanced with more time for warmth and empathy. I am told this is already true among many younger Germans. Indeed, I have lately been visiting Berlin where Paul has relocated. It is youthful, tolerant, and refreshingly permissive with its dirty streets and a new airport that never seems to get completed. Perhaps, just as London is not the UK, Berlin is not Germany.9 Also, perhaps the emerging Berlin will augur well for the future of Germany.

  Manila 2004–Present

  The Brazilian novelist Paolo Coelho, in his best-selling book The Alchemist, wrote about Santiago, a poor Andalusian shepherd who sleeps under a sycamore tree in an old, abandoned churchyard, and repeatedly dreams of a treasure hidden at the foot of one of the pyramids in Egypt. Finally, he decides to sell his flock and all his possessions to embark on a long journey to Egypt in search of the treasure. During his travels, he is attacked by bandits, falls in love with a gypsy woman, and meets an alchemist who helps him find his way. Finally, upon reaching the pyramids in Egypt, he is told about a treasure buried beneath a sycamore tree in an old, abandoned churchyard in southern Spain. He returns home and digs up the treasure underneath the very tree where he used to sleep.

  Like Santiago, I have come full circle in search of my home, my treasure. As I get older and wiser, I realise that “home” at least for me is not an innate rootedness to the place of your birth, nor in the company of the same people with whom you grew up. Instead, “home” is being with my loved one/s. Absent of that, it is about learning to consciously develop a psychological sense of place and being willing to pay the price for it. So long as issues don’t run counter to a few basic principles of right and wrong, I have decided to make a go of my stay in Manila and to overlook annoyances. Home to me, like love, has become a conscious commitment.

  To an objective eye, the Philippines is no Shangri-La. It is located in the Ring of Fire where the large majority of the earth’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, repeatedly visited by typhoons and devastating floods. Close to the equator, the glare and heat can be punishing, and without the energy-gouging air conditioners, they can lead to feelings of lethargy. When I was a young girl and we would be at my parents’ fish pond, my father’s dream of heaven was to lie on a hammock underneath two palm trees with the cool breeze blowing softly. Who, therefore, can blame Juan Tamad (Lazy John), who according to the Philippine fable, lay underneath a coconut tree waiting for the fruit to fall—instead of climbing up the tree to get it— until he finally died of starvation.

  For a variety of reasons, the Philippines, while being home to more than one hundred million people, is a poor country. In 2017, per capita GDP is estimated at only around US$3,000. In other words, the average Filipino only earns about US$250 per month. Even this figure is misleading because of a highly skewed income distribution. Tourists usually keep away from shanty settlements, and developers of upscale gated communities are careful to wall-off these shanties because they are considered eyesores. Yet I decided to return to Manila in 2004, because, on balance, I thought this to be a good place to retire. As with my husband, however, I still get flustered with too much noise, with crowds, the heat and the glare, the pollution, and the bumper-to-bumper traffic.

  What about the treasures I have found? I once thought of retiring in Vancouver where I still retained some friends. But when I came back for a holiday in Manila after having spent years away, I remember sitting with folded legs watching television, calling out “Tubig”, and iced water magically appeared. After years of do-it-yourself abroad I enjoy being spoiled by housemaids and drivers at a fraction of the cost I would otherwise pay in the UK or Canada.

  In the old days, I would rant over the inefficiencies of Filipinos, their lack of work ethic, and what I thought were their rather lackadaisical attitudes towards honesty and fairness. Now that I am retired and need no longer be productive, I enjoy their spontaneity, their warmth, their friendliness, their positive attitude towards life, and their wit and sense of humour, forever making jokes. Even the bahala na philosophy I had found so irritating, I now find refreshing. More importantly, my Filipino friends are generous and caring. Their spirit of merrymaking is contagious. I tell others that retiring in the Philippines is my best-kept secret.

  An anecdote I am fond of telling foreign friends: when I first returned to Manila, I would often lose my way as the names of streets had changed. Moreover, old two-way streets had become one-way. My weak sense of direction did not help matters. One time, I had a dental appointment at a clinic relatively close to where I was staying. However, I soon found out the street I was supposed to turn into was now a one-way street. I had to drive straight on, hoping to make a U-turn somewhere but couldn’t find a suitable place to do so. Finally, as I was stopping at a red light on a one-way intersection, I asked one of the two traffic policemen for directions. “Oh, ma’am, you have come a long way off… wait a minute … hey, Pare (Mate), let’s help ma’am. Stop the traffic for a while, will you?” He then proceeded to instruct me to make a U-turn and go back several blocks before turning right, and so on. As his “Pare” raised his hand, I noticed everyone had stopped, even after the light had turned green, until the other “mate” had finished giving his directions, I had asked my questions, and had completed my U-turn into the adjacent street—all in full view of a clear “No U-turn” sign. It all took quite some time. I was sure the policemen didn’t think they were doing anything wrong, disobeying the very law they were supposed to enforce. I didn’t know whether to be grateful for their kindness, be amused over the incident, or be shocked. But I thought that, even if misguided, they displayed a humanity I did not often find elsewhere.

  I do not read the local newspapers as the country seems to be scandal-prone. From news reporters to columnists, there is a chorus of condemnation for each of these scandals, only to be forgotten when the next one happens. Whilst the discussions and write-ups last, Filipinos would gossip and make pointed jokes about them. Whatever happened to the ZTE scandal involving a Chinese corporation and a US$130million telecommunications project, a deal that the government approved, bypassing the bidding process? What happened to the group of senators who pocketed their pork barrel funds by using proven fake channels?

  Recently, I was having lunch with some friends and the topic of conversation turned to the latest newspaper headline. The wife of a commissioner had gone to see President Duterte and reported that her husband had unexplained wealth. The story became fodder for columnists and “investigative” journalists. The couple became the subjects of television, radio, and newspaper interviews, each accusing the other. Naturally, every one of my acquaintances either knew them or knew people who knew them, or knew people who knew people who knew them. Each one had their own story. She apparently did it because he was very tight-fisted and didn’t give her any pocket money, and she had no other means of support, so she wanted to force his hand. Another friend defended the husband: did you know her own mother sided with him? The piece of gossip was intriguing for everyone and each added their own little twist to the story. After the brouhaha and the newspaper headline splashes, each of these contentious items would simply die its own quiet death to be replaced by a newer scandal: the grave incidents mixed with the petty.

  Worse, justice is often d
enied. In 2010, a powerful clan in the south murdered some fifty eight people including thirty-eight journalists. To date, the case languishes in court, or perhaps not. With news items such as these, I have decided to be an ostrich, hiding my head in the sand. There is absolutely nothing I can do to ameliorate the situation, and if I am not interested in such gossip, why should I have to know? What I don’t know won’t hurt me. As a result of this attitude, I am quite ignorant of current affairs in the country, including the prominent players in these events. It makes me quite a boring and useless companion, but I can live with it.

  Meandering River

  If life were a river, mine has certainly meandered as it runs its course through brooks and streams on its way to the open sea. On this journey, I have negotiated a number of sharp bends—some more successfully than others—but all of them providing me with opportunities for personal growth.

  By having lived in a number of cultures and having met a number of peoples, I have learned that, unlike the adventures of Santiago, life is never simple. Home is always a moving target. It changes course even as we stare at it. Our own standing point as well is a moveable space because we ourselves are never still.

  I went back to Negros several years ago for a homecoming with my former high school classmates, our fiftieth graduation anniversary. Our common greeting was, “You haven’t changed! You still look the same!” Much as I personally meant it, on second glance, however, I saw how even those I readily recognised were not the same, just as I was not the same. After reminiscing about old teachers and common childhood adventures, I realised I no longer had much in common with them. Similarly, during one of our visits to Münster, Klaus told me of his decision to go back there after more than forty years abroad. He nostalgically showed me where he studied, where he worked, where he was born. I felt that he was romanticising his hometown. As I have stated, he did go back eventually, but I never learned if he was happy there.