Fridays with my Folks

by Amal Awad

  The tumour didn’t allow for surgery or a liver transplant. Chemotherapy was a possibility but an appointment with another specialist offered a dim prognosis; they were told, ‘You can do it and you’ll probably have another six months to live at this stage, and you can spend six months either getting chemo and your quality of life would drastically reduce, or you can just spend the six months how you are now.

  ‘In the end, they called us back and they said, “Actually, on second thoughts, we don’t think you should get chemo, so there is no other option.”’

  It was a tough year. ‘I was living at home at the time [of his diagnosis].’ She had three months before returning to work, so she spent that time going to appointments with her father; her mother was still working, but was taking leave. ‘I would hang with my dad during the day and take him to appointments, make his lunch and all that kind of stuff.’

  Sadia didn’t share her feelings about her father’s lifestyle choices with him. Hassan’s mellowing after his diagnosis led to a reformation in his relationships with his family. Sadia in particular saw a notable shift in her relationship with her father in the last ten months he was alive.

  ‘He was a totally different person. He was calmer. He was more present. He was more accepting … it was almost like he was the dad I would have liked to have had my whole life, which is nice in a way because I saw a different side to him. Don’t get me wrong, my dad was a really great dad growing up, but he was very strict and not emotionally there.’

  ‘Did that make it harder, in a way, getting a glimpse of what was possible?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, absolutely.’

  Sadia never spoke to her father of this glimpse and the effect it had on her. A friend suggested she should, but to Sadia it would have seemed a cruel exercise. ‘What good would that do? That would probably make him more upset, knowing that he’s going to die.’

  ‘Did you learn anything about your father that surprised you?’

  ‘He spoke a lot about his childhood. One of his brothers, one of my uncles from overseas, came and visited towards the end, so we would have lots of fun family chats. And … I just found out about … their childhood.’

  Sadia says her father did struggle with the ‘why’ of his diagnosis, but he eventually came to terms with his situation: ‘This has happened to me, and this is what’s happening, and it’s all in God’s hands.’ Though he did question it sometimes, she concedes: was it a punishment for something he’d done? Had he done something to someone who now wished him ill?

  So much gets lost in the process of illness. We all change. How we see ourselves, whether we are the ones dealing with illness, or are witness to it, we grapple with the loss of everything that is familiar. The snow globe effect: everything gets shaken up. You lose the ordinary things. You search for and find normal moments and experiences, only for a phone call or development to torpedo the normality again.

  It felt like too much for Sadia, all the time. She didn’t resume her overseas position after her father’s death. So she sacrificed the new life she was enjoying, and her options thinned out – she stayed in Australia because she couldn’t leave her mother alone.

  Now Sadia feels limited, restricted by circumstances. She doesn’t share a home with her mother but she’s in touch with her daily – Sadia’s only other sibling lives in another city. She’d feel guilty neglecting her mother, who lives in a large house by herself. Looking out for her is not a hassle, but it eats away at her social life.

  As Sadia ponders the possibility that she may one day, depending on her circumstances, play a more substantive carer role for her mother, she reflects on the descent of someone in poor health, observing as the helpless bystander. She told a friend, ‘I don’t know what would have been worse – knowing that he had a year left, or just him passing away without us knowing how long he has.

  ‘And when he did pass away I don’t know if it was easier to deal with it knowing that it was going to happen, because you can’t really prepare yourself. You know this person’s sick and I guess they’re in a better place but … I don’t know, you just can’t prepare yourself for that.’

  ‘Do you believe he’s in a better place?’

  ‘Yeah, absolutely.’

  Friday

  It’s October and Sydney is flooded with the bright purple of bountiful jacaranda trees. I’m reflective, flattened and subdued by the accumulation of stories I’ve collected. But also invigorated, to not be wasteful or take anything for granted.

  Fridays with my folks continue, a solid appointment that even colleagues are now aware of; often, they’ll preface a call with, ‘Sorry, I know it’s Friday but …’ People understand, but life trots on. It’s been more than a year of Fridays.

  There is a difference now. Dad doesn’t take so long to warm up. Like that new pair of shoes, his changed reality has become more comfortable with time, with greater acceptance. He is quieter but he finds pleasure and excitement in the things he’s always enjoyed. He has changed and admits this himself. Still, while the volume is lower, perhaps, the music is playing.

  Mum and Dad also seem to have settled peacefully into their memories. They’re not fighting them or reinterpreting every image and thought. Now these moments are allowed to exist as they were at the time, unblemished, whole, the burden of experience not so scalding.

  Their quirks have become familiar. The odd turns of phrase, common for people for whom English is their second language. Dad’s playfulness, when he’s not ‘the silent man’, the way he puts on a funny voice to demonstrate a good mood, the way he calls people ‘baby’ – even my brothers, relatives, my mum. ‘Maybe,’ will come his response. ‘Maybe, baby.’

  Other things, too. Mum’s conspiracy theories, usually related to cafés and restaurants, which explain poor service –food comes late because the staff want the café to look full; something is delicious and carefully assembled on the first couple of visits, but once you’re a regular they don’t try so hard to impress you with good food. ‘Not conspiracy theories,’ she tells me, ‘True!’ And how sugar is responsible for all ailments, something that nowadays a dietician, or nurse, or even the podiatrist we visit might affirm.

  Mum continues to study her coffee cup for symbols, a strange comfort she takes in the possibilities of life. It indicates that even in the toughest times, hope lingers. Stretched out. Elastic. Mum, my father’s constant companion, the mother bear.

  Dad frequently observes, ‘It’s your mum’s fault.’ He throws blame to her for just about anything. Mum is his full-time protector, monitoring his diet and activity, his mood. She’s pushy and watches him, militant, a bird guarding her nest. Maybe that’s why he’s learned to deflect stuff. If he eats something that doesn’t agree with him, it’s Mum’s fault.

  I call him on it. ‘You blame Mum for everything,’ I say. ‘If there was a tornado tearing up the road you’d blame her.’

  Even Dad finds this amusing.

  With Dad not driving, I’m constantly reminded how he sees the world differently as a passenger. He points out buildings like they’re monuments. Sometimes there’s a history tied into them. The old building that sits at a large intersection near Central Station – he applied for a job there. The GPO building at Martin Place – he had his first job there, at the postmaster-general’s department (PMG; what would become Telecom). Places he and my mother have lived in, the first house they bought – in Bondi in 1971. He declares Bondi Beach beautiful more than once. Its fame had reached him all those years ago when he first arrived, and he wasted no time in setting out to explore it. The building formerly known as Crown Street Hospital near Darlinghurst. ‘Lots of memories,’ says Dad, because four of his five children entered the world there.

  He knows the inner workings of the city, its unseen passageways. He’s walked every street. He still gives me directions when I’m driving him somewhere, and he’s taken to public transport with a passion. My father relishes noise, he likes spaces teeming with people. And, for
a traditional man, he admires progress. His favourite word is ‘results’. He seems constantly to marvel at the reconstruction of Sydney. Repetitively so – it’s clear he doesn’t ever find it boring. Each new building, each site of destruction, holds promise and positivity. It’s progress. It’s results. Sydney is booming. ‘Beautiful,’ he says as we pass a new development.

  When we go shopping, Dad browses the fruit and vegetable aisles like a tourist. He studies the names of obscure fruits. He and my mother argue over how much to buy –his fruit intake is of course limited.

  He notices things – the birds, trees. I notice them, too. Whenever Dad walks past a tree or flowers, he stops to touch them, then places a hand to his nose to take in its scent.

  I walk slower with Dad, too.

  In noticeable ways, Dad’s condition has changed him. But I also see that his health affects my mother on a deep level – on multiple levels. She’s with him 24/7. Questions fill her mind: why did it happen so soon?

  Still, at least the two of them can come and go, Mum acknowledges. You lose other things in the process, but it occurs to me how unafraid my parents are. Mum tells me she’s grateful that her kids are around, helping, being there. It’s support for Dad, she says, but in my mind I feel we’re also offering her support. Carer fatigue is a slow burn.

  Dad agrees that he enjoys his outings with his kids. His birthday is coming up. He’s never much cared for it. He’s tetchy about it now, still. He doesn’t care about celebrating birthdays, never has; but he embraces living.

  There is a change in me, too. It’s not a rebirth or newfound sense of joy. It’s a simplifying – of things, of unnecessary situations, of negative people. A clearing. I don’t know if it’s age, or a weathering of my being. But I don’t feel attached to things. I don’t want to accumulate. I don’t seek permanence. Life is fleeting, ephemeral. You don’t take anything with you. So I don’t want a life burdened by need, or belongings.

  One day, would that I just float away, free, no possessions, a life well-lived.

  7.

  THE NATURAL CYCLES OF LIFE

  I want to demystify death and its power over people.

  Friday

  My parents inform me that a relative overseas has died from cancer. The daughter of my mother’s cousin. A woman barely in mid-life. The father is in deep mourning for his daughter, who, unmarried, was still living with him.

  We talk about it, and about death more generally. How flimsy it seems from a distance when it hasn’t happened to someone close to you, or when the passage of time has lessened the weight of loss. We reflect on how we’ve all been visited in our sleep, the ghosts of those who have left us appearing, normal, healthy, free of disease and suffering, there to reassure us, or foreshadow something.

  At times we can talk about this easily. Dad can be flippant about the cycles of life, acknowledging that ‘nothing stays the same, baby’. Mum, too, lends humour to the heavy topic. When I wonder aloud if whatever follows life, as we experience it, can really be any worse than what we deal with here, Mum comes back with, ‘The afterlife is probably boring.’

  But we’ve all been up close with death.

  My father has lost both parents, and with that loss the intense desire to be back in his home town, though a homesickness lingers, and always will. My mother lost siblings from a young age: three brothers who have passed on, and her sister, gone three years ago now. My maternal grandparents passed away within weeks of each other. My mother was in Australia when her father was involved in a road accident. She managed to get to Kuwait in time to see him before he died. As Mum recalls, she saw him twice before he passed away. ‘It was the shock of my life.’ She needed to be medicated. Mum returned to Australia but a couple of weeks later her mother died. She offers up prayers for them all every day, reciting Quranic verses.

  My mother lost her brother Waleed when he was thirteen years old. Afflicted by a condition that couldn’t be treated in Jenin, he was taken by their father to Kuwait, where he died on the operating table.

  ‘We didn’t know he died. My father didn’t tell us.’ Mum was on her way to Kuwait with her family to meet them when it happened. She knew Waleed was gone from the expression on her sister’s face when Mum arrived at the hospital.

  This tragedy had a deep impact on my mother, who was fifteen at the time. ‘You should have seen how my mother wailed,’ Mum recalls. ‘And she was good at it, too.’ A note of pride almost creeps into her tone, but it’s overwhelming sadness that seeps through her words. ‘He was a beautiful kid, eyes so big.’

  Losing her brother Samir when he was in his fifties was different – she had spent more of her life being his sister, knowing him. Losing her sister, Rusmeah, in her sixties – not having seen her enough, but a firm attachment in place nonetheless – was devastating in its unforgiving suddenness.

  Uncle Samir was dear to me. When I was a child, he graced us with yearly visits every January. A captain of the stewards on Kuwait Airways, he was handsome, fun and full of life. I watched his body’s descent from cancer. He was given a timeline by the doctors.

  Then, three years ago, Aunt Rasmea. A phone call from Mum that chilled me to the core – there had been a road accident. My aunt was hit by a truck. I sent love from a distance to this kind relative, whom I’d met several times but who loved me as though I were an everyday presence in her life. Her death shook all of us to our core. An introduction to a new form of grief. It empties you of trust – the unexpectedness of it, the unfairness of it.

  Does it make it easier at all, I still wonder, to know that your time is limited? For the body to fade, violently or softly, an inevitable decline in old age, or to be given a sentence? There is a difference between losing someone in old age, when you’re older and have decades of memories between you. My mother tells me it’s hard to lose someone at any age, but that you feel it more when you’re older. She was deeply troubled by her sister’s death: the sudden trauma has left her not quite the same. She hadn’t seen her enough. At the time, I threw something out there, unsure of where exactly the advice came from, knowing only that it must be given. ‘When you pray today, Mum, light a candle and speak to her, and tell her what you want to say.’

  Mum later told me she lit a candle and spoke to her sister. Tears streamed down her face, hot and unrelenting, as she honoured her, thanking her for being a good sister. But the tears, she told me, didn’t feel like hers.

  ‘From the moment life begins, it’s ending’

  Halloween is coming up when I meet with Stacey Demarco, the self-titled ‘modern witch’. The northern hemisphere is headed into the darker winter months; however, their Halloween is our spring (litha). Stacey’s a self-proclaimed ‘nature luster’ and a pagan, and therefore believes she is a natural part of the earth, not better or worse than other living things. ‘I’m going to have a cycle like anyone else. A birth, death … I am no more special than anyone else or anything else.’

  In most cultural mythos, Stacey explains, death is the start of life. ‘Pagan peoples have always had death very much as part of life, and the cycles of sickness and health and birth and so on.’ The ‘death’ card in the tarot major arcana is symbolic not of an ending but a new beginning – a rebirth. ‘It’s the void,’ Stacey continues. ‘In the Norse [mythology], it was a void, it was a place of infinite possibility, of nothingness. It wasn’t a place to be feared.’ Norse mythology depicts a potentially jolly afterlife, depending on where you go, based on your deeds in this life. Though there is a hell, in the form of a death goddess, Hel.

  In the past, in some traditions, with that concept of death being a part of life there was great celebration around a death. ‘People would come from far and wide to bury somebody. And if you think about it, people didn’t live very long. We didn’t have antibiotics, we didn’t have all those sorts of things. So you would definitely see a death.’

  Even now, Mexicans honour those who have passed on, with Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). It’s
a healthy practice; one that celebrates the natural tides of life, rather than dreads them.

  Stacey goes on to make an interesting observation about how humans struggle with death – they have a difficult time even farewelling pets. She recommends that people with a pet that has been euthanased bring it home. ‘You wash its paws, you prepare the body, you give it flowers, you get your kids to cut some fur off it to keep. You see, especially for kids … it’s not horrible, he’s just not here anymore. He’s gone to the next [place], whatever your belief system is.’

  Stacey has done this for friends, as a friend not as a paid service. ‘I’ve done it for my own pets and I found it incredibly helpful because to actually make the decision to take the life of an animal that’s been with you for fifteen years as a friend is horrendous for most people. They can’t handle it. So shouldn’t we honour that creature in some way?’

  The pet should be wrapped up, it may be cremated. This takes away the charge of death – it’s not as frightening.

  Stacey tears up as she talks about her own pets who have passed. ‘Generally, I’ve been holding them … and I’ve sung them out.’ But the tears aren’t of sadness, just ‘the beauty of it’.

  Pagans also sing when ushering in new life. Stacey has been present at many births, where they sing songs of welcome and joy and a beautiful earth as the baby enters the world. ‘And look what you’ve got to look forward to. You’re coming and we all love you … Come on, let’s go. And that’s before the baby even breaches, we’re singing it in so that it’s tempted to come out. And it’s the same with death. We have rites of passage.’

  It’s all about cycles. ‘Because I’ve always been very nature-orientated, I’ve seen there’s a cycle out there. And to be frightened of it or to ignore it never made a lot of sense to me.’