Elegy - death at a distance
Jean is dying, my mother said on the phone. Her
sister, my aunt, lying, dying, in a nursing home bed. Giving up the battle
to live in that scary place. After the first few years she stopped making
friends. She'd get close then they'd die. Nothing but heartache. Dying is
how people live there, leave there. She had no place else to go, after the
stroke.
Only had one leg anyway. Nearly 20 years in that
small room, in that bed, listening to the dirge, to the dying. Her absent
leg aching more each day, each month, each year. Then the other leg went
bad, deadly bad. It will take a while, my mother said.
I phoned. They said she was sleeping, she was poorly, did I
know? I need to talk I said I'm on the other side of the world. I'm at
work. Your night is my morning. Can't just call back later, can't visit on
the weekend. She's sleeping, trying to eat, seeing the nurse, try another
day.
The last time we went to the other side of the
world, we didn't visit. Although I'd promised. We shuttled between suburbs
and countryside, on visiting duty: inlaws, mothers, brothers, sisters. No
time for aunts. Not even Jean.
Other years we'd all visit, me and the boys:
three shades of Adonis in that dale of decrepit dames. Other years we'd
pour two sherries for her nightcap before we left. Other years she wave us
off at the door, tears pouring down scraggy rouged cheeks.
This year she cried when I rang from the airport to say
sorry, bawled when I said we didn't find time to visit, sorry, and we're
off now, there is no time. Where were you, she sobbed. Every day I waited
and waited, she snivelled. I cried too, trapped in a vortex of everyday
life. Sorrow on the line.
Did she weep more when they took her leg? I've
never known. You don't ask. She was thirteen. For the next 73 years she
k-shlupped when she walked, dragging the wooden leg up behind. Never wore
shorts or swimsuits. Her body always hidden.
I stayed with her often when I
was young. I'd sleep in her bed. I wouldn't cuddle up, scared to touch was missing,
feel a wound.. She'd invite the neighbor's kid, someone
my own age, she'd say, to entertain me. He'd recite 'The Man from
Snowy
River". I'd cringe. She'd smile. Did anyone recite poetry for her? With one leg?
On the phone, at the airport, I trembled as she wept. Wept like my mother
did when their father said no, no, she couldn't go nursing. My mother could
stay home with Jean and do dressmaking, so Jean could have a living too.
So they made gowns for debutantes and bridesmaids
and brides. Jean never wore one, never danced, never caught the bouquet.
My mother left in a white one.
Then there was us kids. When we grew up they grew apart. Something bad
happened. Neither said what. Enough to stop them speaking. Or they got too
old to bother to bite back the bitterness of being made to stay, of being
unable to go. Turned grudges into barricades that hardened with the debris
of time.
Jean lay dying but my mother still wouldn't call.
It’d do more harm than good, she told me, the emptiness of her house
echoing down the line. As if the dying wasn’t final.
I phoned Jean again. I'm no good, she said, I've
had it, my leg isn't there but it hurts too much.
Do you remember that kid with his bloody poetry,
I said, and heard her smile.
They wouldn’t put her on when I phoned the next
day or the next or the next. Then someone good held the phone to Jean’s
ear.
Silence on the line. She was busy battling pain.
Silence, sorrow.
Then, who? she croaked. What? she groaned. Who is
it? she whispered, I've had it.
We shared sorrow on the line, through the heaving
deep silence wrought by the weight of the oceans on the cable, through the
whistle of the galaxies in the satellite signals.
Sorrow silence separation on the line.
© Sandra Meredith
(2008)
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Gap ('... remember, it's all in the gaps..' - Dai Harding, 2008)
