Rich came through and said the ambulance men had told him they were on their way and that we should get Taid onto his back so he could breathe better, never mind about possible injuries. I started to try to turn him over and found to my horror that he was too heavy to move on my own – Joli was going to have to help me. Rich couldn’t help, as it was still too soon after his surgery.
I called Joli, and she came, and together we pushed and hauled until we got Taid onto his back. But his limbs were still distorted and in a strangely wrong position. I looked at him, trying to work out how to make him more comfortable. At least we could get his dressing gown off – the room was boiling hot and stuffy, from the electric heater. We worked off his dressing gown. I should check the damage, I thought.
He was conscious, that much I knew. He could hear and respond. I asked him to move each part. Everything worked on the right – nothing on the left. I asked him to use his right hand, which was strong, to give me one finger for yes and two for no. We worked out through this system that he was uncomfortable, and then through an odd series of ‘20 questions’ that he wanted to sit up.
I looked around – he was too far from a couch or chair, and too heavy to move. So I would have to be his chair. I got behind him on the floor and propped him up in my arms, to ease his breathing. Joli brought some pillows, and I put them behind his head, kneeling behind him with my arms around him.
‘I’m so sorry, Taid,’ I said, tears filling my eyes, and kissed the top of his head, which was just in front of my chin. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I knelt behind him like that for a long time, holding him up so that he could breathe until the ambulance men came in their green uniforms; until someone told me gently that he would take over. And then they took him to hospital.
27 April 2012
The massive stroke that swept through Taid’s body took the entire left side. And now he has pneumonia. There seems little doubt that he’s dying. And we’re waiting, in a horrible limbo.
Rhys went in the ambulance with him on Sunday night. I went to sit in with Taid on Monday, and again on Tuesday. Yesterday I didn’t go – Rich seemed very low, and I didn’t want to leave him alone. It frightens me, how tired he is, how pale. He was just starting to get better, when this happened, and it seems to have knocked him right back again. Rich has been forbidden to go into the hospital because of the risk of infection to his still fresh wound. So he can’t see his dying father. It’s very hard. But we can’t run the risk.
1 May 2012
I’m not normally a religious person – don’t go to church. But at the moment, my God is the sun over the sea, and the familiar, beloved contours of the land as it curves over the valley. My own private vision each night as I come out of the barn. Last night, gold and magenta and peach, like hot wax spilled over a silver-bright ocean….
Still waiting. Taid took another turn for the worse last night. In a strange way, it was almost a relief – they’ve been aggressively treating the pneumonia that would have carried him off in the first few days, but there’s no response from him. No awareness, no consciousness, no hand squeezing as there was in the beginning.
It occurred to me how cruel it is that modern medicine has so cleverly strengthened the bars of the cage – 100 years ago, nature would have taken its course, and after the stroke he would have peacefully drifted off. Now they’ve cured his body just enough that he can’t escape it – and he remains trapped.
When I visited Taid, I took a CD player from his house and some of the CDs that he loved. Loretta Lynn, Slim Williams, Patsy Cline. I took lavender essential oil from my soap making, and a Bible to read out loud. I put the lavender around the room, so that the air smelled sweet, and turned on the music, and began to read. The beautiful words of the Psalms, triumphant and victorious, comforted me at least, if Taid couldn’t hear them.
I drove the girls to the hospital last night. What they saw was frightening – Taid’s mouth open, breathing harsh, oxygen mask, tubes coming out, sensors beeping. Nothing like the way we remember him properly, the way he really was – a feisty, proud old man with his white beard and hat and scarf, striding out to feed the chickens, blue eyes striking sparks.
4 May 2012
Taid died two days ago. The grief is almost easier to bear than thinking of him trapped and suffering.
I put pictures of him on the windowsill, with a little vase of flowers and a candle, and we all piled onto the sofa in a big family sandwich; we watched the candle flicker, and said whatever came into our heads to say.
At suppertime, I moved one of the pictures – the one I love best of him, wearing an orange life jacket, arms flung out like Zorba the Greek – to his empty seat and put candles either side. We broke open a bottle of champagne, put on some of Taid’s favourite music and toasted him. Everyone said something as we went around the table, and everyone lifted their glass and drank – even Benji. The funeral is at the end of this week.
A bad day today – I’ve been feeling tired and weepy and miserable. Rich’s blood test showed a raised inflammatory level, which could be due to some kind of infection or stress. Well, there’s certainly been plenty of that around!
He’s four weeks into his recovery, still sleeping all the time and starting to stoop as the scar pulls. So cruel, for him to have to suffer through all this grief and trouble, just as he’s trying to heal. So cruelly unfair, all of it.
Rhys is sorting out all the death details and paperwork – fair play to him. The funeral director came around to the house the other day to discuss the funeral, and Rich and Rhys, and their sister Cath, sat in with him. I didn’t have to do any of that organizing, thankfully, as I’m not sure I could take on one more thing at the moment. I’m not working on the soap or the cream the way that I’d like to at the moment, as I’m occupied with the milk and the kefir.
I’m getting up now at 5 a.m. and working straight through the day until 10:20 p.m., when I fall into bed exhausted and sleep deeply, dreamlessly, unless Benji wakes me up crying in the night. Joli offered to milk for me the other night and I refused, almost panicked – I just milk, I must milk; milking is what I do, morning and night; it’s what I have to hold on to. I worked so hard to get to the point where I can do it all on my own, I’m almost afraid to stop now. Afraid that if I do, it’ll break me.
10 May 2012
I’ve taken to reading my beloved farm landscape like a set of personal runes, scanning it for meaning and significance each morning as I head towards the barn, and home again in the evening. On a particularly dismal day, the sky was silver-grey, the sun a flat disc nearly obscured, only a faintly brighter silver.
I smiled in recognition – cloudy, but still present. Just. A perfect description for my own state. Another day, brighter, gave me bands of blue sky over the sea – increasing clarity. I can’t tell whether my state comes first and affects the clouds, or the clouds affect my state, but they always seem to match, perfectly.
Today is the day of Taid’s funeral. I’m dreading it, mostly because of Rich. It’s such a long day – the car comes to pick us up at 11 a.m., we drive to the chapel, have the service there, then the long drive to the crematorium, service there, then the drive to the hotel where the buffet will be held, then the drive home.
I dread the thought of Rich standing in the rain, being pushed past his endurance by all the well-intentioned people trying to comfort him – who siphon off the last of his energy, without realizing or meaning to….
Yesterday he had an appointment with Dr Mark Thomas, our brilliant local GP. Dr Mark is so popular that it’s nearly impossible to get to see him, but worth it when you do. One month after surgery, Rich just hasn’t been feeling right. He’s still so incredibly exhausted, and has a strange pain when he lies down at night, although the pain doesn’t seem to trouble him during the day. He’s dizzy when he stands up – it seems that he has low blood pressure.
I went in with him – I always do go to his appointments, if I possibly can – and was expecting to hear
Dr Mark make reassuring noises about the amount of time that recovering from surgery takes.
But he wasn’t reassuring – not at all. In fact, he took Rich’s blood pressure, and it was so low that he took it twice more, just to be sure. Then he ordered an emergency blood test and started mentioning the possibility of Addison’s disease. Very rare, he said. He’s only seen it once in 25 years, but just to be sure….
My stomach clenched as he listed the possible causes – a rapid withdrawal from steroids, an operation or insult to the body, an auto-immune issue… Rich has had them all. The doctor phoned to make sure that the blood test could be processed right away, then looked at us levelly. ‘The office is closing for training this afternoon,’ he said. ‘But if the result of this blood test is positive, I’ll give it to the after-hours doctor. He’ll contact you, and you’ll need to go straight to the hospital.’
My ears started to ring, and I could hardly hear what he was saying. A home blood-pressure monitor – yes, we could buy one, right away. He wanted to know the results of our ongoing monitoring tomorrow. ‘We can’t,’ Rich said. ‘Tomorrow is my father’s funeral.’
I cut him off. ‘Of course we can,’ I said firmly. ‘I’ll phone from the car as we follow the hearse.’
I went off to buy a blood-pressure monitor and put in the new prescription for Rich’s pain medication, while he went to have his bloods taken. Hope against hope, he may be suffering a bad reaction from the previous pain pills, and that’s all it is. Please, please. I locked myself in the car and cried hard for about two minutes, then wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and drove to the pharmacy. This couldn’t happen. It couldn’t. Not after everything we’ve been through. Please.
We didn’t tell any of the kids what had happened when we got home, only that Rich had low blood pressure. As soon as I had a private moment, I dashed to the computer and looked up Addison’s disease. I felt icy cold as I scanned the article quickly – chronic, immune system turning on the adrenal glands; life-long medication required. Surely, surely not.
I went into the living room, where Rich was installed on the sofa in front of the fire. He looked up at me – so pale, so grey, it twisted my heart. He knew right away what I’d been doing.
‘You looked it up?’ he said. I nodded.
‘Tell me?’
I put my head on his shoulder. ‘I can’t,’ I whispered. ‘Do you want to read it? I’ll bring in the laptop.’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘I’d rather not know. I don’t have it, anyway.’
‘You’d better not,’ I said.
We waited all day for the phone call, and finally, at 5 p.m., my control broke and I phoned the after-hours doctor. He’d never heard of Rich, and no results had come through. A good sign, surely? Or just bureaucratic incompetence? I’ll phone first thing in the morning. Please, please…
The next day was like some kind of bad play. Old friends – well-wishers – showed up with flowers for Taid, while I was still on the phone to the out-of-hours doctor, and of course my call was so important that I couldn’t hang up immediately.
Then the funeral director arrived and was led into the room, as well. It was so full there was almost no place for him to sit. Then Elly phoned Ceris to ask for a lift home from Swansea University, where she’s studying psychology, and Ceris, who’d agreed to keep an eye on the supper, came to tell me that she was going to have to set out on the two-hour drive to get Elly. She passed me the timer that would beep when the bread rolls were ready.
Meanwhile, Joli and I had to go out to milk – the goats must be milked morning and night, tragedies or emergencies notwithstanding. It was getting later and later, and we know by now that going out to milk after 6 p.m. means we won’t be eating until 8.
I took the bread timer into the room full of company, waved at everyone, apologized, and asked Rich to keep an eye on the bread. Then I sat down, in the blessed warmth, and enjoyed a chat with our visitors for just a few minutes – such a luxury, and enough to make me very, very late, but it was irresistible.
Then we finally went out to milk. Ceris and Elly phoned in to report; they were driving cross-country, making their way back to the farm slowly, stopping off at emergency rooms and out-of-hours GP surgeries, as Elly hadn’t been feeling well. The stress of Rich’s illness and Taid’s death has been telling on all the children as well. I feel like I can barely help them with all that’s going on; goodness knows how they’re coping.
I can only imagine what the girls’ trip home must have been like – they were still not back when Rich and I went to bed at 10:30 p.m. Poor Ceris – she’s been so stalwart lately, and struggling with her own issues as she goes through teacher training. Poor Elly. Poor all of us.
Next day Ceris asked Rich what was wrong with me, and Rich said, ‘She’s just hammered (exhausted).’ Sweetly, Ceris offered to do the school run for me, a trip that would involve leaving at 7:45 a.m., taking Joli on a 15-minute trip to Cardigan, then swinging back to pick up Benj at 8:15 and taking him 10 minutes in the other direction.
I stared at her blankly. ‘Are you sure?’ I wouldn’t ask anyone else to take it on – it’s a lengthy car journey. I always time the morning milking so that I’m finished just in time to jump in the car.
I’m sure,’ she said. She went on to pick Joli up later in the day, when Joli missed her bus home, and collected Benji from jujitsu. Bless her. Ceris has had an unbelievably hard day. Only slightly less hard than mine – because she doesn’t know what I know. Or what I dread.
How Ceris and Elly will get through the funeral today, I don’t know. Or Rich. Benji is being picked up by his bio-dad, so he’s okay. Not going to the funeral, as we want him to remember Taid as he was, and not be frightened or upset.
Later… Just had the news from the doctor – Rich is clear! Thank God! No Addison’s disease. No anything else, for that matter. Infection wise, that is. Just a bad reaction to his pain medication. I burst into tears, from sheer relief. I thought that it just couldn’t be – surely we’re due for a break. Thank God, thank goodness. He had all the symptoms, and all the causes, and I thought… but never mind, it’s not true. I feel so happy and relieved; the rest of the day will seem like a picnic. Seems odd to say, but everything is put into perspective now. Addison’s – no, unthinkable. At least one cup has passed from us. Thank you, Lord.
I only remember snippets of the funeral. Raining – umbrellas folded, shaking off raindrops, as people came into the chapel. The trip afterwards in the big black car to the crematorium. Rich beside me, blessedly solid and warm. The finality of the coffin sliding behind the velvet curtains….
13 May 2012
In the personal rune set that the farm has become for me, today everything is sunny and newly washed. The sea is the brightest blue and the sky completely clear. Exactly! I feel exactly the same.
Rich had his first really good day yesterday, five weeks after the operation. He slept well and had the energy to be up and on his feet all day. Hallelujah! We may pay for it today, but it’s a sign that he’s finally well and truly healing. I’m still so deeply relieved that he doesn’t have Addison’s disease that the mere thought can bring tears to my eyes.
Rhys and Cath came around to sort out Taid’s flat. It took all day, as they sifted through clothes, books and family treasures.
I’ve been angry at Taid, I realize. It’s a cliché of the grieving process, and so I resist it. But it’s true. I’ve been angry at him for leaving us, for leaving an empty chair at the table, for leaving the empty flat echoing with his footsteps.
But yesterday, as I clutched my ever-present cup of tea and seized a minute during the milking to pop out of the barn and stare out over our beloved swoop of land down to the sea, watching the sun turn the water into flat beaten copper with a glaze of apricot, I was suddenly visited with a flush of release. Of gratitude, and forgiveness. It felt almost as though Taid was standing there at my shoulder. I felt love for the fierce old man, and a sincere wish that w
herever he was now, he was happy and where he wanted to be.
Suddenly I saw a vision of him as he must have been in his prime – black-bearded and broad-shouldered, striding up to the college lectern in his flowing robes, looking every bit the teacher he’d been all his life. Then I had a vivid mental image of him on the beach, trousers rolled up to his knees, walking hand in hand with a slim, young Biddy – Richard’s mother, the girls’ grandmother – as in a photo I’d once seen. They looked so happy and so young.
And then, abruptly, it seemed as though I could feel Taid’s presence at my elbow, seeking, pressing, looking out over the view with me. He used to love this view as much as I do, and we’d often stop together, he in his purple plaid coat and hat, walking stick in hand, me wrapped in layers of fleece, headed for the barn. We’d stand silently, the pair of us, looking out together over the green and russet patchwork of trees and fields, the rolling curves of the mountains opening to the sea.
I could feel him standing there with me now, and I knew what he wanted.
‘I will, Taid, I’ll take care of them,’ I promised him. ‘All the people you love. And the farm. I’ll stay here, and help look after it all.’
This is my place now: the wet and rolling and green hills, the white farmhouse with its plume of smoke, the sheep with the black faces, the goat on the weather vane.
And the sea. Always, the sea.
10 July 2012
I spend a lot of time crying in the barn. For some reason, it’s an incredibly soothing place to cry – there’s no-one to see me there and to be upset by the fact that I’m crying, and the thumping of the milking machine in the background is steadying.
Secrets from Chuckling Goat Page 16