The things we do for love

My grandfather was a renowned obstetrician, loved and adored by his wife and two daughters. He outlived my grandmother by 3 years and sold our farm when she died. In his time he never had to use a washing machine, go to the supermarket, cook, wash-up, change the sheets, or clean a bathroom. He did know how to poach an egg. After my grandmother’s death my mum and aunt cared for him. Each week night mum and I drove the 30 minutes to his flat, prepared his dinner and kept him company. Mum was working and I must have been at university. You knew grandpa was home from the blare of the television as you climbed the stairs to his front door. He had a hearing aid, but he didn’t think to use it watching telly. It was understood that he would never go into a nursing home.

Salt’s 98-year-old grandmother, Mabel, lives with Salt’s mother. Mabel also has a hearing aid and a walking frame with wheels, which Squid likes to use. She remembers names, what activities you had planned, knows the political landscape and displays deep empathy for her loved ones. She watches all sport, her cricket knowledge rivalled only by Wisden and Jim Maxwell.

Last week my car broke down and Squid and I needed to stay with Salt’s mum. In the morning Squid and I ate our breakfast together on the floor in the kitchen. Salt’s mum waited to hear the television in Mabel’s room which indicated that a cup of tea would be welcome. Salt’s mum boiled the kettle, brewed the Tetley tea, added one tablet of sugarine and a dash of Farmer’s Best and at the side of the white cup and saucer she placed a teaspoon and a Nice biscuit. I watched Salt’s mum take it to Mabel’s room and felt a heaviness weigh down on my lower throat and chest. This routine, exactly how Mabel likes it, happens every morning. Salt’s mum showers and then prepares Mabel’s breakfast, exactly how she likes it.

No-one else can offer this tenderness and the endless unrecognised acts of caring that ensure that Mabel is happy, dignified and safe. These relationships can be fraught. The dedication of caring for elderly parents demands a selflessness and consistency that is similar to that of caring for a small child. There is no escape just a desire to escape. You can love them deeply and at times not like them, and the context requires patience and deep breathing as well as remembrance. I loved my grandfather very much but I felt I needed to be with my mum to help hold her up while she held him up and did everything exactly how he liked it. It can be done because there will be an ending, and because there is an ending we offer the tenderness of a cup of tea in the morning with a Nice biscuit on the side.

Chaos and Christianity

In one of Salt’s previous lives he was a youth worker at a church. Salt wasn’t raised in the church he turned to it at a time when the ground was quietly falling beneath his feet. He studied theology and with his enquiring, analytical mind he sought to explore the gaps explained with answers of faith and asked questions in those places that are deliberately and blindingly set aside. The bravery of Salt was to acknowledge his internal discomfort, to make that discomfort public and admit to an informed faithlessness. As his honesty reverberated through his church, some of his friends were unable to support him. Some, of course, were able to stay with him and we count many ministers and Christians as our dear friends.

As kids my brothers and I went to church on Christmas mornings. The minister who took the service lived on the farm next to ours. I always tried very hard to listen to the sermon, but I never lasted more than a few sentences. I was usually preoccupied with watching the people around me who I hadn’t seen for a year, and because the minister was our neighbour I figured we were all a bit closer to God than everyone else. One afternoon the minister appeared in his running gear at the farm’s front door – short shorts, sleeveless top, cap on. My grandmother didn’t recognise him, and notoriously said, “Oh, of course minister, I didn’t recognise you without your clothes on.” She was mortified.

On the drives home from Sydney following by brother’s death I’d have mock conversations in my head with a couple of Salt’s Christian friends. I feared they might try to explain my brother’s death in a godly way – it was God’s will – there is a higher plan. I have numerous angry one liners prepared for that pitiful reasoning. I’ve never had to use them. In marriage, birth and death we were prayed for, and I’ve read sentences in cards that I’ve cherished and felt nourished by. I don’t mind being prayed for if it helps to make sense of the chaos and eases the dissonance.

Finding Salt was like finding a rare gem. I wanted to throw my arms in the air with celebratory yells and halleluiahs, like a man who has struck gold, or witnessed a miracle. Salt’s rarity lies in his du-occupancy of holding values and goodness akin to those praised by the church without the dogma. We didn’t go to church on Christmas morning last year, but we did go to Christmas carols. Squid was meant to be sleeping, but her smiles and eyes lit up at the sight of the candles and the sound of the voices. I believe in chaos and I sometimes pretend that I also believe in magic.

Thanks be to contradictions

It appears my much longed for Spring and subsequent Summer is stunted. Its relief has been but mild, and I’m afraid that February will pass us by and Autumn shall return too soon.

Whilst I’m not of religious persuasion I’m reminded of a prayer, by Leunig, which gives thanks for tomatoes. With the rain has come an abundance of produce and our humble Apollos have thrived, so let us give thanks for the contradictions of seasons and the space that the garden provides for proper deep breathing and hands in the earth.

‘It is time to plant tomatoes. Dear God, we praise this
fruit and give thanks for its life and evolution. We
salute the tomato: cheery, fragrant morsel, beloved
provider, survivor and thriver and giver of life. Giving
and giving and giving. Plump with summer’s joy.
The scent of its stem is summer’s joy, is promise and
rapture. Its branches breathe perfume of promise
and rapture. Giving and giving and giving.
            Dear God, give strength to the wings and knees
of pollinating bees, give protection from hailstorms,
gales and frosts, give warm days and quenching
rains. Refresh and adorn our gardens and our tables.
Refresh us with tomatoes.
            Rejoice and rejoice! Celebrate the scarlet soul of
winter sauces. Behold the delicious flavour! Behold
the oiled vermilion moons that ride and dive in olive-
bobbing seas of vinegared lettuce. Let us rejoice!
Let this rejoicing be our thanks for tomatoes.’