The Butterfly Widow

Princess Teddy and her sisters

2009-02-10T04:44:00.000-08:00

Princess Teddy is a tortoiseshell cat in her late teen years. She has a soft and smooth coat of black, white and ginger, all three colours startling and definitive. Her face is black, split by a white stripe down to her nose, with one ginger and one black ear. She has two immaculate and very white back legs, and a white tummy. The rest of her is striped or mottled black and ginger, apart from one white front paw.

She knows that I think she is altogether beautiful and she basks in my approval. She moves like a cat in a cartoon, utterly feminine. She floats on "tippy toes" and arches her back with her tail in the air, bending herself round corners and looking up at me with an expression she knows will get her instant cat crunchies. She has a high pitched miaow and is frequently vocal, especially if I bend down to lift her seemingly weightless little body for a cuddle, although once up, she tolerates the affection with calm. She knows she is regal, every inch of her is of royal blood.

She is frequently to be found - and I do so with irreverence - on a chair under the table cloth descending from my veranda table; or next to a Lladro porcelain statue on an oak table indoors, which is a lady riding side saddle on a dressage horse. Teddy sleeps innocently and with as much elegance next to it.

Her sister, although not from the same litter, could not be more different. I found the two kittens at a local pet shop. Lex is charcoal grey from top to toe but has long Siamese bones and a small, pointed face. She is quiet and unassuming but regales me with sudden affection about once a week, after which she ignores me completely. She dictates her own supper time, out and about on some errand of her own until after eight o'clock in the evening, and some nights she does not appear at all. Teddy is always in or around the house and follows me most places.

Lex has to be respected as she is timid and shadow-like. Teddy puts up with being teased, her expression either astonished or indignant. Lex trusts me completely but her delicate face is wraithlike. If awoken, she stretches out her long charcoal legs and points her toes - like most cats, she spends much of her day asleep.

Besides these teenagers I have Puck, my daughter K's cat originally, who was put into my care when K's two dogs made her life untenable. Puck is a slightly more than middle aged tabby of somewhat limited imagination. Although one can be persuaded that she is slightly stupid she does seem to understand every word. She is ultra affectionate, never happier than when she is leaning against a human.

It took more than a year for Puck to stop swearing at the kittens. They now ignore each other completely but there is no more bad language from Puck, who inhabits my veranda with great faithfulness and never leaves the garden (I often see Teddy or Lex disappearing over the picket fence, tail up).

Tragedy Next Door

2009-02-09T00:35:00.001-08:00

There is a tragedy going on next door. At the New Year the little girl next door fell into their swimming pool. She was pulled out by her father, quite blue, rushed to hospital, and resuscitated. She is not quite three years old.

Now, after lying in a coma in hospital for some three weeks or so, she is at home, but non responsive. She is no longer comatose but vegetative. This distressing situation was compounded by the arrival of their next baby, who is now about a week old. The little girl who fell in the pool is brain damaged and seemingly hopeless. This poor family is undergoing the limits of torture, seeing their precious child damaged but alive, non responsive, non comprehending, helpless. She can neither see nor communicate, her life has been curtailed, they are enmeshed in a situation that must be unbearable and they have a new infant to deal with. One cannot imagine their unhappiness; it must be despair beyond bearing.

Yesterday was very hot. I could hear, from my veranda to theirs, that little girl crying. She is being nursed fulltime by a qualified carer, as the mother quite rightly has to care for her new baby and cannot cope with both.

I do not know the family well but we have chatted from time to time. My heart goes out to them. This is worse, I think, than losing a beloved partner who did after all live out more than his three score years and ten. F was denied more of his life but this child, this little soul, is at the beginning of hers and she is condemned now to exist in a blighted state that will be a life sentence for her and her parents.

Her crying was an unnerving kind of roar; I could not bear to listen to it but retreated indoors. And thought, at least F and I were spared the tortuous rigours of his being a helpless invalid; we have something to be thankful for. The old cliche of counting blessings ...

It is hard to imagine that there are any blessings going on next door, apart from a new and perfect baby girl, but this in itself must be anguish; a change of circumstances in their previously happy family life so bizarre, so sudden, and so cruel it is hard not to question where God is coming from. Why should they be so punished? And what logic is there in the bringing back to life a child so damaged that from now on she cannot comprehend anything at all?

Ricochet

2009-02-05T06:17:00.000-08:00

Being widowed is a ricochet business. It is about creating oneself anew. Which is a process both appalling and invigorating and one yoyos between these two emotions, with various shades of grey in between.

But with the passing of time comes - not healing - but confidence. I know that I will never get over the hateful shock of F's dying, of his suffering, at his helplessness in the end and the grotesque state of being he was subjected to. It still whams back at me if I let it, but I am getting more adept at shushing my mind. And what I am seeking is peace. I need peace in my life and I am getting better at establishing it.

Perhaps if my husband had had a more conventional death I would not have found it so difficult. If he had died suddenly, going from an apparent state of health into something like a heart attack out of the blue, or if he had died slowly of something like cancer and we had had time to get used to the idea - these are two extremes but they both make sense to me.

But no, F went into hospital seeking a solution thousands of people had found and walked out with, whole and well; he had gone in for an ablation we had read was little more difficult for the patient than the extraction of a wisdom tooth; the Internet was full of glowing reports from people who had fibrillations and were delightfully cured.

We chose the hospital with care, we researched their records, they were the ones with the most practice and success. There were no failures in their records.

F entered that hospital ward very ill but we were assured that he was no worse off than many others, that they could handle his problems. No-one was to know that from that point his journey would be downwards into one complication after another.

Anyway: that word, "anyway." Resignation, Let's get on with it. One cannot change the past. All the old cliches, all the old axioms designed to help one move forward - I am good at them now. Lots of practice.

But peace, that's what I think (now) I am beginning to find. Peace and good cheer - Christmas card wishes, the things every human needs, not only in December.

Halycon

2009-02-01T01:23:00.000-08:00

The death of an old friend, Out of the blue the news that he had lain down for a nap and never got up. Can't believe it. Memories are still of a vibrant young man playing tennis, with a powerful serve. We used to gather every Wednesday evening at our tennis court, a crowd of us. We would play until after midnight, winter and summer - winter in the Highveld is freezing at night. We used to wear warm tracksuits and a glove on our free hand. Game after game with laughter and good exercise.

F was a prodigous builder and he had built a tennis house, a thatched, round area with a comfy chairs and a small kitchen, sliding glass doors looking on to our tennis court. Such parties we had there - not only Wednesday evenings but champagne breakfasts, or Sunday afternoons, with children running round like kittens underfoot. What I remember most is our laughter. We were a group of comfortable friends; we played tennis, went out for dinner, took boats onto Hartebeespoort Dam, had braais.

On the shores of the dam, at a place called Cosmos, F had renovated a small thatched cottage and there we were most weekends, with friends dropping in for lunch. We had a small motor boat and used to take it upriver, between tree-lined banks from which legowaans (alligator-shaped reptiles) would slide into the water and once, I swear, we saw a python swimming in the water. Our children would swing from a tree on the bank below our house; the ground fell steeply away into the water and there were large trees everywhere. It was only a small place but we loved it. Again, my main memory is of laughter and fun. The friends were lovely - and now one has died.

Not only that, but another member of this group has cancer, and his death is imminent. He is younger, the son of dear friends - F and I were somewhere in the middle of these generations. His father died some years ago in America and not long before F died, we visited his mother in Rhode Island.

Life and death is catching up. My memories of those Cosmos and Muldersdrift days are of us in our thirties, with small children and an endless capacity for fun. We had no thought of death, we played and laughed and worked hard. Husbands went to work morning to evening, wives took small children to school, and cooked things; we - I - questioned little.

I was busy with three children born within three years and a husband whose energy was boundless. We were happy, but just how carefree we were, we ignored. Only nostalgia reveals the invisible boundaries of our fun. We gave no thought to its ever ending, to people dying, to moving on. We had no knowledge of grief, we were innocent as puppies.

Sadder but wiser!

2009-01-29T23:47:00.001-08:00

Busy, busy. I hardly have time to do anything. The two year anniversary has turned me round a corner.

This morning I am just back from gym class. After two days of constant rain the sun has come out, and the air breathes damply while everything in the garden is emerald green. My friend J picks me up for gym Wednesdays and Fridays at 7.15 am and we wind our way through the Country Club traffic to the church hall outside Gate 6, where we have gym.

I get home smug with that feeling of recent and thorough exercise, somewhat trembly; it is good to sit down. I have no further plans for the day but I am going out this evening, to join friends for a light supper and to listen to live music at a nearby restaurant.

This is the key - I have plans and friends. As these people are widows or grass widows and several have lost their husbands six months, five months ago, I realise it has nought to do with time. The fact that I am turning this corner after two years is irrelevant. They are turning with me, somehow. We get along, we have a lot in common, we find solace in numbers and in activity. In fact we have fun.

But I do think. looking back, that the first year of my widowhood I was in shock. That year, as I look back, flew away; I was numb. I could not listen to music for a whole year, I cried in front of my television at the slightest thing; I got used to and pondered this new rented house very slowly, I wandered around like a mute. But time went quickly. It is almost as if I lost a year of my life.

And, of course, I had to handle reality in harsh bursts - like insurance, F';s estate, the selling of cars, the selling of the house. I broke down in tears at, of all places, the electricity board. A gentle Indian man full of consternation assured me that he would turn my electricity back on that very afternoon - I had had it turned off and the swimming pool had gone green. Transfer of the house was supposed to have taken place, it didn't. The estate agent was a huge lady who was completely unhelpful to me; she pointed out none of the pitfalls I fell into, she handled me roughly without sympathy or consideration of the fact that this was a steep learning curve for me; she was downright hostile.

I know why: my financial (F's estate) advisor had insisted that we use his choice of conveyancer and not hers; estate agents, he said, are usually in cahoots with their conveyancers, we will use our own. She was angry at this. Just let it be, I said. And constantly tripped up thereafter.

The pool is your responsibility! she hissed at me. Her hisses were constant, in answer to my every question. Eventually my daughter K, who is a tough little customer unafraid of confrontation, took over, to my bemusement. And gave this lady hell. I never heard from her again. After that the only contact I had was through my perfectly nice and reasonable lawyer/conveyancer when I signed papers, and that was that. I was left thoroughly rattled. But wiser.

The Pomeranian Smile

2009-01-25T22:26:00.000-08:00

I have a new direction! Something I could not have imagined .... son B called me from London. Would I edit something for him for his new website? Of course I could - and did. Would I like to be an official employee?

So here this morning I have been translating convoluted business language into plain English, and sketching out a plain skeleton of language people can understand. I feel so great. To be useful. Son B needs this editorial clarity. He is very clever but finds plain solid writing difficult, as do, he says, many of his contemporaries. Their brains are mightier than their pens.

And I am thrilled.

What an addition to our lives, computers. Emails. Working from a distance. Instant communication. Miracles.

My dog Bella sighs, however. She lies on one side of me, Puck the tabby on the other. I suppose one should never worry about a sleeping pet; their brains are in neutral, it must be soothing. As long as they have company - I think. Bella on her own reverts to simply being a small dog. On her own she will rifle the bin in the kitchen and eat what's in it; with me, she is constantly expressive, cheerful, observant and on guard. She will bark at any untoward noise and bristle with indignation although she is quite small. She would defend me to the last, she has a job to do.

She understands my comings and goings, she takes note of what I am wearing. Bowls clothing mean a possible outing as she frequently comes with me to my own club; but she waits to see, as sometimes she is not allowed. Somehow she has rationalised why this is. Touching my handbag means we are ready, we are going out - but will she be alowed to come? She waits politely to be called.

She is half Pomeranian and has that Pom smile, baring little white teeth. My homecoming always brings a radiant smile, as sometimes she smiles if she mislays me. She will not come out with me to the garden if I am to water the flowerbeds. She has never been sprayed by a hosepipe but worries that she might be. When I come indoors she smiles, embarrassed, relieved.

She is a strawberry blonde with large dark eyes. I have had her coat shaved except for her pantaloons and she is cute and neat. She has an expressive face, a sweet and gentle nature, she is full of love. Her many friends at bowls are smitten. She behaves impeccably, lying quietly while we play, never venturing on to the green. Occasionally she trots right round the end if I am there, then goes back to where we have our bags and lies down. I frequently catch her eye when I am playing, I feel as if she is watching the game. Bella constantly amuses me.

Angel Colours

2009-01-23T22:29:00.000-08:00

That two year anniversary has just passed, and I got through it. No tears the entire day except during a phone call from a friend I did not expect; I was appalled at how near to the surface these tears were. I did not know that. But I was well supported - lunch out, dinner out, cheerful company skating me through.

Those last few days of F's life I was persuaded to visit my son B in London, to have a break, they said. F seemed to be improving. The weekend was arranged, and B had gone to some trouble planning meals and activities for us. I packed a bag and went to the hospital prior to flying to London about midday.

F was sitting up, looking very much better. Why are you crying? he said. Because I don't want to go! I wouldn't have it any other way, he said, you need to go. You need to get back to reality. This is my reality, I said, and those were our last words.

I left his ward and was pursued by a male French Canadian nurse. Are you alright? he said. No. You are exhausted, you have been through a terrible time; it will do you good. I stood looking through that first floor window at the interminable scene I had studied so many times - a large car park, people coming and going, asphalt and trees. I felt defeated.

Son M was there, he would stay with his father. He put me on the plane and I cried the entire way to London. A young man sat next to me - he must have been mortified. I stared out the window for that hour or so during the flight, tears running down my face. But when I saw son B, they stopped as if a tap had been turned off, and I settled into the fast pace that B walks as we made our way by train through the massive English crowds, cold stations, on and off two trains to his home in Blackheath.

I felt cossetted, cheerful. The next day I had my hair done indifferently and we lunched at a Press Club bar somewhere near Fleet Street. All was well. But that afternoon M phoned to say that his father had a temperature.

I should have listened to that warning bell. I should have heard it! But one clings so to hope; brush this aside, he is, he must be, on the road to recovery. Instead, we carried on with our day, our plans, our meals. I cannot clearly remember what we did that Saturday evening - watched English television, I think, after eating out. I had been starved of television of late. But Sunday morning dawned freezing cold, and M was worried. Still, there were no planes on that particular airline on a Sunday to that French town; and I would be flying back on Monday morning.

We took B's dog Jamie for a walk in Greenwich Park before our Sunday lunch. It was absolutely freezing. I walked with pain, I was frozen rigid with dread. We walked a long way, until poor Jamie's bad hip troubled him and B picked him up and carried him. Jamie's embarrassed little face.

B had prepared a roast lunch. He served it and I could see the trouble he had gone to. I ate as if it were sawdust. He had to attend a business dinner that evening. I can't leave you like this, Mom, he said. I will go there, explain things, and come straight home. Which he did. Somehow, that night passed.

In the morning I was dressing to leave when the phone rang. Son M: Dad is very bad. Yet another infection. The doctors say should they do everything or should they do nothing? By everything they meant rush him into surgery. Do nothing, I said. He has had enough.

They expected him to survive for 48 hours, they would make him comfortable. I knew with absolute certainty that F would not want more surgery, ventilation, intensive care, catastrophe's worked upon his defenceless body.

B would fly with me to France, cancelled everything. We got on the train taking us to some small airfield outside London. I cannot now remember its name. On board I took knitting needles I had in some knitting and put them in the litter bin as I could not board the plane with them in my luggage, and I did not want to have to put luggage in the hold; it was only a small case, I could carry it on and quickly off.

The train wound through fields and small suburbs. As it rounded a bend we ran in between some rolling green hills, which changed as if a light had been turned on to the most vivid colours imaginable; I was aware of the colour as if they had been brushed by angel wings. Colour poured onto the scene, filled the entire sky; colour which couldn't be there in that grey English landscape. I saw a rainbow prism beaming into and through every blade of grass, every nuance of the hill.

I know now that was the moment F died.

M was with him. The French Canadian nurse had closed the curtains around father and son, and quietly switched off the blinking graphs surrounding his bedside. I cannot write about those last moments. It was a moment of deep communication between them, and although it breaks me that I was not there, I would not deny my beloved F and his son that devastating closeness.

Inauguration night

2009-01-20T23:02:00.000-08:00

Last night, 2 days short of F's anniversary, Obama was inaugurated. I had been at home the whole day. A game of Twilight Trips (lawn bowls) had been arranged and I was to pick up my two lady friends at four pm. As the inauguration excitement had started just after lunchtime SA time, I put CNN on to record, and went off.

We had a credible game in the overcast twilight; although we did not win our game it was enjoyable with the company, in spite of a green which bounced and twittered and one's bowl did some surprising things.

At home my friends came in and we opened a bottle of wine, flicking through the crowd scenes till we came to Obama and his wife and the ceremony. America's equivalent to a coronation was stirring stuff, in spite of the cold and its resulting odd effect of taking away colour and making everything seem either grey or black with an odd flash of red.

Like everyone else, I thrill to Obama and his clear, clear thinking; I love his language and imagery, I love his straightforward speeches and I think he is both brave and deeply morale. Like everyone else, I wish him well, and worry about his safety. Do not let this figure, I think, become a horrifying saga of assassination and tragedy - the world needs a break. It needs a hero.

The evening wore on and eventually my guests were leaving. M was to take J home, just a short distance. We were saying goodbye outside in my driveway; my cat having accompanied us outside, as she does, and I moved to make sure she wasn't behind the car - typically, she scampered off as I approached her.

The car suddenly shot backwards with two very horrified ladies in it, just narrowly managing to stop before hitting backwards into the concrete fencing that borders the estate. Their faces were a picture. We dissolved into laughter.

M then proceeded to start her engine and have the car leap either forwards or backwards before stalling. What's happening, I said? I don't know! How much wine did you have? We were helpless with laughter, J having quitted the car on the passenger side.

Let me have a go, I said - go on then. I briefly stalled the car too but the handbrake was on, and once released. the car behaved normally, and off they went. It was good to laugh, but I realised later that had I been standing just a bit to the left, I could well have been knocked over.

Nevertheless, it was very funny.

Shortening the Day

2009-01-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

It has been a week or so since I last wrote this blog. For some reason I am finding it difficult now. Perhaps because this is the week of F's death; it will be two years. I freeze up.

But last night son M on the phone from San Francisco said Mom, why worry about it - it makes no difference. Dad is not here. Stop worrying about the date - and of course, he's right. What difference does a date make - F is not here and won't be tomorrow or the day after and he wasn't here last week .... and anyway, this time two years ago we were in France and it was very different from this South African heat and midsummer.

Instead of "zipping my mouth" I will zip my mind.

I have been skirting, even, round bowls. Fully intending to go to tabs afternoons, then changing my mind at the last minute. Too hot - using that as an excuse. This spontaneous reclusive behaviour is not healthy, it is not in my nature. But this Monday heralds the start of something called Twilight Trips, in which games are arranged to start late afternoon with specific teams and this competition is carried on for six weeks or so into the late summer afternoons. I am involved in two such clubs and their Twilight Trips this year, and must play; there is no room for erratic behaviour with this, as I have given my word even if it is just for fun and hardly earth shaking stuff. It's what one does, at this stage of life, for entertainment.

However, the notion that bowls is just for old people is ridiculous. If one is bowling properly your knee just about touches the ground each time you send a bowl - try doing that 42 times in one afternoon (that's the least amount in one game) and see how stiff you feel afterwards. Bowling well does require a level of suppleness even if the exercise is gentle. And bowling well requires a great deal of concentration - or it does me, anyway. Which is the thing I love - the digging down deep into concentration and finding accuracy, as well as the balance and rhythm of a good delivery, which is something I practice. The well known phrase - the more I practice, the luckier I get.

Yesterday I left my house determined to drive myself out of my sadness. I would see if there were any singles games being played which I could watch - Port Natal Singles should have been in full swing but mysteriously, the bowling green was deserted. Not to worry, Bella and I would walk through the golf course. It was cool and grey and our walk was effortless. Afterwards, I thought, I would do what I never do, which is venture onto the clubhouse veranda and have a cup of tea by myself.

Ha, bumped right into a lady bowler I do not know well but nevertheless, the first thing she said was that she finds Sundays lonely and she was going to practice on the green; I would join her, I said, and roll we did, on a heavy green with my two jacks and a duster for a mat. Then we had tea. And were joined by a mutual friend and later, we had lunch, and all of a sudden it was no longer a lonely Sunday but a pleasant interlude of chat and bowls and a light lunch and I returned home quite happy.

That's all I needed to make the long quiet day shorter and busy.

I'm marking time, For what?

Leaving Solitary Confinement

2009-01-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

My Friday meeting with the aforesaid new group of friends had me bouncing this weekend. It seems as if I am making headway into new social circles and am beginning to throw off my mantle of shyness and decorum. Be that as it may, it is refreshing to break new ground in the familiar agenda of bowls or occasional old friends, valued as these may be. I intend now to join in with the keep-fit-with-weights class, salsa dancing (perhaps), suggested musical evenings, the running of an art clas. Today I will invite some of these ladies to a supper evening at my house.

They are all attractive people. Apart from one who had come from afar and who had, I thought, that recognisable look of devastation about her, they were all serene, confident and certainly secure in their dress and mannerism. Within our own individual experiences we are bonded by a lack of partner, whether through death or grass widowhood; we are making up our own accompaniments, entertainments and futures. These Friday get-togethers are little steps along the way.

I do not wish for any other man in my life. Women will do. I abhor the thought of the complications of a man/woman relationship - the establishment of dominance, the giving over of control, the compromises, the ups and downs. And I do not wish to care for anyone else's failing health. I could not bear to worry, again, about someone else's survival. I could not hover over his hospital bed.

I am better off alone, and with women friends. I've had my heterosexual life thank you very much, and the other could not for me be a reality. But I like women, they are easy company, we understand each other without the intensity of heterosexual confrontation or even commitment. One can have many women friends and accept them just for who they are, not for how you fit in - or not - with their ideas of a relationship. One does not have to either dominate or be subjugated. One just has to have fun. A laugh. A chat. A cup of tea.

So, Friday evening, here. I love this rented house; I can make it intensely tidy and attractive for entertaining. Sympathetic lighting from small lamps and candles, good tableware, wine glasses, fabric napkins, my beloved oak refectory dining table or outside, the big round table F fitted up with a highly lacquered green lazy susan and our comfortable cane chairs. The latter is on my large cool veranda facing the lake and bulrushes, in which either bright orange little birds flutter by day or frogs serenade at night. I choose the setting with the weather and it gives me pleasure to dress the house for the occasion.

If I sound slightly smug right now I apologise. Smugness after a long period of angst cannot be a bad thing. It means progress, something being achieved. Yesterday I spent entirely alone and inert, I did not go anywhere. Time passed in that slow vacuum of the solitary but it is a tempo now that I am getting used to. I no longer chafe against the fact that I am on my own or the silence. It no longer frightens me. I can feel quite OK with neighbourhood sounds and find peace rather than dismay within my own four walls - sanctuary now, not solitary confinement.

Fighting Against the Odds

2009-01-06T19:41:00.001-08:00

Coincidentally it is that same time of the year now. The last fortnight of F's life. As we head now towards that dreadful date I still find myself freezing up, and within this fortnight I must write about his death, which is difficult.

This time two years ago he was in cardiac ICU in a French hospital and I was spending seven or eight hours a day at his bedside. I would drive there each day in a hire car along kilometres of highway, on the right hand side of the road, reading road signs, taking care with traffic, parking in the huge grey tarmacked parking area of the hospital set in completely flat countryside surrounded by electric pylons. The journey from hotel to hospital took about twenty minutes. It was always cold although frequently sunny.

The family-run hotel we had discovered was adequate, clean and comfortable although certainly not five star. Each day I was asked sympathetically by the owner or her mother how my husband was getting along, and each day I was exhorted to have courage - in French, courage is the same word. I used to eat breakfast in the small dining room - a boiled egg, or a croissant, yoghurt, fruit, black tea. A dear little bird (I think a robin, with a red breast) used to hop around the window near my table, busy with its own small life, and I would watch for his appearance.

At the hospital I reached F's ward by way of a flight of stairs and a meagre, glass lined corridor. He lay in one of six cubicles. At the centre of the room were a couple of desks for nursing staff and of course, one could hear the pinging rhythm of various cardiac machines which were continual in that universal sound of "hospital" - squeaking shoes or trolley wheels on the gleaming flooring of wide interior passages, voices, the melodious two notes preceding muffled announcements from the depths of administration or the tick, tick tick of vital machinery attached to patients which ticked or pinged or squeaked rhythmically and quietly - not to mention the prominent coloured electronic displays which moved above the head of each bedside recording blood pressure, heart rhythm, oxygen levels and other things, obtuse graphs and figures which were both reassuring and terrifying.

His bed was on the inside of the room, windowless. During this last fortnight he was moved to the bed obliquely opposite, where there was a window through which sun could stream in the afternoon. It was thought that this would cheer him up. By now he was very depressed and was put on to anti-depressant medication which would have an effect, I was told, only in about six weeks - this medicine just one more thing among the many daily and continual dosages of drips or drugs because he had gone down to an infection which was the one thing, they said, they dreaded. There was little talk at this time about his heart or its rhythm. That could be dealt with later. Now they were fighting for his survival, and, after the colostomy, an infection in his weakened state was very bad.

But we seemed slowly to be winning; or at least, he seemed to be holding his own. He was fully conscious now but bedridden. There was no sitting up in bed, much less getting out of it. One day I had come in to find him sitting in a chair (weeks past) absolutely at the end of his tether. Please, he said, I can't take this. The staff had left him there for an hour - it would make him stronger, they said. I rushed to insist that he be put back to bed - a man, the physio, would have to be called for this, they said, to move him. Agony to wait - but he arrived within minutes, and lifted up my husband, and I can still see that horrifying moment when he dangled like a rag doll in the arms of this man. Completely, utterly helpless.

I did not mince words to the staff - in this case a thickset Frenchwoman I had not seen before who did not speak a word of English but seemed bent on disciplining the illness and my husband's weak state as if she could beat it out of him.

This time two years ago, however, we were resigned to the fact of his being severely ill but looking forward - and even beginning to discuss - the possibility of going home. Not that F talked much, he slept most of the time. The nurses had tried to cheer him up with a television at the foot of his bed, but not even soccer, or tennis, or cricket interested him now. He was oblivious to the sunlight, oblivious to family most of the time although he did say, once, that I should go home to South Africa, get back to bowls, leave him there and visit occasionally - a preposterous idea!

There is No Normality

2009-01-01T20:21:00.000-08:00

Finally, a butterfly painting by self, in the previous blog. I have been trying for days to move it from my photo file. Not having anyone computer literate near me, this has been difficult.

It is the quiet week between Christmas and New Year when people vanish. New Year's Eve I had to face alone - I prepared myself by shopping for a special wine, and food. I took a CD from the library, three Mozart piano concertos, I lit candles, turned on Christmas tree lights, cooked the meal, poured the wine, laid a tray. Sat back with cabernet sauvignon in a crystal glass and listened to Mozart in candlelight. Quite amazingly blissful.

There is something to be said for the optical delight of a few simple massed candles and ruby red wine in sparkling glass. I enjoy, these days, using elements we used to keep for special occasions. There is hardly anything more special now than my survival and sanity, and nothing more special than contentment, if I can find it.

So I have to be inventive, and programme my day. Today is Friday and must be conquered. Recently I have been meeting a group of new friends - all local widows - on Friday evenings at the nearby golf driving range where there is a small restaurant. On Friday evenings there is live music. We meet there but, it has to be said, cringe at the volume of the music, which makes audible talking difficult - still, there is a certain buzz in the air and the food is not bad. I like these women. They have been wounded, like me, but have not given up, they show some fighting spirit. Unlike some at bowls, these women do not dress or think like old people, they look independent and elegant, and I have not given up on elegance.

But tonight it does not seem possible, too many are away. I find it hard to approach people for company and am finding this harder all the time. I cringe at the thought of being the instigator, I hate the thought of cap in hand asking whether someone would like to meet, have tea, lunch.

Certain friends have drifted away, without doubt. Being widowed assures one of a slow and deepening invisibility. It is assumed that after all this time there has been healing - other people's imagination does not stretch this far. They do not realise, or care, or even comprehend that after "all this time" one is still in that most bizarre place where one's inner voice is the only audible thing. There is no normality for the bereaved. The clamour of grief has been quietened but whispers on.

So, today: yet another visit to the library for me - my choice of six books last week was all bad. And a walk for Bella on the lead - my choice a walk round the gated community where I am living (nobody is around, perhaps one car will pass by, perhaps there will be one child on a skate board or one yapping dog through a picket fence); a walk on the brick path above the beach, if I can find parking among the holidaymakers; or a walk along a nearby golf course, which is beautiful but daunting, peopled with the well dressed and busy in golf carts - all of the above leaving me with more of a sense of isolation than ever, so that I return to my quiet house and virtually pull covers over my head.

I can recognise other bereaved souls; the quiet of a figure walking a small dog, the wavering steps of a well dressed lone woman in a mall - I can recognise but not approach these people. Makes no sense, but there you are. I am obstinately incapable of being logical, outgoing, or brave.

2009-01-01T20:06:00.000-08:00

New Year and the Nazi

2008-12-30T21:16:00.000-08:00

So tonight is New Year's Eve. The start of a new year, my third year. Tonight I will mark the occasion with a proper cooked meal, a roast chicken, roast potatoes, butternut, broccoli.

I have a sense of calm. Christmas, our wedding anniversary and now New Year - nothing can touch me. I am managing to sail through this potentially choppy water - even if it's misty. Yesterday I returned to bowls, feeling somewhat repentant about my absence and looking forward to a game although oddly enough, I had to force myself to go.

Tabs - casual bowls, in which players are drawn out of a box and put into whatever teams come up; yesterday I was lucky, good players in a trips game.

Bowls is ever fascinating. From afar it looks tame - just people rolling heavy round things up and down and seemingly absorbed - what a drag. But get down and roll one of those round things, and calculate its curved line and weight to the very centimeter - and you're hooked. Line and balance is what it's all about. Balance in a perfect delivery, calculation and co-ordination. Very much like golf but regarded as a poor cousin. There is little glamour in bowls; rather, it is innate, subtle, and to some, enchanting. To me, enchanting. I think after F's death it saved my composure. I could lose myself in a game and concentrate on the bowl rather than my feelings. I could force time to tick by and be reasonably happy. Passion - I needed a passion and I had one.

Very few of my friends are going out tonight. I do not fancy driving out in any case; I do not fancy the drunk drivers, or the buzz of a party waiting for midnight - we are beyond all that. We never used to celebrate this night very much at all - F usually went to bed before me. Occasionally I would sit outside with a glass of wine and watch the surrounding neighbourhood let off rockets.

One noteable such evening my daughter K, who was still at university, had a major fight with a boyfriend F and I disliked - we thought he was controlling and erratic and did not trust him; I also thought he was a Right Winger and irrational and prejudiced. His grandfather had been a member of the Nazi SS, and while one cannot help one's grandfather being who he was, one could revise one's feelings about history and this Kenneth would not, at that time, see the film Schindler's List; I suspected it was because he had Nazi sympathies - he was that sort of person. The fact that he had something against that movie I found very disturbing.

Anyway this New Year's Eve K and Kenneth had had a typically major fight and he stormed off. My daughter went out to a party, in her own car. Come midnight and I hear noises coming from her room, which was above our garage. I went out to investigate - to find this boyfriend. She's gone out, I said. Gone where? To a party, I said, I don't know where it is.

He must have hung around, or left, I am not sure which and did not care as long as he did not cause trouble but K did not come home that night, she stayed out with friends. I woke up in the morning to that dull kind of tiredness after too little sleep but F had to go out somewhere and I was left alone in the house. I was writing. The phone rang - boyfriend Kenneth: where's my daughter? I do not know. Back to my computer, the phone rang again - his sister: where is K? I do not know. Back to the computer - the phone again, a friend, with the same question. Even his mother phoned. I realised that this was an arranged attack, an invasion, set up by this nutter, who had got everyone he knew to telephone our house and ask for my daughter. I pulled the plug on the phone, shaken. I had to leave it unhooked for hours.

They eventually broke up after more of this kind of drama - he was a nasty piece of work and it was a relief to get him out of our lives but it left scars on K, mentally. To this day I do not know how well those have healed, and I sympathise as I have similar scars from a similar man, an architectural student who was truly psychotic - today one would have called him bi-polar.

For five years from the age of eighteen I was bullied, harassed, teased, threatened, manipulated and shaken by a young man of uncertain temper who completely spoilt my university days. My weight dropped to 90 lbs, I had no friends, no self confidence and sometimes thought of suicide - but, my saving grace, I found a job somehow on the Financial Mail and discovered a host of uncomplicated, party-going, cynical, humorous, casually life enhancing people - life, not gloom! Fun, not doom! I immediately dropped this Patrick - I in fact went out to a party, and he went off to commit suicide. He didn't, of course; his departure from me took months. he could not believe that I had turned away. He would skulk outside and pounce on whoever I was with (leaving us shaken); he would arrive at my parents' home at the crack of dawn and tap on my window for an anguished, pre-work "talk" ... he would find my brother and beg for assistance. All this drama was abhorrent to me and everyone around me - no wonder I embraced my husband (later, years later, when we met), and within three months we were married - F was sane, rational, joyous, life affirming and reassuring. I felt safe with him, and what's more, he was damned attractive.

Excursions and Hospital Visits

2008-12-27T22:04:00.000-08:00

F lay in one of two ICU wards for six weeks. He was unaware most of the time but for us it was an ongoing, waking nightmare. However, we were immeasurably helped by others.

Almost at the beginning, when his illness seemed to be more of a hiccup than a disaster, L arrived from England and was greeted by Son B and I at the station and taken out for a completely happy meal. She would stay for a few days and she could speak perfect French. By then we had moved into a family run hotel some ten kilometres from the hospital. Son B came and went, as did Son M; I drove a hired French car on the odd side of the road but with L with me it was an adventure and I soon felt less than terrified about driving.

I do not clearly remember the sequence of events with L, other than she could talk with animation to doctors and then turn to us with an adequate explanation. She was immensely kind to give up her time for us and to brave such an unsavoury drama. We went back and forth from the unit and F's bedside, we waited in hospital corridors, we smelled and saw and walked the polished impersonality of those corridors and those swing doors and those all enveloping, crisp pale blue robes and it must have been immensely tedious for her. But she remains a loyal and caring friend and I will never forget what she did. Eventually she left on the train and went, no doubt, with relief back to her own life.

Friends from South Africa arrived on their own volition for five or six days. We had known T and N since the first days of our marriage; F had played rugby with T before even then. They also moved into that little hotel with me and we planned our days so that after breakfast and a little excursion in the morning, I would go to the hospital and they would meet me there later. I was only allowed to visit from 1 pm, once F had been nursed or turned or examined or mulled over; I would stay for seven hours at his bedside, and this I did each day.

When T and N arrived they would don the pale blue robes and take turns at a short visit with him. During their stay F was slightly coherent although gravely ill. It was difficult to see him so subdued and helpless but N is an essentially cheerful person and her bright smile must have seemed a welcome jolt of normality for him. I would try, at that stage, to feed him something for supper - yoghurt or stewed fruit; I knew that in normal circumstances F would have nothing to do with that sort of fare, but each mouthful for me was a triumph. It was bizarre and frightening but the fact that T and N were waiting in the bland little ante room for me was a comfort. From there we could go out for supper.

Each evening we had to find somewhere to eat. By reputation France has wonderful food but I could not stand the regional style of cooking with excessive cream and oddity; it could have had something to do with my state of mind but it was not for me. We found a Chinese restaurant and a fish place that was palateable and returned there more than once. T and N's patience and support was a breath of hope for me and I shall love them forever.

At one stage neither of my sons could be with me and I faced an interval completely alone in France. I telephoned a close South African friend who lives in Wales. Please come, I said, I need you. C arrived within a day, the third party to join me in that well remembered little hotel. C is a talented musician with a busy schedule of practice and professional piano playing; she is also not in the habit of journeying across Europe on her own, as she has a globe trotting and devoted husband, but for now she took herself onto two planes and a vexing journey to where I was waiting at the airport. She is serene and dear to me but somewhat talkative; she talked while I drove, or sat with embroidery while I kept vigil at the bedside, or talked while we ate at some restaurant, but her presence was a comfort and a never to be forgotten gesture of affection and loyalty.

We made many trips back and forth to the airport. I hired a series of cars. I became used to the route between our hotel and the hospital, the highway, the small suburban French roads, the whereabouts of the supermarket, the nearby places of interest one could drive to in the mornings. My visitors and I went to flea markets, small bakeries, villages, the city centre. We rode in my hire car or on a tram. We visited antique shops and department stores, we walked crowded malls or empty seaside roads and winter beaches.

My French improved. I can converse in a basic present tense; my accent is good, the work of one French teacher for five years who had been brought up in Paris; I have a reasonable vocabulary but anything faster than simple school level sends me into a spin although at times I could supply the French word for what was being sought in English.

The weird place we were in for those six weeks seemed to become more acceptable; the gentle presence of those friends eased me, made my pain less intense, gave me hope. Their acts of unselfishness - not to mention the house which was freely and generously lent to us (two hours from the hospital, however, and now impractical) and the knowledge of their love and support, made things seem better.

Stepping off the Cliff

2008-12-27T21:16:00.000-08:00

Post Christmas: I discovered on returning home that my cats had inadvertently been locked out of the house (but it seems, only for one day, so thank goodness for that); they are all intact and very affectionate. I also discovered a splash of mercurochrome on a part of my white skirting board, which is disconcerting (from Lexi, of course, and her cheek) but the wound is perfectly healed up. All this after a six-hour drive, hectic all the way with never ending Christmas traffic, but uneventful.

I spent six days with K and her family, and it was fine. The first evening we spent with the children at Monte Casino, where they have restaurants bordering a large courtyard with a fountain and a chiming clock. We sat at a table watching our two little ones and scores of others running around. SB and S had miniature scooters they could scoot on as the musical fountain with lights, played - of course - Christmas music. I found tears very quietly - something to do with the way little two-year-old S trotted around, or his sister took his hand, or the back of their innocent, enchanted heads - but the tears were brushed away in spite of the fact that F would have loved to have been there.

The days leading up to Christmas day took both forever and flashed by, but dawn it, eventually, did, and there we were under a mercifully cool and grey South African sky but I could not help remembering the frigid French grey of the chateau and the fact that F did not even know it was Christmas - but no matter now, today here was family and delicious food and new toys. We did the day efficiently, and skirted round our memories. I blocked out thoughts and got on with the little ones, or took a really heavy pan of something hot and fragrant from the oven, or talked small but happy.

I am leaving grief, I have had enough of it. I am changing my bleak interior landscape. I am determined to change this landscape. Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, of all things; it would have been number forty one, and I thought I would dread it. But all was remarkably calm. I could even remember back to that large day with amazement, and think how innocent and brave we were - or how ignorant - as we had no idea of the life in front of us or who we were; we had known each other for only three months.

There we were stepping off a cliff into a future of doubtful wedded bliss! Isn't it crazy that uppermost is the importance of what one is wearing - which fabric, style, which length of dress, which flower? What music, place, food, wedding invitation?

Numbed by Eglonyl yesterday I was completely calm, thinking back to that wedding day. I was a serious bride, I hardly smiled. I wish I could have it all over again, I would throw myself at it. I was somehow unthinking and trusting, but tenuous; I clutched F's hand and I suppose he clutched mine with as much recklessness although doubt hardly ever entered his mind, ever. F was a remarkably confident man. I followed his blazing path for 39 years and in his death now I find myself still bowling along. But is this so bad?

Somehow We Have Kittens

2008-12-17T20:35:00.000-08:00

So now Christmas is next week, and I am going to Johannesburg to K and her husband A, their five-year-old delicate fairy SB and two-and-a-bit-year-old chunky little boy S. I am driving myself, something which has everyone in a tither in case something happens along the way. But I have a great, impeccable Lexus, and I love to drive. The journey takes between five and six hours and the road is a wonderful double highway all the way. What can happen?

I have been dreading the advent of Christmas without F, in K's house; he was such a familiar figure there. But now my dread has faded. Probably lost somewhere in the inevitable excitement of gift wrapping and gift choosing. I have a respectable amount of gifts to take with me. This is a generational step - the first time we will have celebrated Christmas with our daughter, at her home. I say "we" because F will be with me. I know that now.

My one worry - and there is always something - is that one of my cats has a wound on her left cheek. I discovered it three days ago and took her to the vet. She is now on antibiotics and has a brown ointment applied three times a day, which she hates. Afterwards she spends some time licking her paw and washing her face, removing all the ointment and any skin which may be healing so that the wound (an erupted abscess from a cat bite) is wide open. I have virtually two days to heal her and I can't leave her like this. My friend, who is going to come into my house in the late afternoons to feed the cats, will not be able to medicate her, nor would I expect her to.

Lexi is pure charcoal grey, short haired and long boned. I bought her as a kitten from a pet shop I had wandered into, emerging with both Lexi and Teddy, a very pretty tortoiseshell. This was some three months after F had died. I love cats but F would not contemplate having a kitten. Somehow after his death I managed to acquire two. Oh, and for years we have been looking after a tabby, Puck, passed on to me by K as her dogs were making her life miserable. Puck is on the elderly side of middle aged, very affectionate, housebound and somewhat simple minded. She detested the kittens for about a year but can now meet them face to face with matronly disapproval but there is no more bad language.

Anyway, I have Lexi's face to worry about. I am amazed ar her gentleness as twice a day I hold her and put a pink pill into her mouth. Her expression is one of utter disgust but she never thinks to scratch me.

I will call the vet and ask him if I can use mercurochrome; or an antibiotic powder, instead of the ointment. This morning the wound is not quite so raw. It looks clean, but I will not apply the ointment.

I love to heal. Once when M was a little boy he had a nasty cut on his foot, which I virtually washed clean and mercurochromed to perfection. I can understand how a doctor feels; it's something in his very hands.

Just hope I can heal Lexi in time, before I leave.

Sea and Sand

2008-12-16T19:33:00.000-08:00

After writing the previous blog I went to the beach. The day was a popular mid-December holiday here, and by mid morning it was bright and sunny after weeks of rain. At this time of the year when the sun comes out it means instant heat. There were many holiday makers around as the December holidays are in full swing.

I managed to park, finally, where I could get down to the sea accessing a path which runs down the side of a large hotel and I walked behind a group of teenagers on their way to the beach. Some of the boys and girls were holding hands. All were carrying bags or surf boards or both and they looked very young. I walked within their ranks but was invisible.

Everywhere I looked were people together. I am at a stage now where my solitary state feels natural. I found a bench to sit on after buying something cool to drink, and sat down with my little dog Bella at my feet. The sea was at low tide. Scores of people were in the water between two life saver's beacons and could easily reach a sand bank, on which they could stand, ankle deep. Beyond them were large frothing waves but the sand bank tamed the water to a degree.

I sat there for some time. The beach below me was filled with sun bathers, umbrellas, couples, familes, young children. I live in a holiday mecca. It is known as "South Africa's premier holiday resort." A brick path kilometers long winds it way above a beach past hotels, time shares, blocks of flats. The sea is always lively, waves crash and hiss. At Christmas time a million visitors arrive. The brick path teems with walkers, joggers, sun worshippers and people selling sun glasses, hats, wooden African craft, beadwork, or baskets. The path is lined with semi tropical vegetation and has an unforgettable smell of warm, wet wood. Once I saw a snake rush from one side to the other and disappear in seconds. F and I used to walk that walk, often.

But now I am invisible, apart from Bella. She is a small but chunky dog of a beautiful strawberry blonde colour and has lustrous dark brown eyes. Her long coat has recently been shaved short apart from her pale blonde pantaloons; she is half Daschund and half Pomeranian - the latter revealed when she smiles, literally, baring little front teeth and fixing one with an expression of utter happiness. She is an essentially feminine dog with great character and loves to be out and about.

Today she trots happily on her lead and pauses with me at intervals, just to stand and stare; I cannot get enough of the crashing sea below, or even of the tumult of humanity on the hot sand, but as I make my way back up the hill to my car I am glad to leave it all and head for my cool house, its peace and quiet. I can only take a small amount of exuberance at a time.

Out of the Blue

2008-12-15T03:59:00.001-08:00

F lay in the cardiac ICU for a week before being moved back, weak but awake, to the post ablation ward. We were so happy, took him magazines and grapes and cool drink. Ready for his recovery. Of course he would have to stay put until he was on his feet, but that was OK.

That first afternoon he ate some grapes and drank some orange juice, then complained about a stomach ache. Just the grapes, I said; probably should not have had them, perhaps they were a bit acid. I even joked about this to the New Zealander we had met previously, and to the doctor, who was called. Not this stomach ache, said the doctor; this is a strange one. M and I left to have dinner, reasonably unconcerned.

On our return to the hotel after dinner we were called to the desk. The hospital had phoned, looking for us. We should go there immediately. F had collapsed and had been rushed back to ICU; they wanted to scan his stomach, but were worried that he would not even last the ambulance trip to the place where this could be done. What's more, they had found an aneurism near his heart which could burst at any moment and his life was in the balance.

We were stunned. Hovered in the ICU waiting room, having digested the information; unable at last to bear any more waiting, we pushed through the doors and there he was, on a gurney, conscious, about to be wheeled to the ambulance. Giving directions - I forget what he was saying, but he was instructing someone about something, which was typical of the man. Waved as he was wheeled away.

He did make that journey, and we were eventually told that he would have to have surgery the following morning, to his stomach. He had a colostomy. Out of the blue. Of all things.

The absolute details of his medical condition escapes me now. My mind reeled at the time and it reels now. Some pre-ablation time a condition in his intestine reacted badly to the enforced week of mobility after the ablation, and his intestine could not be fixed. So they had had to operate, and he was gravely ill, now incarcerated in a separate building devoted to stomach problems. And this ICU ward was horrible.

His bed lay in a glare of lights in what seemed to be a traffic centre of activity. To get there we had to go through several swinging doors, completely swathed in the detestable pale blue sterile robes. My husband F was unconscious and again on a ventilator, while around him nurses and equipment bustled, noisily came and went; that hardly a word of English was spoken or understood did not help matters. We were largely ignored, marooned with a gravely ill man attached to tubes and machines under glaring, inhuman lights. The machines beeped and counted the small signs of life within him while we stood helpless and anguished beside his bed. Each time, we could only stay a few minutes.

That week was dreadful. F regained consciousness of a kind but begged us to remove him from where he was. He pleaded for us to take him home - not even aware at that stage that he was in France. He wanted us to bring him a gun, he would pull the trigger, he said. Please put him into the water and let him go, he said.

Son B came and went, backwards and forwards from London, Daughter K left her five-month-old baby and small daughter and joined us in France, bringing with her a breast pump to maintain her milk flow. Together we hovered painfully next to that bed; we came and went from ICU after obtaining admission through a monitor in my tentative French; we slept in the same hotel in separate rooms but in the same trance of dread -(we had moved from our first bleak, modern hotel to one more family-oriented, where I had even made enquiries about a ground floor room where F could eventually recuperate). But it was not to be. Nothing was to be.

My daughter was with me when he was finally transferred back to cardiac ICU. F was very weak, very thin, but alive, and cardiac ICU with its calm atmosphere, was more subdued, with kinder lighting. There K virtually talked her father back to a positive state - inasmuch as a man so ill could be positive. He slept most of the time but was occasionally aware of his family and surroundings, in small glimpses of the man himself.

K could not stay away from her baby for longer than five or six days. She left tearfully after saying goodbye to her father and flew back to South Africa.

The Sting-a-Ling Craziness

2008-12-13T20:35:00.000-08:00

Of course one does not see into the future. Or entertain any thought of it - one is filled with hope and faith. We would be rescued from this predicament, I thought. All things had always worked out; I was never more than briefly lost. There had always been either an explanation or a reprieve, forgiveness, or a second chance. I always managed to come out on top - damaged, bruised, but intact. I had never fallen to pieces. My life had been a series of small miracles, like a string of pearls. This was simply the time for another miracle, another pearl to add to the chronicle of family life.

But that night in France heralded a downfall, and we tumbled headlong into a pit. There was to be no rescue.

I look back now with awe. Sometimes, just falling asleep, the pit yawns again; post traumatic and grisly. But I can sweep it aside. With practice, I am able now to sweep it away and tighten my thoughts, so that I can concentrate on little things. Life now is a series of little things.

Someone once wrote Death, where is they sting-a-ling? Where is it indeed; what is it - who cares. There are always sleeping pills, I say, usually to my little dog Bella. There is always that way out. I have lost my awe of death, my death; I discuss this with my little dog, who listens with bright eyed sympathy, then lays her head down on her paws. There I am discussing death with my pet, whose very life is an essence of love and loyalty, who would give her life for me - she does not fear death either. But she loves, and that's truth. Her love and joy scampers round my heels, follows me from room to room, lays with resignation at my feet wherever I pause, encircles me with gaiety, her constant appetite, her joyous morning greeting as she bustles out into the new dawn, the new happy day.

And then those that have flown the nest. Two sons B and M, a daughter K, whose care and commentary I value beyond measure but who live far away. Whose voices within that telephone call anchor me, amuse me - where they are, what they are doing, the park, the house move, the drive to the stables, reminders of another and vital existence other than my own sting-a-ling or preoccupation with the peculiar present time I seem to be enjoying. They lift me, remind me, insist on my grannyhood, my return to sanity.

I would never take those sleeping pills.

I live now in a new house. Two weeks after our return from France I moved into a rented house in a gated community. For security. Before Son M and daughter-in-law P returned to America we had found the new house and moved with furniture and boxes, the move immediate and shocking, a blur which carried me through as on a wave. M and P stayed with me a further two weeks so that my bones could sink slightly into the new darkness with their company for protection; Baby V's smiles cushioning me further. The house, brand new, with no ghosts. It stands metres away from a small lake, the lawn ending in a border of water reeds on which small, orange and black birds flitter.

This view is hypnotic. Across the lake are a series of new houses straight from a drawing board. They are beige or grey trimmed with white and have green roofs, they look American. Their verandas also border the lake and their occupants are far enough away to be anonymous. A fountain runs in the middle of the stretch of water, masking every day conversation. It is turned off at night, its silence filled, at times, by a chorus of frogs. It is so perfect, I wish that F could have seen it,

Grey Goes to Black

2008-12-11T05:21:00.000-08:00

The day of the ablation dawned grey, the primary colour of winter. Son M and I ventured into the city that morning, exploring. Leading away from a very large cathedral is a long, pedestrianised street of shopping, so typical of a European city. But, like all tourists, we were seduced, and joined the throng of well wrapped citizens in their quest for Christmas shopping on quests of our own. I wanted, of all things, a certain lipstick. M patiently waited as I cruised through parfumerie after parfumerie, as if they could offer up something completely new. (Eventually I bought one, which proved to be one I had at home all the time).

Our thoughts were, of course, on F and what was happening to him. We had been told that the ablation would take several hours, so we did not go near the hospital until well into the afternoon. It actually took seven hours. When F was wheeled into his ward he was the colour of white paper, but conscious. He was not happy and looked as if he had - and he had - undergone a physical ordeal, as during the ablation a patient is conscious. But all had gone well, we were told, although they could not quite establish normal cardiac rhythm. That could be worried about later. Evidently, imperfection at first was reasonable and could be dealt with; more than one ablation was sometimes necessary.

M and I were jubilant that it was over. We did not like the look of F but neither of us said anything about it. We were content to leave him in the care of the nurses, and we went out for dinner. Our troubles were over, we thought; the worst had come and gone.

We returned to the hotel and our separate rooms, where I ran a bath. Shortly afterwards my phone rang. M - something is wrong, he said, I'm coming down to speak to you. The hospital had phoned. F had had a heart attack and was in Intensive Care. We should come to the hospital.

That was the moment it all began. We found the Intensive Care unit and from a pile of stiffly folded pale blue garments took, for the first time, a sterile robe in which we had to enter the ward. I grew to hate those enveloping and impersonal cotton robes.

As I write now, my heart constricts. This was the evening I tasted fear for the first time, it was the moment we entered a very dark tunnel.

F lay in that bed for a week, on a ventilator, mostly unconscious, at times pleading to have it removed. I cannot clearly remember those scenes; I only know that M and I were in agony with him; trying to reason with a man who was lost in a maze of drugs and hospital equipment and, when briefly conscious, was confused, unhappy and helpless. We had grave conversations with the doctors, who worried not only about his recovery but about vital organs such as kidneys. We were not to know that that very inactivity, that drug-induced near comatose state would be the eventual cause of his demise as he slowly lost battle after battle.

All we wanted was for him to emerge from the Intensive Care ward and be taken back to his own post-ablation private room, like all the other patients. And, seven days, later, he was. Our troubles were over.

Checking In

2008-12-09T20:13:00.000-08:00

The day for checking into the hospital finally arrived. We set off in the car, Son M driving, F in the passenger seat in front of me. He was strangely quiet the whole journey. I was happy. The drive took about two hours along a busy but uneventful highway. We found the hotel - in an unexpected suburban setting - and moved in. F's bags, were, of course, packed for hospital. We had lunch, the food my first taste of the local cuisine and not really to my liking but no matter, and then we set off. The big moment had arrived.

The hospital was about seven or eight minutes away from the hotel. I was to get to know that route of corners and circles well. In huge grounds were a series of buildings each three or four storeys high, each one for different medical genres. The cardiac building, once we found it, was undergoing renovations and we had to enter through a series of scaffolding off the huge tarmacked parking area. We queued up for the admittance formalities. The hospital proved to be a large government organised complex - and anything to do with government red tape has a universal flavour of drabness, of somewhat dark brick, well worn sombre flooring and a spartan dreariness coupled with the resigned melancholy of people awaiting their turn to be dealt with. The very air smells of government.

But once the elderly lift had delivered us to the ablation floor the air of measured sobriety changed. All was bustle. Each private ward was quite spacious and had two beds, one for the spouse. The nurses were efficient and not unfriendly but seemed to speak no English. We were bustled in, F was installed in bed. We discovered a room nearby where there were chairs and books, some of them in English. There we met a man, a New Zealander. He was wandering about in a dressing gown, had had his treatment and was recuperating; it was fine, he said. M and I had a conversation with him. Somehow F, in bed, had retreated from us.

I watched him eat his supper that night, a bland kind of macaroni cheese. F always had a hearty appetite. He ate the food uncomplaining, sitting on the side of his bed. In the cupboard were his clothes, a couple of books, his hearing aid, neatly arranged. We were completely sure of what we were doing. He was there to be repaired; it was comfort, at last. Outside it was quite black, and cold; but inside this edifice of medical competence we felt secure and happy. We were leaving this man in good hands and they were, finally, the right ones.

That Christmas Past and the Chateau

2008-12-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

Putting together the pictures for the scrap book is a labour of love. I have chosen F's happiest ones; he always had a lovely smile and these pictures are of his most radiant. They are disparate ones of family and friends in different activities and places and make me realise just how blessed we have been. But in all the myriad photos of F and I standing together there is no space between us which says this is as far as you go; this and no more. No presentiment of his loss. We are full of life. We are secure and happy and enjoying the moment; not knowing that it would be so brief.

I have been impelled into widowhood: no-one asked me whether I would care to be a widow. We deliberately go into marriage, but we accidentally become a widow. We do not consider the possibility beyond it being a vague thing on the horizon that will probably never happen. "One day if something ever happens to me" is a game we play. We do not believe in the inevitable. And there are no lessons in how to deal with this new, altered and inevitable state of existence. Which is astounding, given that it is the future of every single couple in the world. Someone has to die - or walk away, or divorce, or stray. Someone has to be left.

So, I am the one left. F and I ceased to communicate when he went into the hospital. We were not lucky enough to have a lingering death, during which we could rationally plan the future, and talk, and say goodbye. Where I could begin to mourn. We expected, in France, to emerge with his health intact and were not prepared for the crash of crises, one after the other, that took him further and further from consciousness, conversation, recognition or comfort. For six weeks he was ravaged by ventilators, drugs, delirium, tubes, ICU nurses and by I and the family, or friends, standing by. For six weeks I was at his bedside for seven hours a day but he did not know it.

The fact that his nurses and doctors hardly spoke a word of English isolated him; he must have been terrified. F was hard of hearing, and anything but a linguist. He would not have understood a word they were saying even if he were conscious - which he must have been, in flashes. Once he said to me, I absolutely hate it here. But his moments of equilibrium were few and far between and all the more cruel, as each one presaged another crash and we had no more than a few cruel hours of thinking we were perhaps going to survive, after all.

These memories are so painful, they are not good at this time of the year. I should be humming Christmas tunes; I have wrapped my gifts and will take out a pretty tree we have which changes colours; I will set it up and I will make mince pies. I should not be thinking of that Christmas in France.

it was really cold, the sky was perennially grey. I do not remember sunshine. Son M, his wife P and baby V were with me then. We moved from the commercial hotel in which we had been staying, near the hospital, into a chateau which son B and I had found. We were so elated to find it; old and elegant, it had so much charm and character we thought this would be a good place to spend Christmas. But we did not reckon on the cold and draughty floors of a very old building, and the fact that baby V was crawling and spent most of her waking hours sitting on the floor, where we had to dress her in layers of clothing to keep her warm.

I had a few little decorations with me (as we would have been happily celebrating Christmas with a recovered F, had things been different); I scattered them about in the suite of rooms we occupied but it could not have been more dreadful. Even the baby, her smiles and sweetness, could not combat the emptiness, the bizarreness of where we were and what we were at. Her grand father, of course, did not even know it was Christmas.

We ate an expensive lunch at a boutique hotel we discovered nearby, that Christmas day; the three of us and the baby. The table was prettily decorated with orange glass baubles and touches of gold; the service was excellent, the food strange, the wine costly, the whole thing an ordeal. We struggled through our meal, through the day - but we were still hopeful, then. What we were enduring was only temporary. No-one had yet discussed with me my future status. I had not envisaged my husband's death, it was unthinkable. Our husband and father was simply going through a dreadful glitch.

Nearly Christmas

2008-12-05T21:29:00.000-08:00

Today I separate about twenty photographs from a drawerful in my study. It is almost Christmas and I am making my daughter K an album of her father in these past few years for a Christmas present. Our childhood photographs are still packed away in my garage, I have a host of pictures to go through one day. But I have a lot of recent pictures I know she will not have seen, and I think she will treasure a collection of them.

They are mainly of F and I with friends around the world, a lot from England where we lived for eight years and where F became Commodore of the biggest motor yacht club on the Thames.

I choose happy ones, although F was, invariably, happy. Particularly in England, where he had been born and grew up, and where we had a house a stroll away from Hampton Court Palace, near the moorings of the yacht club - and his boat, Breezing In. This was a forty foot motor yacht made by Oyster, a wellknown company of yacht builders. It had none of the white leatherette/plastic look of the so-called gin palaces; this was a yacht with a motor (two large ones). It had that look of hand crafting in the wooden interior, like a sailing boat, and it was F's pride and joy. He did all his own maintenance on the motors and all the cleaning, washing, interminable polishing and buffing and sprucing up necessary to a boat on the water and it gleamed; a proud boat, a loved boat.

We became interested in the lifestyle of a boat club one day shortly after arriving in England, while strolling along the Thames at Richmond. There were all these people in boats lining the banks, having a good time. F loved boats; he had had a dinghy and a motor boat in South Africa. I had entertained idea of picnics at sea, with beer and roast chicken and hours drifting about on blue waters, but it was not to be. The seas around the South African coast are anything but leisurely and one is hanging on to a rail most of the time, not picnicking. A far cry from the slow moving traffic of the Thames and boats ranging from little battered ones to large, snooty moneyed ones which parade silently up and down the muddy but - upriver - tranquil waters.

Here were all these boats moored, people moving about in the sunshine, laughing, talking and visiting, This appealed. With his usual aplomb F set about a conversation and before long we were invited aboard. Thus begun our love affair with the TMYC and things nautical, Little did I realise that afternoon that this would become the focus of our lives for eight years and the immense fun would be mixed with the stress that eventually cost F a pace maker and inevitable heart trouble.

I sit here at a junction in this narrative. I can go into the TMYC and those unforgettable years - there is a book there - eccentric people and situations for a lifetime, laughter, tears, frustration, idiosyncracies .... but today a distant memory.

Or I can continue with the present and my second Christmas alone. I have not faced up to one as yet - last year, the first one, I spent with B and his partner H in Mallorca, where it was delightful to be with them in such a foreign and infinitely beautiful place. I had no qualms. This year will be full of qualms. I shall miss F's energetic preparation of Christmas dinner - he always cooked Christmas dinner - the feeling of family, the nucleus being F, the frivolity of the decorations, gift wrapping, excitement and the carols that he loved to hear. This time I will be with K and her family - we shall have excitement, gift wrappings, the children and no doubt, carols; I shall love being with them but there will be a ghost behind me.

A Brief Adventure

2008-12-03T20:26:00.000-08:00

Friend J's house in France is on a quiet suburban street lined with small trees. Inside a bland exterior is a large double volume space of an open plan lounge, kitchen and a study area lined with books. There is a free standing wood burning fire, and glass walls through which one can see a leaf strewn swimming pool and a windswept lawn. Wooden stairs lead up to three charming loft-style bedrooms but as the bathroom is downstairs, we make up F's bed near the fire. I worry about him negotiating the wooden staircase at night. I will sleep upstairs, as will son M. We are cheerful. This is an adventure.

The sea is not far away. Grey and choppy, the seascape has the desolate air of an abandoned beach in a storm. Papers blow on deserted pavements and gather against closed doors bearing pictures of pink and green ice cream cones. Summer has been packed away. A few restaurants remain open and inside they are warm, but there are no tourists at this time of the year. The French waitress is brisk and we are served a local dish of mussels, which are delicious.

It is so good to be here. We have a few short days before the hospital appointment but we plan to enjoy them. We will explore the area, lunch out, cook suppers in my friend's very efficient kitchen; we have a hire car with a GPS and there are places nearby I have never heard of. Within walking distance of the house is a fascinating array of small shops where we buy long loaves of bread, fresh vegetables and fish. As it is nearly Christmas there is a snug bustle around the shops with red shiny things and dark green conifers everywhere. There is a real Christmas feeling, not the shopworn rush of the overblown Christmas carols we are used to. We keep the fire in the house fed with chopped wood we buy from a warehouse; it consumes wood with gusto and F is constantly at it. He seems more peaceful, and even more comfortable, here.

On the third day we venture beyond the Spanish border and find a spectacular resort with high cliffs where there is a modern hotel and a massive view of a wintry sea. It is quiet now, and the hotel seems empty. In summer it must be jam packed. Very few views have impressed me so. We lunch down near the harbour but as it is a Sunday there are many diners and parking is difficult. F and I wait for son M to park and join us. The food is good but exotic. We are surrounded by locals out for their Sunday gathering. We eat quietly, aware that tomorrow is an important day. This is almost our last meal together before the hospital and we are tense, but the looming clouds and the battering sea outside is just so much bunting to our great adventure. I turn a blind eye to the threatening sky and its charcoal colour.

Leaving No Mans Land

2008-12-02T20:21:00.000-08:00

This is making a difference. For some reason, retracing those steps is - and I search for the word. Healing is too strong, too pat. I am not healing. I doubt I will ever be healed. But it is like a small release of pressure, a little at a time. The immense angst that has been carrying me around for these two years is lightening in colour. Perhaps it is burrowing deeper; perhaps being absorbed into my soul; perhaps being released. There is no metaphor for exactly this, words come close but they are not enough. Being widowed is a journey without a handbook.

I heard yesterday of a friend's sister who lost her husband just weeks ago. She is having a terrible time, my friend said. All she wants is her husband. I look at my friend, perplexed. There is such a long furrow for her to plough, I said. She has a long furrow ahead of her.

The expression that time will heal is meaningless. One tick at a time, being swept along a changing landscape is not what does it. What heals - if that is the word - is a gradual coming back, a gradual resurgence of something so delicate it is impossible to put into words. It is perhaps gradual reinvention, a gradual reinstatement of - what - health?

But not natural; it does not happen by itself. It has to be worked for, stalked, cornered, trapped. It is a fight. Every day passed in a blur of depression is a defeat. Every moment glimpsing some contentment, even if fleeting, is a skirmish won; a day passed in happiness is a major triumph,and a private victory. But there is no battle plan. The entire war is solitary and inexplicable. I am a general of my own soul and it is not my thing, this. I would make a lousy soldier.

So, writing down every detail of the descent into the worst time of my life is some kind of a lifeline I am clinging to, now. Reliving the events and details is rehashing them into something more acceptable than the blur of images that are crammed only with pain, irony and horror. I think.

The Difficulty of Wheels

2008-12-01T20:51:00.000-08:00

Son M was waiting for us in Paris, his face alight. After months of anticipation, this was the moment, for him, to set it all in motion: he was taking his father to be cured. Our eldest son, B, had brought us thus far, and virtually handed us over. He would be going on immediately back to London and his business commitments.

The wheel chair having been produced (finally, after the inevitable wait), the three of us set off in a small parade for the exterior of the airport and a taxi. We were going to rest at son M's hotel before returning to Charles de Gaulle and a domestic flight to take us on to my friend's house in France, later that morning. The official pushing the wheel chair was very young. Son M and I were in front, chatting. Suddenly there was a shout; I looked back and to my horror saw my husband on the floor - he had been tipped out of the wheel chair, lay sprawling but smiling, unhurt - a lesson in care, probably for the young man, who was mortified.

France in December is a grey and damp place. The hotel was bustling, efficient, modern. Husband F took straight to a prone position on the bed in M's room; I headed for a shower before joining M in the lobby, where he was breakfasting. Our reunion was, as ever, joyful. This son lives in San Francisco. Shortly afterwards I glanced up to see husband F coming towards us, on his face such a smile. I shall never forget that smile and his air of happiness as he made his way across the room.

Back at the airport we had the unnervingly familiar debacle over a wheel chair. The taxi had deposited us and we had walked with husband F to a chair, while son M went off to claim the pre-arranged wheels. It seems that to be able to use one, one has to present oneself at the relevant check in. Which was a stiff walk away down a crowded concourse. The usual argument: my father cannot walk here, it is too far, that is why he needs a wheel chair. Sorry sir, but he has to be here with his passport before I can authorise one. But I cannot get him here without it, and I have his passport. Sorry sir.

Eventually, eventually, the lady was persuaded and eventually, after a wait, someone arrived with the necessary, and we set off on a brisk walk in a parade that plows through queues of peevish people who have been waiting in line and patently resent the intrusion- right to the head of such a queue and immediately through the barrier, boarding gate for the plane.

M and I had been trotting obediently behind. Passports, please remove your shoes, even the man in the wheelchair.

Someone remarks: but this isn't where we're going - referring to our boarding passes. Wrong plane. So off we go again, back through the queues of the same people, shoes replaced - thank goodness someone noticed!

This time we were dumped in an area waiting for a large bin-like contraption that would raise us to the level of the plane door, and in this ignominious manner we managed to board and fly to our final destination. Where, I must add, at a minor domestic airport, the only wheel chair arranged and ready for us was waiting at the door. The irony being that this building was so small in scale it was virtually unnecessary, F could walk through it and out to the hire car.

Wet Fishiness

2008-11-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

There is black comedy in dire circumstances. Our first taste of slap-in-the-face wet fishiness was the unexpected but inevitable fact that there was no wheel chair waiting at the airport in spite of all my phone calls; in fact no-one seemed to have much idea of where a wheel chair could be found at all. F had to be sat in the taxi at the drop-off point at the airport (around which is always an air of barely controlled hysteria anyway) while I and son B ran around in different directions - I presume B was looking, I have no memory of where he was at all but I was acutely aware of the indifference my earnest queries received as I hurried hither and thither, dodging crowds, trying to find a wheel chair.

Eventually, aha, we found one; and eventually we flew to Johannesburg, alighting and finding the arranged wheel chair but which, astonishing fact, was not to be taken to the International Departures area! But how could we get him there? One has to get one from that side. How to do that? They would give him one at Check In. But he could not get to check in without a wheel chair. Sorry, that was the way. He had to be at Check In in order to get a wheel chair.

By this time F and I were with Daughter K and her two children; F in the Domestic Arrivals wheel chair, at one of the busy restaurants in that area almost over-run by taut people with luggage and the worn air of earnestness that comes with the noise and bustle of long distance travel. Son B was left to sort out the problem. He seemed to take a long time, arriving finally quite exhausted - and exasperated - as he had been arguing at both Domestic and International sections which in Johannesburg is a stiff walk one from the other; finally, he said, he had had to leave his passport with one end, as he claimed, and was given, a wheel chair and could rush back to find us in the crowds.

Our daughter lives in Johannesburg. She had come to the airport to say goodbye, bringing with her our three-year-old grand daughter and baby grandson, who was in his pram and just at the age of broad baby smiles. Amid this innocence of the children we hovered as on a small island in a chaotic passing current, while goodbyes were said. We exchanged Christmas presents. It was a time of darkness - indoors and on the concourse of a vast airport, with coloured artificial lights, people rushing past, noise, loud conversation, steel tables with cardboard cola cups, F stoic in a wheel chair, my family briefly together, my daughter infinitely tense, and a baby smiling at me.

We were on our way. The night ahead would be bearable. We had three seats together in Business Class and it would be relatively peaceful. The only hitch was that we seemed to have been double booked and several enquiries were made by cabin staff as to our properness. Were we who we said we were? We were. Were we happy to sit here? We were, we did not want to be moved anywhere. In fact we would not move anywhere.

After fighting with the wheel chair at two air ports, this was peace. Little did we realise the debacle that awaited us
at the next one.

That Distant Citadel

2008-11-30T19:47:00.000-08:00

We prepared to go to France with exhilaration. That our husband and father was being offered this chance to reclaim his life and health was a wonder, and that it was to be in France - France! - put something crazily exotic into my optimism. I would countenance no doubts, no worries. I countered all what ifs and perhapses with denial; nothing would go wrong; if there was a problem, we would fix it. We were going to be in the best place we could be. Which was true, in a way.

But perhaps my hope was being seduced by the glamour of a distant citadel making room for us, letting us in. A place of high style, France, where a beautiful language is spoken. Where clever people who have discovered how to cure husband F's problem had paid us attention, and said, come. Who were above the regime of damaging chemicals we were given, here; who had found another way, and were sending people home hearty and happy.

I could not wait. I brushed aside F's doubts. I would not listen to his fear.

Today, this is pain.

In those last few weeks at home F was miserable. His condition had brought him down to helpless inactivity - this for such an energetic man was anathema. He would sit in his armchair and watch endless sport, mute and depressed. Occasionally he would goad himself into his car, and taking our little dog, would set about some errand, returning home exhausted. Or he would spend hours on our veranda watching the sea, watching ships at anchor which never seemed to move but vanished or were replaced when one was not looking. Occasionally a ship would make its ponderous way across the horizon, or, in days of high wind, all would be facing the same way, their bulk indiscernibly moving to the swell and little brush strokes of white horses on the blue.

I busied myself with preparation. I had had a load lifted off my shoulders. We had a prospect - a trip, a stay in hospital, recuperation and Christmas, away from the hospital, it would be wonderful; back to the hospital for the inevitable checks and examinations and perhaps even hiccups but we would return home triumphant and well. My worst enemy, I thought, would be tedium, slight, unimportant, irksome tedium as I waited for F to get well. I would read, I thought, I would walk. My patience had been well honed by now. I was used to slowing down to the rhythm of an ill man.

The day dawned. Son B had arrived and as usual when he was with me it was joyous. As he lived in London and had been there for seventeen years, seeing him was happiness. We had done our quick trips to a mall, or to friends, or to the beach, we had talked and laughed, as we do, in the sheer novelty of being together, F joining in occasionally, going off to lie down as he had to when necessary. Son B would be escorting us to France and would hand us over to son M in Paris and he would take us on to our destination.

But today was the day we would get on that first plane, and the reality of moving a very ill man through three airports was daunting, involving wheel chairs and organisation and courage, but with Son B with us, I had no qualms.

We Find Our Own Solution

2008-11-24T22:45:00.000-08:00

It is now nearly two years since we took husband F to France. Son M, his wife P and baby V had travelled from San Francisco concerned about F's continued downward plunge. By now his health was deteriorating and despite frequent visits to the specialist in search of help with a regime of drugs (the cordarone, having irreparably damaged his lungs, was discontinued) no help was forthcoming. The doctors virtually shrugged and dismissed him. Substitute drugs were slowly, we were convinced, killing him.

Son M, child of this century, searched the Web and discovered that there was a surgical procedure which claimed to be curing thousands of people with atrial fibrillation. It was in fact being done all over the world - even in Johannesburg and Cape Town - but most prolifically and most successfully, in France and in the United States.

Our local doctors must have known about it! Husband F had only recently questioned the heart specialist about the possibility of some sort of surgery for his complaint and had received polite attention but was, as ever, dismissed. Only afterwards did it dawn on me just how callously he had been handled. He had virtually been sent him home to die; if the drugs did not suit and caused him endless and distressing side effects, well, that was the end of the matter.

In September by email we contacted the hospital in France which had a record of several thousand successful ablations and were told that there was a long waiting list. The procedure involved a local anesthetic and the burning off - ablation - of the nerves inside the heart which were causing fibrillations. The patient would spend only about 4 days in hospital and would be awake during the procedure, but their lists were full.

We have no time, I wrote. My husband is very ill. Come in December, they said - just weeks away!

I have a close friend who lives in both France and Cape Town. We could use her French house, she said, before and after the operation; it is standing empty. We could settle in for a few days, put F into hospital, after treatment take him back to the house for recuperation and Christmas and be reasonably near the hospital for check ups before coming home. Son M would meet us in Paris and take us to the house, he would be there for the duration; son B would come from London in order to help my husband and I on the journey from South Africa to Paris.

With such magnificent support it seemed that our troubles would soon be over, F would be cured of his debilitating heart condition and returned to as normal a life as possible, to his own inimitable joie de vivre. I rejoiced in the love and kindness shown us by friends and family and by the French medics, who had made room for him on their schedule, with compassion.

Husband F made one more visit to his heart doctor's rooms. "You are making a mistake," said the doctor. 'What would you have me do - sit here and die?" said F. The doctor shrugged. Nothing. No answer.

Mishandled: the medical idiots

2008-11-23T21:09:00.000-08:00

In 2006 Husband F was ailing. Continually plagued by fibrillations, which would leave him weak and wobbly, even confused as the blood would not be properly getting to his brain, he developed a nasty flu/bronchitis in July, which eventually had us going to a local doctor at ten pm one night as he was not breathing easily. The doctor, a young man we had not seen before as he had taken over the practice of our own doctor, diagnosed bronchitis, and we came away armed with costly pills and potions for the condition but nothing much seemed to change; his breathing continued to worry him, right through the administration of more pills and yet more pills. Eventually - and I am not sure about the exact sequence of events - he was admitted to ICU in a private city hospital, the first of many such urgent visits - all, I must add, at huge expense.

We were told that he had a lung condition, incurable - caused by cordarone, a constituent of the heart drug F was on for fibrillations. It would, said the lung specialist in a roundabout way, eventually kill him.

We were also told that his breathing was not because of the young doctor's diagnosis of a stubborn post nasal drip, but was his lungs filling up with water because his heart was not beating properly.

"The man's an idiot!" said the heart specialist.

The incurable lung condition would turn his lungs slowly to "leather" and they would stop working. Nice. Caused by a drug administered a couple of years ago by heart specialists, the first of which was in London in a very famous heart hospital. And continued by a specialist back here at home in South Africa. The side effects known, of course, known - but not divulged. Who else, I think, is an idiot?

The first thing we were told upon diagnosis in the London hospital was that F had atrial fibrillations but that they would not kill him - (no, unspoken: it would be the drugs). What does a doctor THINK as he faces an anxious patient across his desk and prescribes something knowing that it is a death warrant to be discovered, surprise upon unfortunate surprise, later?)

And, as I also later found out, my dearest man would indeed be killed indirectly by the fibrillations, as his heart could not, in the end, cope.

Black and White to my Greys

2008-11-20T22:58:00.000-08:00

Husband F lived as he died, with a flourish, He was an adventurous, fearless, perennially cheerful person defeated only in the end by his own failing body. He was the most infinitely secure person I ever met - black was black and white was white and this simple verdict made everything blessedly clear; my infinite shades of grey dimmed and brightened with my insecurity but I had a bold partner at my side for 39 years.

We had three children, a boy, a girl and a boy, all within three years. They were born when we had nothing, were struggling to our feet, as young couples do. Husband F was employed by a large building company and took over the running of huge corporate projects in the then burgeoning city of Johannesburg. His management skills were such that he was the one contractor to have made a profit on a central hotel/shopping mall/business block but he worked very hard, leaving home in the early morning, returning after dark. He was capable of harsh decisions and was, I think, both feared and disliked but he was also loved and many gave him unswerving loyalty as his artisans, for years.

When the children were quite small there was talk of being transferred to an Afrikaans town in the middle of the country. I was appalled, could not imagine living there and although we were offered all sorts of sweeteners, the decision was taken by Husband F to go on his own (and stay living where we were), to set up on his own backed by nothing more than investors with faith in his ability and who actually put their assets on line - but they were never needed. It seemed from the word go, he succeeded. I myself was not involved. I took care of hearth and home, Husband F worked and in all those years I knew nothing of business other than it flourished. He kept a distinct line between his job and his family.

Not everything was great. We fought, as couples do, we had great storming fights and long non-speaking unhappy days; but we were raising a pretty good family and the children have grown up embued with fantastic self confidence all, I think, from their father.

At age fifty he sold his company and retired. This was a pretty large pill to swallow - a man about the house at all hours, a very organisational man who scrutinised my activities, my kitchen, my life, with all the energy previously put in to the running of a large and successful company. Changes were made - a driver was engaged for the several and varied errands I had daily to make. Children were ferried to and from school, to and from sporting events, lessons and extra curricular things. Driver H was an infinitely polite and patient middle aged man who took over the long waits and tedium I had previously suffered. He would have had to be patient.

We were now living in a coastal city, in a climate of frangipani trees, bougainvillea and humidity. We had rebuilt and renovated an old sugar farm house around which a suburb had grown but was conveniently near to a charming seaside resort village. The children had been transferred from a sophisticated private school to a local government school a bicycle ride away and I was happy at this rediscovered simplicity; they became children again, climbing trees.

We had to get used to each other, Husband F and I. Eventually the humour of where are you going and when will you be back dawned on me, as well as the inattention paid to my programme so that the question was asked again, with incredulity, as I was leaving. So typical of a man.

Prodigal Daughter

2008-11-20T06:21:00.000-08:00

So far I've written two short accounts of a devastating time in the life of my family, and certainly in mine. The death of my husband was the most awful thing in my entire life; with the most far reaching negative impact. But this blog is not for dwelling on that or for simply writing of Husband F's unusual and histrionic death - although it will, I hope, help,

It is aimed at my sister widows by putting into words an incredible journey of discovery.

At this time he has been dead for twenty two months. I cannot believe that it is already such a long time. I still study the sunset, a horizon from my kitchen window of eucalyptus trees stark against a sky of gold and pink. Somewhere in that sky is his lost soul; or perhaps he glimmers down from a star. The night sky is remote as the soundless flight of a distant plane coming in to land.

His silence is still unfamiliar. We talked about everything. Now there is silence. I am beginning to accept that, even though I return home from an outing to a quiet house. I make noise, hail my cats, who do not always appreciate the sudden bustle disturbing their nap but I am relentless, holding a soft tortoiseshell head close to my cheek,

This silence is truly deafening. Where once I had a constant dialogue, now I have nothing. I used to believe in God, believed in a compassionate Presence who would deliver us, and heal. But no, nothing was to be; death crept up between my prayers and stole my peace. my faith. I rootle round now in this no-mans-land of broken faith, still angry. I am a Prodigal Daughter who does not want to be found.

But I over-reach. This is not what it's all about. I live without faith, live with the denial of a power I used to believe in. Today I find myself, I find my own energy, my own power. I expect nothing other than what I create, with room for accidental tangents although I do not want them.

I have still, however, to accept that love is what it's all about. The love of my children, their spouses and my grandchildren, my friends and my pets soothes me. Love is all-powerful. The demise of my loyal, faithful, primary love of 39 years left tracks which are not obliterated by his absence. I still walk the path of family, of our identity; I trail through the steps we made together, which lead over the horizon.

Wrong Turning

2008-11-17T05:31:00.000-08:00

Now with both sons B and M we have to deal with signatures of important stuff. The hospital immediately demands paperwork. We are in France; I speak a very little French and my sons nothing. But they are kind here, and an interpreter is summoned to help and also to guide one of us round the maze of corridors and indeed the several buildings in this large hospital organisation.

Son B as the eldest, volunteers. The interpreter turns out to be an exceedingly pretty young woman, who leads him off while Son M and I sit down - the feeling now a crazy mix of rawness and relief, as if a vast and unbearable noise has been stopped.

It takes quite a while before Son B reappears. It seems the exceedingly pretty young woman was not quite so au fait with the geography of the place as she should have been. She led him across lawns and gardens to a small building, looking for the mortuary, where papers were to be signed. They wandered inside, to be faced with, says Son B, "people in white uniforms and hats, with steam billowing about and large pots and I thought, oh no, my worst nightmare - is this a mortuary?" But it was not, it was the kitchen - wrong turning.

Right there we had a laugh. We had to.

Can you believe it.

With great efficiency we are assured that we shall have all that is necessary within a couple of days. They know how much we want to get home to South Africa. Husband F is to be cremated and his ashes given to us forthwith. I am touched by their consideration. We are told about where to go and what to do tomorrow.

The crematorium is surrounded by grape vines. The sun is shining on open country but one can hear a nearby motor way. I am unspeakably still. We sit, just the three of us, in the chapel; music is playing, flutes, I think. Suddenly it turns into a very lovely melody, falls like balm onto me.

We look forward to going home; we are to receive the ashes in the afternoon tomorrow before our plane to Paris. Son M who lives in San Francisco is to come home with me, Son B has business committments. At the funeral parlour, true to their word, the French have the urn contained in a neat carry bag with a zip, ready for us. We hug the urn.

The Day that Changes Everything

2008-11-15T19:07:00.000-08:00

"My husband is dying today," I say to the uniformed man who is checking the contents of our bags as we line up for the aircraft. My small case contains all my cosmetics. "I do not want to check this bag into the hold as I want to get off the plane as fast as possible." I see his face change." Just throw everything away," says son B. "Just let them throw everything away, Mom," he says again. "Hold on, sir," says the man. "We are here to help. Carry your bag."

I am struck by his moment of kindness.

We sit immobile, son B and I. Numb. My husband is an hour or so away across the Channel. He is very ill. I have that morning instructed - if that's the word - son M to tell the doctors to do nothing. He has had enough. "They want to know, should they do everything, or nothing?" Nothing. He will last, they say, about 48 hours. They will make him comfortable.

I see the prospect of his bedside, I see us waiting, watching, I fear the 48 hours.

I cannot remember the flight from Stansted, or the plane, or what we say to each other. I sit frozen with dread. We leave the plane and make for the exit, where son M is waiting in the Arrivals.

"It's all over," he says. "Dad has gone."

The world reels. Son B doubles over; I hang on to son M. We sit down on a nearby seat. My heart beats in my ears. We are shocked, shaking, frozen; a family oblivious to people hurrying by.

At the hospital my husband lies in his cubicle in ICU. There is no small beep of machinery, no tubes invade his battered body but he is not peaceful. His face is drawn, somehow unfamiliar. His bed is immaculate and neat. He is still faintly warm. I do not cry, I do not breathe. I am poised; we thank the doctors, who hurry to meet us with faces stiff with anxiety and yes, guilt, as if they could have done something better but I know they could not.

Husband F died in spite of their frantic efforts to put right his failing system, their chase around his organ circuits shutting down one by one. But he should not have died. He is the first fatality in a long line of successes with a new procedure, a heart procedure which corrects atrial fibrillation, sending patients home after nothing more stressful than a few days of discomfort.

We have had six weeks of agonising intensive care and as many crises. A heart attack, a sudden, unexpected and grotesque colostomy, kidney failure, liver failure, an intestinal infection, periods of delirium in which a strong man wept, pleading to be taken home, to be given a gun so that he could pull the trigger, to be put into the water, to be let go; unaware that he is 10,000 miles away from home, not in the hospital near our house facing the Indian ocean and an African coast, but in France.

This day changes my life. This day I am husbandless, my grown children are fatherless. From now on I am a new person, a stranger to myself. I am devoid of a partnership; I have no best friend, mate, or ally. I am strafed by loss, sadness, grief. Alone. I will come to know the depths of a most human condition, an unspoken, feared, dreaded condition shunned by our western attitude to death, in which it never really happens, only to other people.

"If something should ever happen to you" are words spoken lightly, as if considering an unlikely option.

It is not unlikely. It is definite. It happens. Death comes. And you are left with yourself.