He used the word ‘toll’ to describe the impact that this research is having on me. I know the toll it is taking on you, he wrote. And it is. I know this too. But I cannot treat it lightly, or detach myself from it. I wonder whether I will survive it. And, if I do, what my life will be after it.
She told us that he has her bed and that she, in turn, sleeps on the sofa in the living room. She says she is tired, that caring for him has made her weary, and that sleeping on the sofa has made her arthritis worse. It’s a familiar pattern and that is not a judgement, we all have them. As we all have people in our lives who abuse us with our full and willing knowledge. He, is appears, has always abused her, that is taking more than he gives. But she is happier for him being there, clearly. It will be up to her. Perhaps she just wanted to be heard and felt for. And I did and do.
I finish one piece of writing, but the respite (a mix of relief and panic at there being nothing..) is short. Another one waits to be begun, or in this case, amended. I am assailed by the fear of it, of failing, of being rejected and of not getting it right. I know that all this fear stuff is of my doing and that it doesn’t have to be like this, but I know no other default position. Try. Try another….
I offered to help him with them. And new ones were duly bought. And they also hurt him. I offer to help once more, this time by squeezing the Fixodent in the grooves so as to hold them in place. I am glad that he is at ease with my involvement. I thought I would feel squeamish, but I don’t. Not now. Not any longer. It’s love, I think that does this. A deep cavern of care that goes beyond the aesthetic, the pretty, the perfect. Nothing is.
It’s soon to be full and it is playing havoc with my dreams. What complex scapes they are. Last night there was a baby in a car boot, which I offered to carry in my bag in which lay a teddy. There was an exhibition of collages based on the underwear wore by notable female royals. It was a swirling affair but I appeared to keep steady, watching, as I mostly do, from the wings.
Most of them we don’t know at all. It’s a place that is in a constant state of flux. People move in and out regularly. It’s only us and a few others that have been here for some time. I watch their windows, particularly those, that like mine, are lit up in the early hours. What wakes them? I wonder. I feel a connection with them then.
They help. I don’t know why. The schmaltz of them, that razzmataz, I am a sucker for it. They don’t take any of the agitation, the sadness away but they do counter the bleakness. A little bit. So thank you.
Sometimes it is all too much. She has had to have a lumbar puncture. It is too much. How do you explain such pain, such fear to one so young? I weep for her, for her parents, and for those other children losing their grandfather by inches.
A young life. A flower. An old fashioned-name. A shining child, now sick. It is heartbreaking. His brother sounds sanguine, when he is not. It’s the curable one, he says. I hope so. Oh, but the anguish they must be feeling. Poor, poor ones.
He had it when we were here, looking out through this window on the sunlit roofs of this sharp-lighted, little seaside town. He was visiting her when it happened. He has pneumonia now. He may have already gone.