head and heart..

He’s lying in bed in the palliative care unit listening to a discman. I touch his foot and he opens his eyes and smiles. He takes off the earphones, turns his body to the side and sits up slowly, pressing his hands on to the sheet to raise his back off the pillows. The knobbly bones of his shoulders are clearly visible in the light. His face is drained and thin. “Mozart” he gestures to the cd player, as though introducing me to an old friend.

In the late 70’s he is the principal at the school where my husband teaches. I have the feeling when I meet him of being in the presence of a good man. He is quiet, calm and thoughtful. He sees the best in every student. After six years as head of the school, he moves home to Sydney and although we see one another only occasionally, our friendship continues through letters and phone calls.

When his marriage breaks up he wonders how things could have gone so awry. He misses the company of his wife and young daughters and writes long, sad confessionals of the head and heart that humble me when I read them. How could I have not understood when everyone else who knew us saw it so clearly? Why didn’t anyone tell me she was so unhappy? Why?? I picture him sitting in the house alone and wonder how he’ll cope. Some time later though, the tone of the letters changes. He’s been reading a book by the Englishman Terry Waite which details his experience as a hostage in Beirut. “I had three principles firmly established: No regrets. No self-pity (it kills) and no sentimentality.” In some sense too, when I read the words that follow Waite’s I know he’s found the way to go on. It’s what we make of what happens to us that’s so important.

Then out of the blue, he develops a neurological condition which is difficult to identify and debilitating to live with. My feet feel like blocks of wood, my hands like sausages full of sawdust. It interrupts his teaching and places severe restrictions on his daily life. Each treatment he has is painful and prolonged but as time passes by, and gradually over the next eighteen months, the symptoms start to ease in their intensity and he begins to experience short periods of respite. Although the frustration of facing such slow recovery is evident, there’s also an indication that he might have come through the worst of things and is on the road to better health. He recommences swimming and light running when he feels well enough. The last line of his Christmas letter has the promise of a new start. Everything seems to be going well now. Emily scored 89% in her HSC English exam.

He flies down to Melbourne to address a school reunion. It is the 25th anniversary of the school which he pioneered and he delivers a speech that is warm and considered. I sit beside him during dinner and am shocked by the change in his appearance. His frame’s as light as a boy’s. He has difficulty breathing and eating. A fortnight after the reunion he phones and says his energy has dropped again and tells me his doctor suggests he may have cancer. There’s some doubt about this because no primary tumour has been found and he is told it could be some time before the results of tests are known. A week later however, the news is unambiguous. Cancer is well advanced in his stomach and lungs and is evident also in part of his brain. He is given a month or so to live.

My husband and I fly up to Sydney to see him. He says he wants to sit with us in the sun. I wait beside him in the ward while he slides his legs out of the bed and steadies himself to stand. His belongings are arranged like lines of thought on the bedside trolley. A teacher’s diary, a spiral note-pad and biro, a small black radio and a hardback book The War that Never Ended. The only other patient in the room is a round faced man with flushed cheeks lying in the opposite corner sleeping. In the chair beside him his wife sits reading.


Robert walks slowly out into the sunroom to a couch beneath the windows. There’s a dignity about the way he holds himself, carefully clasping his dressing gown with his hands, holding it over the lower part of his body. He’s wearing pale blue pyjamas knotted with a white tape bow high above his chest. He has no waist. I sit next to him and take his hand in mine. His fingers are lean and warm. He’s wearing his silver wedding ring again which marks the most positive thing that has come out of his illness. “A great reconciliation” he says, “she’s been marvellous to me.” The ring swims on his finger.

He’s lucid and intense in conversation and in this sense nothing’s changed. He speaks about a nurse who waited with him one evening until he fell asleep. A mother of four who had only recently returned to nursing, she tells him her children had taught her what was most important in life. We have to care for one another.

“We’ve got to be compassionate” he says “in the end it’s all that matters.”

He wonders whether I know a good poem about death and I tell him I’ll find one and then we talk about books to read and I watch as he writes down the names of these carefully on his notepad.
I ask him what’s sustaining him and he looks me in the eye. “Love” he says. “This” he nods and motions towards us sitting there. “It means so much that you’ve come to see me.” He strokes my fingers and I feel the firm grip of his hand.. I ask him what he most fears. Again his look is direct and almost boyish in its simplicity. “What tricks my body’s going to play on me” he laughs.

Old students drop by to see him while we’re there. Business men on lunchbreaks. Others phone to enquire when they can visit. Many are from Melbourne.

I find a comb in the drawer beside his bed and run it through his hair. Soft brown curls unravel in the heat then puff around his head like a halo. His fringe flops over his eyebrows and I sweep it back into shape, press the curls down and touch his head. His scalp is small and bony. His hair feels like a bundle of warm wool. I put down the comb and rub my hands along his shoulders and across the back of his neck. I’m frightened my fingers might break his skin but catch sight of his face and notice his eyes are closed and his forehead relaxed. I want to stroke his cheek and ears. Pass my wellness into him.

At the other end of the balcony stretched in a recliner and facing into the direct sun, a woman in a blue floral nightie is filing her nails. Her body is swollen and her legs are covered in bright pink welts that glisten in wetness. Now and then our conversation pauses and the rasp of her emery board is the only sound made in the long room. A plastic tube sticks out from beneath the side of her chair and carries dark yellow fluid into a crumpled bag lying on the floor. She makes no eye contact with me until we stand up to leave, then she smiles.

Mid-afternoon we say goodbye. My husband cries in his arms. Is this it? I think. I want to carry him home, feed him, make him well again. He walks with us to the door of the ward then turns and goes back. The last image I have is of a thin, determined man moving slowly towards his bed.

A week later there’s a card from him in the letterbox. Our address dips down the envelope like the broken branch of a tree. Inside, his writing’s small and firm as though each word’s been chosen deliberately the way a note of music might be before being placed onto the page. “Your love buoys me up and makes this last part of the journey easier, more acceptable somehow. Love Robert.”


No Sooner -Michael Leunig

No sooner do you arrive than it’s time to leave. How beautiful it is, how glorious, yet it’s nearly time to go. So you take it in, you take it in.
And you take a few small souvenirs, some leaves: lavender, rosemary, eucalyptus. A few small pebbles, a few small secrets, a look you received, nine little notes of music, and then it’s time to go.
You move towards the open door and the silent night beyond. The few bright stars, a deep breath, and it really is time to go.
No sooner does it all begin to make sense, does it start to come true, does it all open up, do you begin to see, does it enter into your heart…no sooner do you arrive than it’s time to leave.
Yes, it’s the truth. And then you will have passed through it, and with mysterious consequence it will have passed through you.

Kate Cahill