24.1.09 | Kitchens and Other Sorrows
She's only a tiny woman. No more than 5 feet high at the most on a good day. And today, watching her slicing peppers for the evening meal, one shoulder hanging lower than the other and her face creased in wrinkles from pain and depression, i know that my mother is a long way from having a good day.
Arthiritis and a badly failing hip are just two of the signs that my mother is getting old. Other things i see creeping up on her. The terraced home that she took pride in keeping spotless for over 60 years, has little by little, been getting slowly just a little more unkempt... things that i lazily took for granted would magically clean themselves while i slept, are slowly revealing my mothers failings both to her and me.
In the other room, either glued to his armchair, or the commode beside it, my stroke-cursed father can only watch the world go by with frustration and despair. The box, with it's cheesy afternoon detective programmes and light entertainment offers the only distractons to his paralysis. At the slightest emotion on the actors faces, his own face melts into tears.
"You big soft sod" we say to him, embarrassed for him. And my mother laughs. If you turn and look at her, though, she's crying softly too. This is her man still, you see. They neither of them thought that their lives would come to this. A constant erosion of all their self-respect and dignity. Quicker than a tidal cliff, but not slow enough to keep one blissfully untroubled at night.
"We've all got to go in the end" my mum says quietly, determinedly cutting the veg with the bluntest knife in the kitchen. I gave up years ago trying to point out the useful practicalities of sharper utensils, amongst many other things. You just can't tell people what to do. Never could. We are set in our ways like granite. Only more permeable, like sandstone. Sometimes it needs a tectonic shift to open our eyes and ears.
.
I know though. I know, even though they don't say it. My mum and dad are afraid. Afraid of death, and afraid of all the things left undone in their lives. Most of all afraid of how we, the living will manage without them, once they're gone. I know they worry about me a lot. but there is diamond in these bones and eyes of mine and diamond is an enduring mineral, y'know.
I'll manage. I might cry. But i'll manage to get by somehow.
"When i get a quiet moment to myself, i often think about my mum and dad. Sometimes i talk to them like they are in the room with me, waiting. It's been such a long time since i saw them now, especially my mum. I miss them.... will be good to see them again".
And from my memory, comes words from a young woman, written on the back of a seaside postcard over 50 years ago to her man, away so long overseas fighting in a forgotten war. Giving him hope and keeping some for herself.
"It won't be long now, my love, before we are together again"
I think I'll manage. I might cry. But i'll manage to get by somehow.
S.x
7 comments :.
20.1.09 | Forty Four
Dear Sir
When all the poetic rhetoric is done.
When all the fine speeches are crafted, then read out with a grace lacking in your thuggish simian predecessor.
When a million people have hung breathless on your every word, intoxicated for the almost Messiah-like hopes you have instilled in them..
(And that's just a few of the citizens who will be there with you in this sunny winter day)
When the world too pauses just for a second, watching their television sets and listening to their radio's. Some with more cynicism than hope. After all... we practically have seen it all before, if you think about it long enough.
Remember that you're just a man. Whatever you do now, can probably just as easily be undone by the 45th or a million other variables. In a thousand years, no-one will remember much about you anyway. Just do your best. Do as little damage as possible, if nothing else.
(And i... for my part will remember our Albions 72th... and the adulation and hope he brought with him... only to see all those hopes dashed and a country and it's democracy shattered upon the wheels and cogs of money and greed. My country is fucked. You have a much bigger responsibility, and the world awaits your arrival. Godspeed.
S.
4 comments :.
dizzy hollered thusly:
The Saturnyne hollered thusly:
Why thankee Dizzy...
i think...
S.
supersoniclady hollered thusly:
You're so poetic. It's always a thrill to read your blogs, especially the ones like this.
The Tired Psychonaut hollered thusly:
Hello Pol, it's your favourite Sian here !
I have a blog now. Please direct people my way, and read it yourself, too xx
theretiredpsychonaut.wordpress.com
(it's not the blog affiliated with Blogger, that was a half-baked attempt but i hated Blogger and went to wordpress instead)
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You are anything but useless....
You just need
to believe
in Yourself
You need
to set Yourself
free
Free from the doubts of the past
Set your heart
Set your mind
Free
You just need
to give Yourself
the time and space
to blossom
You write so beautifully. You have a gift. Cultivate it.
Oh love. Love. It's worthless of me to give you platitudes or advice, or even to say I know how you feel.
So, just to say I'm thinking about you, and to me you are very far from useless.
Jane xxx
Goodness. I wasn't ready for this. You've brought so many things out with such honesty and raw emotion, really, that I will have to digest this and come back. What you wrote was beautiful. It makes me want to give you a hug, for you, for me, for them - it really is a toss up.
This is an exceptional post. xo
How can you do that to us, Sat? Being a wonderful writer as you are, you just make us feel miserable and powerless.
"Death is not a failure.Death is one way we heal."
Don't ever be afraid of the future. We love you.
This isn't really about me, Marlene/Yoli/Everyone.
It's about my parents, and their trying to keep their dignity.
Old age affects people in vastly different ways, i know... this is just how it affects my mum and dad. This is how i could remember them... but in remembering their life gone before, i find hope and courage and purpose.
*think i need to take that comment about the useless son out, it takes away from what i was trying to show*
S.x
P's mum has advanced alzheimers and can't even remember how to pick up a cup. It's agonising to see, and to know she's been like this for 15 years and probably will be another 15 more.
Yet the other day we found a pile of letters from her to P'd dad from when they were courting & he was in the army. The person they evoke is so warm and lively and full of hopes and dreams, they tear us up whenever we look at them.
But like you say they show another side of the person to remember, rather than the shell she has become. So i think I know what you're trying to say, even if I don't understand completely because whilst it's all so normal for us to age, its also so individual to each person.
GD xx
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