The room is warm and cosy, the radiator hopping, Siobháns face is flushed. I open the window to let a breath of cold air in, and place my hand on her forehead and behind her neck. A kidney infection (U.T.I.) has seen her take a number of different anti-biotics over the last few weeks and be given drinks with a syringe. It is left in the glass with a tissue beside it when I come in. My Father, Little Thomasina, leaning over the big chair to offer the purple Cranberry or Ribena to his wife, after he has painstakingly fed her the ice-cream he stops for every day. The medication Siobhan takes for her Parkinsons and Alzheimers means that the jerking and tics are largely absent, presenting usually with a few small sudden twitches, mainly in the left side. I move her from one side of the chair to the other, alone, bolstering the giant memory foam pillow behind her back to cool it, placing a cushion under each small socked foot on the foot rest, a cushion under the left elbow, and a cushion under the right. This living doll. The enormity crushes me some nights so that I can barely see. She wouldnt take the ice-cream today says he on the phone when I call to ask how his day was. I call him first thing every morning, and last thing every night, and on numerous other occasions during the day, mostly to enquire about the possibility of lunching. He is always watching Primetime or listening to the Death announcements despite my protestations. He is missing the company of his friend, his old neighbour who lives in the room down the hall, whom he used to talk to every afternoon. The two of them are as deaf as posts. He calls to him in the hospital every evening now on his way home, a bag of Werthers Eclairs in his pocket as he walks the miles of corridors to his bed. His energy humbles me as I am usually exhausted just marching around the house. The lad opposite him is stone deaf, and so was his visitor says the Da on the mobile in the car, pulled in to take the call, the seat belt warning beeping going off unheeded, as he has rushed to answer the phone. I visualise the 4 deaf men shouting at each other in the white ward and decide to write it as a scene. The night the sister drove me over after dinner, we lifted and bolstered together, one wiping, one lifting, one petting, one talking. And then a spasm went through Siobhan - like a scene from The Green Mile - knocking the syringe from my hand. Her eyes are wide and she has literally jumped a foot upwards in the chair. I turn to my sister and watch as her eyes mirror mine, wide open - in shock. And then it happens again. And then it happens again. Im getting a nurse says the sister. Leave it - I say, and she sits back on the bed and we witness. In my head I didnt want Nurses coming in, talking loudly, saying Well, Siobhán or opening her blouse to place the scope on her chest, turning on the big light, or doing things. Anything. It happens again, and although I have her small hands in mine, she is moving me with her. The strength. It happens again. - Get the nurse - I say and she leaves. It doesnt happen again when they come back. At my late night call the Da casually talks about this and that, and what he will cook for lunch for his daughters the next day. At the very end he says - Mam frightened the heart out of the girl in the kitchen by talking again and my heart almost stops. - Name of Christ and you tell me NOW - I roar. Did I mention he was deaf? She said I knew that And I wonder what she knew. And I wonder what she knows. She keeps moving me with her strength.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 21:47:16 +0000
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