Winter quickly disappeared in the Samoan heat and humidity, and I celebrated the first anniversary of my stroke in the tropical sunshine in Apia. We cooled off in the pale aqua waters of the lagoons surrounding the island and snorkeled over the coral reefs, watching the colourful fish lazily moving with the tide. Enthusiasm and passion kept the pain at bay, although it was quite a balancing act. The heat and the humidity combined were a much greater force to contend with than either one on its own.
Since we had first been married we had often purchased the magazine, Scientific American, to follow the latest research in our individual areas of interest. Mine was medical, and Graham’s engineering and astronomy. We both shared a common interest in articles on mathematics and geology. When the editors of the magazine fi nally put together a book on continental drift in 1971, we had to have it. The book began historically with a summary of the early theories. In particular those of Alfred L.Wegener, a German meteorologist, who in the 1920s predicted that a geological fault existed between Greenland and Ellesmere Island. He discovered a great lateral displacement along the length of this channel, proof that the continents moved and were not rigid.
Today it is an accepted fact that the surface of the earth is seen as slowly deformable and the continents are rafts floating on a sea of the earth’s mantle. There is evidence to show that the continents have repeatedly collided, joined, broken and separated in different patterns, growing larger or smaller in the process.
My father was also fascinated by geology. As a civil engineering student at Melbourne University in the 1920s, one of his professors had set the students an exercise to prove that Wegener’s theory was incorrect, because it did not follow the traditional view of the day. I remember as a young child visiting Tower Hill at Warrnambool, Victoria, and having my father explain in great detail the nature of the extinct volcanoes found there.
In 1973, while touring in our caravan we became volcano enthusiasts and explored the triple coned Lake Surprise at Mt. Eccles, an extinct volcano in south west Victoria. Carrying our gas lantern we entered the dark chamber of a lava cave, followed closely by our four children whose ages ranged from two to seven years. We stared in amazement at the black basalt walls, formed as the outer edges of the lava flow cooled first and became solid, while the remaining liquid lava had continued to flow on down the mountainside. Perhaps it was no wonder that our eldest daughter became a geologist.
In Samoa, Graham and I were able to continue our long time interest in geology and plate tectonics as the islands of Samoa were created by volcanic action. They are situated at the northern end of the deep Tongan Trench where three continental plates intersect. We had the opportunity to explore in depth the evidence of all this when we met up with a geologist on the largest island, Savaii. We spent a day in his
company examining the lava flows and the formation of the landscape. We were already planning a return trip to climb the latest volcano which had erupted in 1911.
We finished our holiday with a couple of days in Auckland, New Zealand. We took a ferry trip to Rangatki, a six hundred year old volcano, just off Auckland harbour in Hauraki Bay. We hiked up the winding track of basalt to the volcano’s summit and took the path around the rim of the crater. Then we crawled through the lava caves with their deep dark interiors, following the lava flow down the mountainside and back to the beach.
Part 10
Love links
If I had ever considered that parenthood was a great and wonderful time of growth, exploration and devotion now I know that being a grandparent is even better. I remember reading somewhere that grandchildren were so great, if only we had bypassed the children and had the grandchildren first.
Perhaps it is because we have already gone through the hard business of being parents, having to learn as we go and taking responsibility for our children’s development, that now with our grandchildren we can relax and enjoy their company, free of this responsibility.
As grandparents we can give our grandchildren our unconditional, uncritical and constant loving. One cannot always announce to the general public their great pride in their children, but there are no limits to the pride of grandparents. For everyone knows, and it cannot be disputed, that one’s grandchildren are the best, the brightest, the cleverest and the fairest in the land and this without the slightest hint of prejudice.
There is a double joy in being a grandparent. Not only do we have the opportunity to forge a relationship with our grandchildren, we can begin a new relationship with our children. No longer are they separated from us by the generation gap, now they are on the same side of the fence as we are. We are all parents and are responsible for the lives of our children.
The joy I experience each time I see young Matthew, our newest grandchild and first grandson cannot be surpassed. We watch in wonder as this little person explores his world around him. Rae, his mother, does a wonderful job in taking care of him. She is tuned to his moods and behaviour. She instinctively knows just what to do to settle him or get him to sleep. His smile lights up his face and his chuckles fill the room when he catches sight of his mother.
He delights in his five bigger cousins and follows their every action around the room. Already he knows that he is more like them, these little beings that move so quickly and whose speech is of a higher pitch than that of the adults around him. Sunday is Dad’s day, and Steve takes care of his young son. Perhaps they take a visit to the local hardware store for secret men’s business, or dressed in matching overalls do repairs about the house. The image this conjures up to me of young Matt at nine weeks of age in his work overalls and T-shirt actually helping his father has me in fits of laughter. However, the bonding of these two is palpable and the foundations for a great father-son relationship are already being laid.
Paige, at three years of age, is a delight to engage in conversation. One day when her mother was at work and I was in charge, out came the pencils and paper.
‘Draw me a house, Gran,’ she asked, so I started one immediately. ‘No,’ she said, ‘You have to draw your house at Warburton.’
I began again, first folding the paper vertically into four, with two wide and two narrow segments. On each part I sketched a face of the house. Then together we drew doors and windows, and added coloured curtains at each window. Paige suggested we write a story about the house.
‘This is the window of the snug. Here the cosy fire keeps us warm on the cold nights. Here is the front door to the hallway and the big staircase that takes us up to the bedrooms. This is the window beside Paige’s special bed so she can see the
garden,’ she dictated to me.
Then by folding the page we created a three dimensional house. I was very proud of my handiwork until Paige turned the paper over and exclaimed, ‘But Gran, you haven’t done all the rooms inside.’
I am still trying to work out how to create every wall of every room and every floor space of a two storey house on a single sheet of paper.
I really miss the three grandchildren in Samoa. It has been so hard not to be able to see them each week and to be part of their lives as they are growing up. I use email and snail mail, and of course the telephone, to keep in touch, and look forward to visiting them again. For Christmas, I spent hours of fun designing and creating a wardrobe of clothes for each of their baby dolls. I was thrilled to discover that my present was well received and has kept Emily, Lauren and two and a half year old Stephanie happily occupied inside the house during the wet season.
The joy and pleasure I gain from interacting with the grandchildren is tremendous. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to watch them grow and see their personalities develop. There is nothing better than having a conversation with each of them and to hear their views on life. I treasure these times I have with them and I celebrate that I am alive to enjoy the relationships that we are forming together. It is certainly a very successful means of distracting my mind from the painful effects of my stroke.
Visual
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br /> One of my main distractions from pain and greatest enthusiasms in my life has been in following our daughter, Alli, in her career path in photography and graphic design. It was just a few weeks after my stroke that Alli needed to complete her folio for her final year in Photography at RMIT. It was to be a collection of abstract images taken at night around the three main Melbourne freeways.
The hard steel structures and solid concrete beams that by daylight, looked functional but unattractive, were transformed at night into light and evocative structures. It was with great interest that I joined her as she explored the various walkways beneath, beside and above the freeways. She used blur and the constant moving of her zoom lens to produce image associations similar to that a speeding motorist would experience. She photographed them against the black canvas of the night sky. Each object, whether it was a large pillar, a pedestrian bridge, or steel suspension wires, became an extraordinary and transient work of art with glowing colours and radiant patterns of light.
Her final images were stunning and Alli sailed through her degree with distinction. As a result of this folio she realized that her greatest desire was to continue her exploration of design in graphics, and the following year was accepted into the Bachelor of Graphic Design course at RMIT.
I am learning so much as I watch her incorporate the good design principles into each of her new assignments. She has given me a new way of seeing, a different way of looking at the world and I can carry this knowledge with me when I use my camera. It does not have to be confined to something as large as a sunset. If I look closely I can find beauty in the smallest detail. The light shining in a particular way or the texture of bark on a tree. All these things give me pleasure.
I have learnt how important the composition of an image is. Concentrating on creating a focal point to draw in the viewer’s eye and developing an awareness and sensitivity to light helps to create the perfect shot. There needs to be a balance between all these elements to produce the right atmosphere and ambience.
Alli was required to produce a series of photographic images taken only in the central business district of Melbourne. The resulting images were to be used as a booklet welcoming tourists to Melbourne. The brief required that the images should represent an image that was familiar to the overseas visitor and that would evoke memories of their own cities. It would also provide an opportunity to showcase Melbourne as a multicultural city.
Alli was concerned that she would be unable to carry out this allotted task as her work prevented her from spending time exploring the city in depth. I pulled out my photographs of London and Rome, taken when I toured Europe many years earlier, and showed her several English arcades and streetscapes, reminiscent of Melbourne. I offered to escort her to my favourite parts of our city where such images could be found.
Many, many years earlier when I started working at Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute I would take the opportunity each day to explore a different route through the city to reach my tram route. I loved the arcades and little lanes that connected the major streets and spent plenty of time discovering them all. Later on, I joined a walking tour exploring in detail the history of these small thoroughfares and had even borrowed books from the local library on the subject. All I had been waiting for was someone to share my interest in this.
We had but two hours one Sunday morning to achieve the impossible and succeeded. Alli taking sixty photos of various parts of Melbourne while I ferried her around in the car and found suitable parking. Then it was off to the photo laboratory to have the films processed and home to chose the perfect images. By nine-o’clock the following morning the assignment was complete and ready to be handed in on time. Alli was thrilled when she received the highest accolade possible for her work. A high distinction would have been a perfect score, but she did better than that – an elephant stamp on her assessment – the equivalent of a gold medal in achievement.
Part 11
A nip or two
In September I visited Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute to catch up with my friends and work mates there. It was rather strange to witness how they reacted to the news that I had had a stroke. One good friend, an Oncologist, was very concerned about my continuing problem with central nerve pain. He suggested that I visit a friend of his who was an expert in treating pain, and provided me with her phone number.
I made contact with Dr Helen Austin, Medical Director at Caritas Christi Hospice, and made arrangements to visit her. I had always been interested in the concept of a Hospice where dignity and respect are foremost in the treatment and support of the terminally ill. I had discussed this concept with the Chaplain Service at Peter Mac. some years earlier, as I believed the introduction of a Hospice at the Institute would be beneficial to all.
I attended Caritas Christi and felt very much like a fraud.
I had so much to be thankful for. I might have intractable pain, but I was still alive and not terminally ill. As I entered the building the peacefulness and serenity that surrounded me was overwhelming. The floors were all carpeted and flower arrangements were in abundance. The staff moved quietly around the wards and looked after their charges with gentle care and support.
Helen Austin was a delightful person and I warmed to her immediately. She was very interested in my problem and assured me that there were plenty of options available for the treatment of this pain. Helen’s first suggestion was that I keep a Pain Journal, so I could note the pain at any particular time and see how it fluctuated. At first this was very hard to do. I had spent the last twelve months concentrating on everything else, to the almost total exclusion of this pain. Now I had to bring it into focus and consciously rate this pain on a scale from one to ten. I managed to train myself do this, finally becoming aware of the pain but emotionally detaching myself from it. Each time I opened the Pain Journal, I read the two quotes that I had written that put my life into perspective;
‘Life is a gift, and every moment is a celebration of its miracle.’
Underneath this is a verse from one of my favourite hymns sung at school assembly each morning;
‘Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and thy balm Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire Oh still small voice of calm.’
The first medication that Helen prescribed for me was Dilaudid, a new form of Morphine which, at the time, had only just become available in Australia. I was astounded when I received the medicine from the Pharmacist. I was handed a large, brown, rectangular shaped glass bottle, reminiscent of the Patent medicine bottle of around 50 years ago. The contents were clearly marked as 473ml. What an odd number! I thought at first it must be a prime number, not rounded up or down, but this turns out not to be so. It is the product of two prime numbers, 11 and 43. What a mystery! A few calculations later, Graham and I worked out that it was a direct conversion from one American Pint.
The glass Dilaudid bottle is so heavy and of such a large and awkward shape that I cannot lift it up to store it in our high medicine cupboard. Instead, it sits on my kitchen bench, more like a bottle of Scotch or a decanter of Port, and I take a mini-nip – actually only a prescribed one millilitre – out of it every few hours.
The relationship between Helen and me is built on mutual trust. I have faith in her that she will use caution, and be circumspect in prescribing the medications for me. I believe in her ability and am confident that in time we will find the solution and reduce the intensity of this pain. Helen trusts me to be responsible in taking the Morphine, and not to exceed the specified one millilitre every four hours dosage. As it is a drug of dependence, the risk of addiction is very high if it is abused.
Windstorms and silken threads
Helen Austin gave me the honour of sharing some of her work concerns with me, and it was wonderful to be treated like an equal, rather than to be dismissed as deficient. Her problem was in endeavouring to support and care for the family of one of her critically ill young patients. We all take it f
or granted that the natural course of events is that we will be around to nurture our children until they are grown, and that they will outlive us. I cannot imagine how devastating it would be for a family to have to accept that they were powerless to change such an outcome.
I have read several books by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross on death and dying, and her book on children was very touching. She began the book with her favorite quote;
‘Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, You would never see the beauty of their carvings.’
I am pulled back to Utah and the Canyon Lands. The punishing and unrelenting forces of nature had sculpted the grandeur of the scenery. Elizabeth explains that children who die young, have already learnt all of their life’s lessons of love, of life and acceptance and do not have to stay here on the earth plane for as long as the rest of us. These children were wise beyond their years and become our teachers in life because they know death and they do not fear it.
I truly believe that my life here is a testing time for me, a time of learning and experiencing many challenges, and at the end of all my trials and tribulations I shall graduate to a spiritual life, enriched by the tests I have undergone. I see death, therefore as an extension of life and not the end of it and myself as continuing to exist after my physical body has expired.
Does the caterpillar have to die for the butterfly to emerge from the cocoon? Or is it the same entity in a different life form? If you look inside the cocoon that the caterpillar spun, and the butterfly has emerged from, there is no corpse, just the empty shell of silken threads. And so it is with us. When we transcend the earthly plane, when we die, our bodies are just the empty shells of ourselves. The butterfly, which is the true essence of our being, is still alive and has flown onto a different plane, a different dimension. Our mortal remains stay here to return to the earth itself. At my father’s memorial service I shared these thoughts with the congregation:
Left of Tomorrow Page 11