‘This is real Richard, and this is the kind of world I want these kids to grow up in. A world where we realise the value of positive thoughts and gratitude and love. Not a world where we fear the future and imagine only the worst. Our thoughts create our reality, and that is not some hippy idealistic dream. Einstein knew this, but never managed to find a way to help the masses understand. But there will be others, there are already others, who know this and who are finding ways to get through to our fear-filled ego-led brains and help us see the world for what it is really is. We have created everything we see before us now, the negative is all our fault and the positive is all our own doing as well. To awaken to this realisation is what the world needs, and then we can have anything, create anything, live any life we want. And machines can still be part of that world, but if we imagine them as helping us by taking away the time-consuming and menial tasks, then we will have the time to really enjoy the life we have been given. We can spend time stopping to smell the roses and to appreciate all the good in the world, and all the good in our lives!’ Jacinta barely pauses for breath before continuing.
‘Here’s a thought for you Richard. Perhaps this new wave of consciousness is the Second Coming. Christ lived in total connection with his fellow man and was able to guide the world and move us towards the direction we needed to go in. We are starting to see this happen again as more and more people awaken to the true meaning in life, their true purpose.’
‘Whoa there, I think you’re going a bit far with the Second Coming reference,’ Richard says holding his hand up in the air, palm facing Jacinta. I can feel she is so close to convincing him to open his mind at least, but it is a very fine line to walk, and one that she has to tread very carefully. Jacinta’s face starts to soften, and she lets out a big sigh.
‘Perhaps this is too much of a subject to discuss on our lunchbreak, but all I ask of you Richard is to simply hear what I am saying and turn it over in your mind. It is OK to have a different view from each other but don’t let yourself be eaten up by bitterness or fear. We all have a choice and we all create the path along which we walk so make yours a happy one. Your happiness affects the world much more than you realise.’
With that she stands up and heads towards the fridge, taking out a small plastic container. She takes a fork out of the drawer in the little kitchenette and sits back down at the large dining table to eat her lunch. The lady who had spoken earlier sits down opposite her, gives her a warm smile and briefly reaches over to squeeze her hand.
I sit down next to Jacinta and look her deep in the eyes. I tell her to never give up. That she will change the world with her passion. Never give it up. Never give up the passion that she feels for life and for those in her life. The world needs her and people like her, if a true awakening is to take place, and a positive future is to be created. We all have a choice in this life so why choose fear?
I stand up and head towards the door of the staff room. I pause to look back in the room one more time; Richard has returned to his papers but seems more pensive than before and the rest of the staff have returned to what they had been doing before the debate began. Jacinta’s shoulders are slouched but she has done a good job and should be proud of herself. I am certainly proud of her. I say a silent goodbye and walk back into the hallway, along past the lockers and discarded items, and out into the daylight again, thinking about the effect one person can have on another. As I walk back down the winding path, and onto the street, my mother’s carer comes to mind. Someone I hadn’t thought of in a long time but someone who had really touched our lives in so many ways.
Chapter 7
The Nurse
It took a long time for Mother to die. I sound quite cold when I say that but I suppose having spent years living with a very practical and highly-unemotional person, I find myself responding in kind. I don’t mean to, really. I loved her very much and tried to be close to her but she was from another generation, a wartime generation whose forte was survival and rations and the re-use of teabags.
Mother had been ill for quite some time but not being one to make a fuss, we hadn’t known. We had noticed what appeared to be dementia slowly creeping in, but then Mother was in her eighties, so it wasn’t really surprising. It was during her weekly shopping trip, when I would accompany her, that I noticed her hand shake as she tried to place a loaf of bread in the shopping trolley. I asked her if she was feeling OK, and she smiled a wan smile and told me the truth. She was dying. Right there in the supermarket. Just like that. Well, she wasn’t dying in the supermarket, but she told me that her doctor had given her six months at the most, and that she didn’t want me making a fuss about it. She had already spoken to her solicitor and had the will and her personal property sorted out and ‘Could you be a dear and organise a nurse to visit me at home when I need it?’ She continued on her way down the aisle leaving me standing there staring like a stunned rabbit in the headlights.
We didn’t say much as I helped her into the car and placed the groceries on the back seat. We still didn’t really talk as I drove her home and helped her out of the car and in through the front door. I put the kettle on and made us a cup of tea and it was then that she opened up. She had cancer, and while she was feeling alright at the moment, the doctor had said it was widespread and she wouldn’t live to see next Christmas. She took a sip of tea and I half expected her to talk about the weather. That was Mother. Never a more practical woman did I ever come across.
When she finished her tea, I took our cups to the sink and rinsed them with hot water, not really noticing as I burned my hands under the tap. My mind was racing and my words had gone into hiding. She had been very clear about not wanting to go in to a home or hostel and wanting to live out her days in her own house. That I could understand.
I found an agency that manages home care for the elderly and they sent us a nurse called Ann. When my wife and I opened the front door to her on her first day, she greeted us with a firm handshake and then went over to Mother, sat down next to her and explained who she was and how she saw their relationship working. She explained that she was there to help Mother around the house, to help her get dressed and to enable her to live the most normal life possible. She would be able to take her shopping and to medical appointments and could administer any medication as necessary. Due to Mother’s advanced age and condition, her goal was to make Mother’s last days on earth as comfortable and easy as possible.
I felt very reassured from the moment I laid eyes on Ann. I could tell she would take no nonsense from Mother but would also be the loving and kind bringer of dignity that everyone deserves when their life on this earth is drawing to a close. We decided to give Mother some time alone with Ann to ensure that they would be able to get on and that Mother would be comfortable with her and happy with our choice. We agreed we would come back later that day to see how she was settling in.
It can’t have been easy looking after someone you don’t really know, but Ann took on her role with grace and dignity. She was a fine nurse, medically speaking, which Mother needed, but she was able to take care of the emotional side of things too. Mother had a lot of medication to manage and we were very grateful that Ann could be there to help her.
As the weeks went on, everything seemed to be running smoothly. Ann and Mother had a good relationship and I could see that Mother was being very well taken care of. But it was on one of my regular visits, as I was climbing out of the car outside the house, that I heard an angry voice jumping out Mother’s front window and down the street.
‘Thief!’ I heard her yell as I walked through the door. ‘Get out of my house! THIEF!’ I rushed into the house to find Mother red-faced, leaning forward in her lounge chair and waving an angry fist at poor Ann.
‘Oh thank goodness you’re here,’ Mother said. ‘She stole my pearl necklace!’ The woman who cared deeply for my mother and took care of her every need had now been reduced to ‘she.’
‘I am sure there must be some reasonable
explanation,’ I said, as I walked over to Mother’s side with a glass of water in hand to try to help her calm down.
‘NO!’ she screeched. ‘She is a thief and I want her out of my house!’ screamed Mother, determination, anger and a feeling of injustice pouring out of every pore.
I took Mother into her room to have a lie down, promising that I would look for her necklace while she rested. As I started to look I began to wonder what could have happened to the necklace. Had Ann really taken it? We weren’t able to pay her much and so maybe she needed to top up her weekly earnings, and I’m sure the necklace could have been sold for a reasonable amount. I started to feel very guilty and worried about leaving Mother with a complete stranger, particularly when she was in such a vulnerable state. Ann had come with good references from a good agency, but you never really know someone. I had been so relieved to be able to leave Mother in what I thought were very capable hands, that I had happily signed the contract and handed the care of my elderly mother over to a middle-aged and possibly dishonest stranger.
Ann looked very embarrassed and rather horrified and explained that she had no idea where the necklace could be. She said Mother had been very forgetful lately and that perhaps she had misplaced it somewhere. We both kept thoroughly searching and after about ten long minutes, Ann held up a triumphant hand clutching a string of pearls.
‘I found them!’ she beamed, relief written all over her face. She had discovered them in the cutlery draw next to a misplaced tea bag. The guilt I had felt just moments earlier about Mother quickly turned into guilt about Ann. I had completely misjudged her in the heat of the moment. I mumbled my apologies and thanked her for finding the necklace. I went to tell Mother the good news but found her sleeping so I agreed with Ann that I would come back later that day.
When I came back in the afternoon Ann called out to me from the bathroom. I walked in to find Mother leaning back in a chair, head held backwards over the sink, a large towel placed on the floor and a bucket of warm water placed on the towel. Ann was washing my mother’s hair with the care a mother takes of a newborn. Using a plastic jug to tip water from the bucket over Mother’s hair, with each rinse she would gently run her empty hand from Mother’s forehead down through her hair to stop the water from falling in her eyes. Mother’s face looked so relaxed and calm, nothing like it had been a few hours earlier. ‘She’ had become ‘Ann’ again in mother’s eyes, and the difference was startling. I stood there dumbfounded by how Ann had been able to transition from a hated enemy to a loving carer again in a matter of hours. How Ann could care for someone so difficult in such a loving way astounded me.
I was struck by the fact that we are all quick to judge others without really knowing them or the circumstances that surround them. There is constant talk in this world about the negative side of human nature and yet standing here before me was the perfect reminder of how incredible people really can be. For every dreadful act in this world there is always an equally kind and loving act, but it is these acts that quite often go unnoticed.
As Mother’s health worsened, so did her dementia. Ann would sit for hours with Mother, on her lucid days playing cards, and on the days when Mother couldn’t remember what the symbols on the cards stood for, Ann would read to her. She would cook and clean for her, do her laundry and take her out for walks to the park to sit and watch as life went by. It really is amazing how someone who is effectively a stranger can come into someone else’s life and take care of them like they are their own family. We were all truly blessed by Ann’s presence.
Mother made it to Christmas, stubbornly defying the doctor’s prediction. It was an emotional Christmas and one that we all wanted to remember. After plates were scraped clean, Christmas crackers were picked up, eager hands pulling on each end. Out fell the bad jokes and the equally bad paper hats but everyone wore them with pride that day, including Mother. After Christmas pudding was consumed, the children went to their rooms to listen to the CDs they had received for Christmas, Mother went to have a lie down and my wife and I moved into the lounge room with her brother, Alan, to relax and reminisce in front of the fire.
As the brandy was poured the stories started to flow and I was reminded of the period when my wife and I had moved in with my parents as newlyweds as we were trying to save for a house. My wife told us the story of the first time she used my parents’ very old-fashioned shower – the type where you had to light a match in the gas box to light the flame that would heat the water. It was in the days of bouffant hairstyles and lots of hairspray and as my wife leaned her head backwards away from the water so as not to get it wet, her nose started to twitch, and a burning smell started filling the bathroom. She suddenly realised her hair was on fire! She let out a blood curdling scream and Mother came running into the bathroom to see what had happened. When she caught sight of my wife and her blazing hair, she immediately threw water over it from the shower, and then stated sternly: ‘What a fuss you are making! I thought something serious had happened!’
And with that she left the bathroom, my poor wife standing there, hair dripping, not knowing how to react. We all laughed at that memory, a different perspective and a certain fondness that usually installs itself with time and distance.
I remembered how it was always Mother who we would ask to remove unwanted spiders from our bedrooms, or to fix our toys when they were broken. She used to buy chickens from the butcher still wearing their coat of feathers, and she would pluck them herself, a bowl in her lap to catch the feathers as she sat on the back doorstep facing out to the garden.
I remembered the old apron she wore for most of my childhood, always patching it up as necessary, and the countless costumes she would make us for our school plays. I thought about the gentle kiss she would place on our foreheads as she tucked us in to bed and bent over to say goodnight, the only dose of affection we would receive from her.
‘She’s a tough old thing,’ Alan said into his brandy glass. ‘You’d have to soak her overnight to kill her with an axe.’ My wife and I burst out laughing, used to Alan’s often morbid and very dry sense of humour.
Mother rapidly deteriorated after Christmas and on a cold February day, as snow was falling outside the window, her spirit left this world. By a miracle, the whole family was with her. Ann had called us that morning and said that Mother was not very coherent and that from her experience didn’t have long to live. She suggested we come and spend time with her and just be with her so that she could feel our presence even if she was not able to communicate with us.
We had all gathered around her bed and were telling her stories about our daily lives, lives that she had not been able to be part of for the last few weeks due to her worsening condition. I was holding her hand as my wife was telling her about the neighbours across the street and the loud car that their teenage son had recently bought, when Mother took a strange rattling breath and then her hand went limp. My wife stopped talking and I looked up at Ann, who had been quietly standing in the corner of the room. She came over to Mother, placed her hand on her frail wrist and looked off into the distance for a brief moment.
‘She’s gone,’ she said quietly. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you say your goodbyes.’ I heard my wife sob and my children started to cry. I could only stare at the woman who had given birth to me, scolded me, brushed my grazed knees to get the dirt off when I fell over as a little boy, fed me, and taught me to be brave. And now she was gone. I felt empty. I sat there not knowing what to do or how to react. I held on to her hand, not wanting to let her go, knowing that it was already too late. My wife took the children out of the room to give me a moment alone, and I sat there not moving. She looked so at peace after all these months of pain and illness, memory loss and loss of dignity. Now she was with her beloved angels and I knew that she was safe.
I picked up her hand and gave it a kiss. I then leant over her and delicately brushed her hair back from her face with my hand, something I never would have been able to
do when she was alive. I leant down and kissed her gently on the forehead. ‘Goodbye Mother,’ I whispered. ‘I love you.’ I left the room in search of consolation from my family. Then I had to be strong and help the children through losing their grandmother.
We invited Ann to the funeral which she accepted with grace. She chose to sit in the back of the small church, not allowing herself to be part of the family despite having been closer to Mother in her final days than anyone. When the funeral was over, and I was saying my thank yous and goodbyes to the family and friends who had attended, I noticed Ann standing discreetly to the side of the church door. I put my hand in my pocket and felt for a soft piece of cloth I had placed there earlier. I walked over to Ann and thanked her for being there today as she had been there for Mother throughout her ordeal. I thanked her for making Mother’s last days on earth some of the happiest of her life and for helping us as a family to get through the slow and painful demise of a matriarch. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the piece of cloth.
‘I have something for you that I believe you deserve,’ I said. I handed her the cloth and as she took it, it fell open and there was the pearl necklace. She looked down at it, looked up again and opened her mouth to protest.
‘No, I insist,’ I said. ‘And I know if Mother were here now, she would agree.’ With that I closed her hand over the small package and she smiled at me. A gentle smile, one filled with a mix of emotions. A smile full of gratitude for the gift and for the shared joke at the circumstances surrounding the necklace, but also of sadness as she had truly grown fond of Mother and had enjoyed her time with her overall. Ann was a giver and always would be, there for others at the expense of herself. It is nice to give back when one can. Givers are the salt of the earth and we need to take care of them and show them our appreciation whenever we can.
A Lifetime of Goodbyes Page 8
