22.7.10 | Loose Ends
The next day they came for your things. Two gentlemen from supplies, looking like George and Lennie from Steinbecks' novel. All the disability equipment that they loaned you after your stroke, plus the stinking plastic coated medical mattress to help prevent bed sores that you died upon. Giving up the commode and the bath-lift was easy. As was the little table with wheels and the strangely handled cutting knife that you never once used. Other things, too, unimportant in your life as in your death.
It was the walking stick that broke me. All my pragmatism and inherited practicalities shattered when i held it in my hands. The smooth worn handle that i gripped tightly in my fingers as yours once did, and the strong metal shaft ending cleverly in tripod feet for balance. This was your lifeline for even getting into the kitchen. It served you well.
And now i had to let it go and serve another person with needs just as great. All i could do was place it beside your empty chair and take the picture to keep safely and remind me of you. When i try really hard i can see you sitting there, smiling at mum and me and my dumbass big brother (it's ok, i can call him that. He knows i say it with affection). I cry a lot at small things these days, it seems.
We talked about getting rid of that chair and its accompanying sofa the other day and i was dismayed. But then i suddenly realized-this wasn't really your chair. It was just the one best able to suit your needs when you became half paralyzed. More an open prison, really. And i smiled, then. Your chair sits where it always has done. Beside the window, next to the telly. Mum sits there now. Me too, sometimes, when she goes to bed...
I think about you a lot. I miss you.
S.
PS: England played rubbish. You'd have been glad not to see them.
2 comments :.
Your photo really spoke volumes. It is peculiar how the remains of a life, any life, can be dismantled so quickly. Not that it takes away any sadness, reduces mourning or takes away the validity of that life, it's just that it can be dismantled so quickly. Then again, those are just the physical things. The important part remains with you; the impact they had on your life. I hope you are doing well. xo
And yet you still jump a beat when you see a picture, and you still feel like having a cup of tee out of his cup...and you still crave the ice-cream that he loved...
And it is a silly cup too...bottoms up! this tea grew cold!
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