"Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls"
What would she write in this circumstance? What I write is this...
We wait for you to die in a house of human museums. We sit, we stand, we stare, we ignore.
Discretely remove ourselves for the routine of feeding, cleaning and medicating. Or stay, forcing observation; fascinated by the crushed tablets in chocolate mousse spooned into an eager mouth, toothless as a baby birds and just as insistent.
We listen to the dozen familiar stories on high rotation. The dogs that died, the time that Adam was flying to Adelaide and Susie demanded to go too. And she did. The time Nan stood in front of Jeff and demanded that he thump her instead of her grandchildren. And how Greggy used to come home after a night at the pub and devour the stew his mother had left on the stove. And the questions about the sociopathic son and the 'where did we go wrongs'. And the songs of praise about how lucky he is to have such a family around him. And the courting days down at Brighton Beach where he and Dotty first made love and where the ashes are to be scattered.
I ask if he's afraid to die. "No, I can't wait" he says.
But according to the British clairvoyant that Number 3 son consulted earlier this year, his wife isn't quite ready yet for him to join her.
So, we wait.
We've fallen into a routine and there's less urgency now.
We get impatient with the 'carers' who won't move him out of his bed and into a chair because he's on palliative care, and we express outrage about quality of life.
He capitulates. Waiting for death makes him more passive. So he sits in his bed with his clogged lungs and his sore arse, hovering between sleep and anxiety, anticipating the next liquidised meal. He drinks thickened orange cordial, pronouncing each spoonful delicious. "One more, one more".
We watch the footy and we read stories, we take photos and post them on Facebook with captions.
We listen. We wait. The oxygen hisses rhythmically in the corner behind the bed. We show him pictures from our recent trip and he says "bugger me, who'd a thought you'd go all the way to Canada!"
 |
| "You two better stick together like shit on a blanket!" |
He tells a story. There's one about how Alf Mooney taught him to drive in a Ford car with a dicky seat and we google some pictures to show him. He says the car we found is a bit too flash and "Alf Mooney was just a working man you know". He reminisces about blokes who were as low as a snake's belly, and winters that were colder than a witch's tit. He wishes he could think clearly and give us business advice. "Girls, you gotta tell 'em. In God we trust, all others pay cash"".
The sun's blazing down outside and it's only 5pm, but it's dinner time and the trolleys of mush come round. The day draws to an end and by half past 6 the medication takes effect and the visitors leave; the lights get dim.
We take great gulps of air. We survived another day to wait until Max dies.
