I ring her at 3 on a Friday afternoon and ask if she'd like a visit. She can't hear what I'm saying at first so I say it louder. Still she's unsure but when I hold the receiver close to my lips and repeat the question, she gets it. And yes she'd like to see me! I gather up a few things. The blue book, photos of a friend's garden, a couple of cakes.
I wind down the driveway and park under the carport. I remember when her car used to be here. I let myself in and wait.
She's at the top of the landing, stick in one hand, plastic bag of bits and pieces in the other. I watch her coming sideways down the stairs, leaning against the wall, measuring each footstep, willing herself not to trip as she edges towards the slate floor.
The living room where we sit is warm. Two heaters taking the chill out of the air. We make tea in the kitchen and I carry in the wooden tray.
She takes the book, looks carefully at the cover and flips it to the first page. It's a secondhand hardback bought at a market stall in January. My future son-in-law has designed a wedding invitation in the form of a book cover illustrated with fine-line pictures that are fragments of five years of love...She peers through her glasses and studies the tiny pictures the way you might examine a china cup. Every detail in the design is noted and checked. She's impressed and tells me so.
The same goes for the photos. A Bristol garden in late spring. A fernery.
As we drink tea and nibble on chocolate she's taking everything I've brought today in, in, in.
She's drinking it in, thinking it in, leaving this room...
Later I come away with an easter egg, a jar of humbugs and a near-ripe persimmon.
Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts
Friday, September 2, 2011
Thursday, July 30, 2009
in his image...
I notice him as he leaves the stage at the start of intermission. Tall, thin, spectacled, a halo of wiry brown curls. The cellist from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is the image of my late friend Robert.
For almost 20 years we wrote to each other - the correspondence beginning not long after he left Victoria to return with his wife to live in Sydney and ending with a card which he wrote from his bed in a palliative care unit two weeks before his death in September 2003.
It was, I suppose, an unusual friendship. Our connection was forged when he was far from here. My husband had begun as the correspondent and then one Christmas for reasons I cannot now remember I took over. Books, our children, teaching, writing, travelling. Over time, we became attuned to each other in ways neither of us could have expected. Perhaps it was the simple freedom that long distance friendship offered. All I knew was that a silent solidarity grew in those small tight bundles that appeared in my letter-box every few months.
He viewed the world with an exceptional intelligence and yet I sensed that because of this, found it difficult to accept that so often people behaved irrationally. He just couldn't understand why..
When he became ill we visited him in hospital. I was shocked by his appearance. He'd lost weight and had little energy to move around the ward.. He told us he'd made the decision not to pursue further treatment after the oncologist's report suggested there was no prospect of recovery.
I saw a sad dignity swimming in his eyes.
The cellist's appearance on stage the other night was extraordinary..
I could only see my friend..
For almost 20 years we wrote to each other - the correspondence beginning not long after he left Victoria to return with his wife to live in Sydney and ending with a card which he wrote from his bed in a palliative care unit two weeks before his death in September 2003.
It was, I suppose, an unusual friendship. Our connection was forged when he was far from here. My husband had begun as the correspondent and then one Christmas for reasons I cannot now remember I took over. Books, our children, teaching, writing, travelling. Over time, we became attuned to each other in ways neither of us could have expected. Perhaps it was the simple freedom that long distance friendship offered. All I knew was that a silent solidarity grew in those small tight bundles that appeared in my letter-box every few months.
He viewed the world with an exceptional intelligence and yet I sensed that because of this, found it difficult to accept that so often people behaved irrationally. He just couldn't understand why..
When he became ill we visited him in hospital. I was shocked by his appearance. He'd lost weight and had little energy to move around the ward.. He told us he'd made the decision not to pursue further treatment after the oncologist's report suggested there was no prospect of recovery.
I saw a sad dignity swimming in his eyes.
The cellist's appearance on stage the other night was extraordinary..
I could only see my friend..
Thursday, April 2, 2009
little recipe..
The first person I met when we moved into this street was a woman named Pearl. She lived next door with her husband, and not long after we arrived I saw them through the window of our sunroom sitting together on a wooden stool in the back yard. They sat close, like a couple of grey sparrows resting beneath the liquid amber tree.
Pearl introduced herself as we stood watering the front garden one morning.
I liked the light in her eyes.
A few months later her husband, Ewan had a heart attack and died. From then on Pearl lived alone. I’d hear her pottering about in the garden and if she was there while I hung out the washing, we’d talk to each other across the fence. One morning she grazed her ankle with a spade while she was digging. Later I went in to ask her to come for a drive with us – it was a hot day and we were going to the beach but she said she felt unwell and I remember seeing a pink bandaid stretched across her foot. The skin around the wound was puffed and shiny. She told me her leg felt sore and that a rest would do her good. It was the last time I spoke to her. By that afternoon her tongue had begun to swell and later the same day her daughter arrived and called for an ambulance to take her to hospital. She died a day or so later of tetany.
I never forgot her.
The morning I’d come home from hospital when Anthony was a baby she’d left a tray of lemon slices on the doorstep. The sun shone, a bird sang and Pearl produced morning tea.
She gave me the recipe for them and here it is:
Lemon Slice
½ lb Morning Coffee Bisc
3 ozs Copha
½ can Condensed Milk
½ cup icing sugar
1 cup coconut
Juice & rind 1 lemon
Method
Place ½ Bisc on a greased tin 9x9. Melt Copha, add milk, coconut, icing sugar and lemon. Mix well & pour over biscuits. Place rest of biscuits on top. When set, ice with lemon icing. Keep in fridge.
* Since Metric, the cans of Cond Milk are a little larger so barely ½ can would be sufficient. P.R.
Pearl's handwritten note is still intact though cookery books and magazines have gathered on top of it in the kitchen drawer. Her recipe endures. Old friendships are a bit like this.
Pearl introduced herself as we stood watering the front garden one morning.
I liked the light in her eyes.
A few months later her husband, Ewan had a heart attack and died. From then on Pearl lived alone. I’d hear her pottering about in the garden and if she was there while I hung out the washing, we’d talk to each other across the fence. One morning she grazed her ankle with a spade while she was digging. Later I went in to ask her to come for a drive with us – it was a hot day and we were going to the beach but she said she felt unwell and I remember seeing a pink bandaid stretched across her foot. The skin around the wound was puffed and shiny. She told me her leg felt sore and that a rest would do her good. It was the last time I spoke to her. By that afternoon her tongue had begun to swell and later the same day her daughter arrived and called for an ambulance to take her to hospital. She died a day or so later of tetany.
I never forgot her.
The morning I’d come home from hospital when Anthony was a baby she’d left a tray of lemon slices on the doorstep. The sun shone, a bird sang and Pearl produced morning tea.
She gave me the recipe for them and here it is:
Lemon Slice
½ lb Morning Coffee Bisc
3 ozs Copha
½ can Condensed Milk
½ cup icing sugar
1 cup coconut
Juice & rind 1 lemon
Method
Place ½ Bisc on a greased tin 9x9. Melt Copha, add milk, coconut, icing sugar and lemon. Mix well & pour over biscuits. Place rest of biscuits on top. When set, ice with lemon icing. Keep in fridge.
* Since Metric, the cans of Cond Milk are a little larger so barely ½ can would be sufficient. P.R.
Pearl's handwritten note is still intact though cookery books and magazines have gathered on top of it in the kitchen drawer. Her recipe endures. Old friendships are a bit like this.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
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
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
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