. . . however carefully we live, we cannot escape the effects of ageing. We can only delay them, if we are lucky. Long life is not necessarily a good thing. Perhaps we should not seek it too desperately.
We accept that wrinkled skin comes with age but find it hard to accept that our inner selves, our brains, are subject to similar changes. These changes are called degenerative in the radiological reports, although all this alarming adjective means is just age-related. For most of us, as we age, our brains shrink steadily, and if we live long enough, they end up resembling shrivelled walnuts, floating in a sea of cerebrospinal fluid, confined within our skull. And yet we usually still feel that we are our true selves, albeit diminished, slow and forgetful. The problem is that our true self, our brain, has changed, and as we have changed with our brains, we have no way of knowing that we have changed.
A hornet has come into the bedroom after sunset on several nights now. I am tempted to think it's my mother in her latest disguise. Every time so far, R has successfully chased it outside with his old squash racket. I am halfheartedly expecting another visit tonight.
My father looked at the photographs I brought him, the ones that I secretly call the beautiful pictures, and he pointed at each one of us and slowly said all our names, these are my children, he then announced, and, pointing at himself in one of the pictures, in a very formal voice added, this is their father. He no longer recognises grandchildren, let alone great grandchildren.
When my nephew, my brother's middle son, came to visit him recently, he got confused with the likeness and believed there was an imposter or possibly a thief in the room. I asked him about that, I stayed very still and as soon as he had left, he told me, I checked my wallet but luckily all the money was still there. This, in fact, was the only complete sentence he produced during my visit.
Most of the time, he dozed and when I asked him, what that feels like, he said, pleasant thoughts but nothing specific. He pointed to the door which meant we should leave.
That evening, we had dinner with my siblings and their spouses. We had business to discuss and that we did but we also laughed. And at one point, my sister in law, innocently, I believe, blurted out to me, at least now that he doesn't talk any more, we don't have to listen to him going on and on about your never ending achievements and how you turn everything into gold.
Well, there you have it at last. What could I do but laugh it off and assure them all that no, I never accomplished a thing in my life.
On the long drive back home I got mad at the way R was driving and I believe I raised my voice.
We stopped in a sleepy village in Franconia for a stroll. It felt as if we were the only people alive.
We were both exhausted by the time we got home to our river and we took the ferry across in glorious evening sunlight.
Family is so hard. After my father died, my mother told me that I was his favorite. I was flabbergasted and wondered to myself how my siblings felt they were treated by him because I never felt I was his favorite. I was terrified of my father and he, to be honest, I have no idea of how he felt towards me because we never talked really. My mother was always the intermediary. It's heartbreaking when I look back and remember this, that my father and I could not even talk to each other.
ReplyDeleteI yelled at my husband yesterday because I dropped a can of pop on the floor and it exploded in the kitchen. It wasn't the pop, it was everything that's been going on these past six months. Just like you weren't mad at your husband either I suspect.
Last night I went to bed at 7:30 pm, too exhausted to deal with the world anymore.
An extraordinary visit. On so many levels. With your sister delivering to you a gift beyond measure about how proud your father is of you.
ReplyDeleteLooking closely at your beautiful picture, I wonder if that is your mother coming through the door in the shadows. I am guessing that your father took the photo. And then, what do I know?
As always, thank you for an intriguing quote and link to its context.
Sending much love to you and R, home again after a long journey.
Sometimes I mourn the fact that I had no real father. Sometimes I think it was probably for the best. I'm sorry you're having to go through these emotions. They are deep and wide, I am sure.
ReplyDeleteSuch a heartfelt visit you had with your father. Looking at photos together and his identifying announcement... yes, he recognized his children. These times when aging parents are living in their diminished capacities are very challenging. It's good to stop for a stroll and watch the glorious evening sunlight on the ride home. The best balance to life in these times.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad your sister-in-law blurted that out. Now you know.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that always the way? Could not compliment or admire you to your face. Only after do you hear it from someone else. It would make me angry too. Hard to tell if that made the visit better or worse than you feared.
ReplyDeleteOdd that I mis-read what you wrote and thought it was your sister rather than your sister-in-law. I am remembering how exhausted I was during the last days of my father's life, for similar reasons. My sister did tell me that our father told her how much he appreciated the help I gave him for seven years before he moved to live near her and her family after I became emotionally exhausted and physically drained by his treatment of me. Hope you and R are enjoying this autumn season.
ReplyDeleteYour writing is always, always so rich and evocative and deep. You hit a tone that fills me, that resonates even as my own life and experiences are so different than your own. Family is weird and awful in many senses, and yet.
ReplyDeleteMarsh is right about the mind ageing, but he's right about most things. Especially the awful tightrope he walked when he did neuro-brain surgery knowing that the odds were against what he was doing. How he kept going all those years (including regular visits to guide a younger neuro-surgeon in the Ukraine) I do not know. Except that what he wrote confirmed the gradual deterioration he was suffering from. A very tough call.
ReplyDeleteI speak from personal experience. Throughout the oughties I started and finished four novels. Was looking forward to doing a fifth (by now it was the late oughties) and managed - through unaccustomed sweat and tears - to push it to 50,000 words, the aim being 100,000. But at that point it began to die on me. I let it moulder for a year. Got another idea and launched another novel; sure it was a good idea and I wrote well (I checked the the first 1000 words last night and was quietly pleased) but something told me... This one died at less than 10,000 words. Oh, I know all about persisting, I've got through all sorts of barriers in the past. But this time it's a different barrier. The creative skill (ie, the ability to come up with the unforeseen) is a sometime thing. In comparative youth and good health one may call it up and it wiggles its way forward. In old age and in a holding pattern on health it seems more reluctant. Perhaps it's in hibernation, you say. Reality sets in and you sense a more different form of sleep. Short bursts I can manage, perhaps even a longish short story. But the long plodding rhythms of a novel, nah, they're gone. In desperate secrecy I re-read the novels I finished. Gee, where did that come from? Wherever it came from is now somewhere else. And then I start forgetting things...
37paddington
ReplyDeleteAnd you doubted he saw your accomplishments. Now you know they filled him to the brim. I’m glad you laughed with your siblings, even in your prelude to grieving.