#sometimes i am a transgender Muppet of a man | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eewilliamsthings · 7 years

Text

Part Three

Life goes on

About six month later, mum has settled into the home, there was a blip with more illness and an undiagnosed disease, a companion to another disease. More hospitalisations, serious stuff we were dealing with.

Then there was a big blip culminating in a diagnosis of Uterine Cancer, which came out of the blue, about three weeks before I was to leave my job, my career for a sabbatical, as some said, or unemployment as others did.

So now, on a very wet and wintery July day in Sydney, I am sitting in the hospital coffee shop at 12.28pm, I wait and type whilst mum undergoes a bilateral hysterectomy under the stewardship of a very sweet and learned Gyno-Oncologist. With all her sweetness and grace, mum was up and waiting at 6am for my brother to drive her to the hospital where I waited, anxious and wishing and hoping that this would be the last. When we found out she was cancerous, she looked at me and said, why do things always happen to me? Responding, I said, because you can handle it. She smiled and said yes, yes I can. And that is how we proceeded. Yes, we can handle.

But before all this, and after the little blip, she was settling and mellowed into the routine of the nursing home albeit reluctantly on those days when she refused to shower, telling who ever was on duty, I will shower when I feel like it. She takes her pills, which on last count tallied around 15 a day, ate her food, drank copious cups of black tea and befriended a man called Peter who would sit next to her on the sofa and on occasion they held hands. He has a wife, who lives on the outside and he knows that he has a wife, but has found a kindred sprit in mum, as they share a similar humour and still have enough sense to chat and laugh about the day.

Her home, with all the visitors, as my sister in law describes it, is lovely. Finding the right one was not lovely. Of all the decisions that had to be made this was the hardest. Basically, the 12 year old social worker at the hospital gave me a book that listed all the nursing homes in NSW. It was rather weighty. She did not help, or made recommendations. She could not, as she had no life experience to draw upon to help me. So I took charge, decided it needed to be half way between my brothers work (he works shifts so it would be easier) and me, and I had to choose the right place.

I visited a couple that I wouldn't put a dog in. Then I found it. It was small, clean, the buildings were about 5 years old, but had been established for over 30 years. The Director of Nursing was interested in mum and that was it, their first thought was for the people. Paperwork completed, mum moved with the least amount of tears.

The staff are genuine and caring and represent of the colours of the world, along with the colours of the rainbow. There is the transgender who arrived late for work one afternoon dressed in a flowing long dress, silver high heels with a sequinned cardigan draped over her shoulders, running through the front door towards the bundy clock, hoping not to be late for work and nobody batting an eyelid, is the place for mum. Colourful, real and accepting.

Mum shares a room with another woman who is wheelchair bound. Bicycles or prams as mum calls them. Her words continue to jumble. Look at all the bicycles in this room. Aunty Liz or mum, as my mum sometimes calls her, (again the jumbling of worlds and people) makes no sense but she loves mum, and mum loves her. They hold hands and sit with each other watching movies, not remembering the plot but appreciating the colour and movement on the screen. Aunty Liz is Eastern European and most of the time speaks her own language, and even though she can speak fluent English and mum can't understand a word of what she says, mum bats her eyelids and says yes, that is right.

On the evening before mum's surgery Aunty Liz looked up from her bed and said to mum, "don't worry I will look after you." I stopped in my tracks, and thought it can't get any more fucking profound than that.

Movies are a big part of the entertainment circuit. The massive Kogan TV seems to be on 24/7, with DVD's of Andre Rieu on high rotation. They love him and having sat through most of them, I must say he is pretty bloody good. They sing along and dance and conduct their way through the concerts, and mum who had learnt classical violin sits fingering notes, whether they are actual notes, I have no clue. I was caught off guard one day when I arrived to see mum with another lady bent over her four wheel drive (walker) dancing to the blue danube. Spectacular.

Some months later this same woman slapped me in the face so hard that it stung for hours. I had transgressed, no one knows why, only dancing queen knew, and this is the reality of dementia. I think of them living never ending lives, locked in their own thoughts and memories, recalling the minutest of detail from 50, 60 years ago, but yet not remembering if they had eaten lunch.

These grandmothers and grandfathers having lived full and eventful lives now living and sharing quite and peaceful lives. These little Benjamin Buttons live their little lives with great love, humanity and civility, these 63 souls could teach the world how diversity works.

Amongst in this little community is Meow Meow, who meows like a cat so purely and clearly, that one day Peter and I looked at one another and said in unison to each other, "did you hear a cat?" No one know whys she does it, but she does. In a different environment she would be considered a performance artist. She scolded me once for laughing too much, seconds later as I moved so not to annoy her, she thanked me for visiting.

Hello Hello, is a favourite. He was a clinical staff specialist at a major teaching hospital and sits in his easy chair for most of the day. Between Hello, Hello is a piano and on the other side of the piano is John who sits in another easy chair, reading the paper. Towards the end of each day Hello Hello, will repeats out loud, "hello, hello. hello", "shut up, shut up, shut up" says John. It is hilarious the old guys from the muppets living here, in Strathfield.

Another resident, Major Silver hair. An elegant woman in her mid 90s who was code breaker for the Army during the second world war. Her intellect is still evident and although obviously suffering from memory loss, she still has her wits about her. She also loves conducting Andre in his concerts, and is convinced that the raised garden bed where camellias grow is going to be turned into a swimming pool. Not a big one, but one just the same. She told me this one afternoon, she came up and greeted me with her usual hello darling and asked if I had children. Replying in the negative she continued explaining that you know there are little kiddies that visit here, interjecting I said well we could throw them in. She laughed and wandered off with her four wheel drive.

There is much humour in this little community of people who have been thrown together for no other reason or circumstance than age or illness. The majority of the staff are brilliant. They are funny, caring and determined to make the facility friendly, warm and welcoming.

There are some who I would like to throw against the wall with my forearm against their throat and shout, do your job you lazy arse. But like all workplaces there are slackers and time wasters and those who really should look for a different calling. They know I have sized them up, there exists an unwritten detente between us. They don't fuck with mum and I will not fuck with them.

There is also death. At least half a dozen residents have died since mum has been there. The most sad was Peter, who very suddenly one Tuesday night passed away. We had talked a little after dinner. I always asked how are you, and he would respond oh not too bad for a little old man. He said his goodnights and tottered off to his room. A little later as I was leaving, he walked out of his room at the end of long corridor and walked into the bathroom, he stopped turned and waved to me, I waved back and left. On my next visit I learned that he had died. Very suddenly of heart failure. It was heartbreaking, all us visitors talked about it, saying how lovely and sweet he was. All I could think of was god bless you Peter, you gentle gentleman who had never flown in a plane.

Part Four

Oh, and how are you doing?

So how are you doing? Is what I get asked the most. I smile and say OK. And, continue with my day. Bullshit I'm OK. But, to those who are not familiar, OK is the standard response.

It has been three months since the surgery and three months since I walked away from work. Having been with the organisation for 20 years, with the last ten years doing the job that I could not have dreamed of it was so beautifully challenging, rewarding and perfect. But, it had changed, the restructuring had taken its toll on my sensibilities, I had no mental stamina left, I was devoid of self motivation and the personal politics of some of my peers and colleagues left me tainted. My job, my delicious job, had withered into something that was unrecognisable, outsourced and over engineered by the consultants. It was becoming a standard that I was not willing to walk by anymore.

I hated it, even the physical office, I hated it with its views of Sydney Harbour, meetings rooms named after Sydney suburbs and the gigantic corporate Nespresso machine, I hated it all, but kept coming in each day. I didn't hate my colleagues they were possibly the smartest and kindest group of people I had ever worked with. But, I am smart and had my exit plan, a few of us did. And, after what seemed like a year in purgatory a very nice redundancy package appeared, I pounced.

There is much that I have not written, how closing up mums house and sorting through her life. How the plastic leprechaun that I gave her after a trip to Ireland 20 years ago, made me weep more when I put in the the box for Vinnies, than giving my grandmothers bed away. A bed which I had inherited and slept in from the age of 18 to 43, until I returned it to mums spare room and slept on a few months ago. Nor have I written about how the cancer was identified. These events filled me with more fear than this whole past year. And, you know, some things can go unsaid. Put the baggage down and walk away. You know it is there but you don't have to stand by it, you can walk on.

The first two months were filled with surgery, medical appointments and all the in-betweens that come with cancer, old age and redundancy. I am still not working and my days are organised into segments, but there are days when I do nothing except watch daytime television and lay around. I breakfast, read the papers online, drink coffee, visit museums and see plays, take walks, go to the movies, (37 to be exact in a 12 month period) coffee with friends, visit mum three times a week, Piliates twice a week and some times comedy gigs, consume Facebook, and live, I live and still cry and declare numerous times a week that I must get a job. I obsess and I feel friends worry I take note when they advise that you can't stop your life because of your mum.

I am decompressing, adjusting, being mindful or mindless depending on the day, and think, oh how I think and what I think. I do all this whist feeling I have a hand wrapped around my solar plexus. the clench is slight, but it is there all the time. Sometimes, I don't feel it but I always recognise it. It is there 24/7. get anxious about the slightest of things, I dither and wander from room to room, cry doing the washing up, when I see film of baby koalas in wicker baskets on Facebook.

So, that is it, the weight of loss is a dire thing, and yes, I work very hard not let it consume or rule me, as no one likes being told what to do…

0 notes