Tomorrow would have been Auntie Pollie's 83rd birthday. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, 'When I next chat to Auntie Pollie on Facetime, I'll show her the rock roses and perennial geraniums I've just planted in the garden,' or, as I weed the soft fruit corner, I think, 'I wonder how Auntie Pollie's raspberries are doing this year.'
And then I remember that speaking to her in person is no longer an option, so I end up chatting to her across the spirit airways instead. I think she hears me okay but it's an odd feeling. Not being able to see someone's face, or to feel their human energy, is a loss. But spirit energy is still good. Just different. And we get used to 'different' eventually.
Anyway, in honour of Auntie Pollie (and referencing a family joke) I made this sign for the side gate:
It's on a piece of slate that once had 'Cluckinghen Palace' scribed on it. We shan't be having chickens again, not all the while Nell is around anyway, and so (because waste not want not) I scrubbed the slate clean (there's an analogy there, somewhere), wielded my acrylic pens and went a bit arty.
A couple of days ago, I was in town doing a bit of essentials shopping and was in B & M browsing away when I became aware of an elder lady in a motorised wheelchair just across the aisle from me. She was huffing and puffing, trying to move the basket on her lap out of the way so she could reach up to a shelf which was a gnat’s whisker out of her reach.
I am a little wary of offering help to people in wheelchairs these days. I don’t want to offend anyone by the insinuation that they can’t cope because they are in a wheelchair. Yet I also don’t want to ignore someone if I can be of useful assistance. I confess that my ‘offer of help’ mode took over.
‘Can I be of assistance?’ I asked the elder lady.
She peered at me, still huffing and puffing with the exertion of trying to wrangle her basket and levitate from her sitting position. ‘That shelf,’ she said, waving her hand upwards. ‘I’m trying to see - are they garlic granules?’
I had a look and confirmed they were, indeed, garlic granules.
‘Good!’ she said. ‘I’ll have two pots, if you don’t mind.’
I passed her two pots of garlic granules, she thanked me and I said I was happy to help.
‘I hate being in this thing,’ said the lady, smacking the arm of the wheelchair. ‘I’m so used to walking and being independent. And now I can’t manage to go far without it. It’s a nuisance.’
‘It must be like having to learn a whole new set of skills,’ I said.
‘All part of growing old,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth going on. Sometimes it all seems too much effort.’ And she sighed. ‘Thank you for helping me, though,’ she said. ‘It’s been nice talking to you.’
I gave her arm a gentle squeeze as we said goodbye, and said that I would keep my chin up if she did.
We’re all getting older. Every day. And then, one day, we shall stop. Free from bodies, free from wheelchairs, free from the irritations that make life bloody annoying sometimes, and difficult to cope with. Free from the need of garlic granules that are just too far out of reach.
This morning, I FaceTimed my mum. She told me she had a feeling of impeding doom. I said she’s probably been reading too much about Keir Starmer. He’s enough to give anyone a sense of impeding doom.
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