Part 14

Detour

I had almost completed this book when I began to explore the idea of publishing this manuscript. My initial purpose in writing this book was for my husband Graham to read it. As an engineer he was a very practical man. Only what he could see with his own eyes was real. If he did not see it, it did not exist. Because my deficits were invisible to him, he determined that I had none. I had hoped that my story would give him insight into what I still felt and what was still missing for me. Every time we met old friends or new acquaintances he would proudly announce that I had had a stroke but was now completely recovered from it and that I had no continuing disabilities.

Unfortunately, he never had the chance to read my words. In June 2002, Graham was diagnosed with cancer and my priorities changed immediately. The family all rallied around to support him. Surgery was suggested as the best option and we went ahead with this in the September. The report from the surgeon was very hopeful. He told us he had successfully removed all the cancer and that Graham had a good chance of beating it and having a full recovery. At the three months post surgery review we all held our breaths and were thrilled to hear that there was no sign of the cancer returning and all the tests were clear. Graham was looking fit and well, working again and enjoying life with his beloved CFA and our family.

As the six months review drew near we were quietly optimistic although still slightly anxious. The doctor had told us if every test was clear at this time it was likely that the cancer would not return at all. Our joy at being told that all tests were clear and that there was no evidence of the cancer was overwhelming. We left the doctor’s rooms in high spirits. The surgeon had reassured us all was well and to plan ahead for the future. Graham was planning to finish up his work and retire in the next couple of months. We raced out and bought ourselves a new caravan, ready to take with us on our extended trip around Australia. Our old caravan had done its duty taking our large family for many unforgettable holidays throughout Victoria. Now we could enjoy the luxury of a caravan built for only two.

We decided first though to visit our daughter Fiona and her husband in California and enjoy a leisurely time in the Napa Valley tasting as many as possible of the local wines. Then off to the Canyon Lands by car to explore the incredible scenery I had discovered there earlier. We had been invited to stay with friends in Chicago and had mapped a course across Canada to Alaska and a sailing down the Inner Passage passing by the glaciers and the small islands that dotted our route. Our passports were in order and we were counting the days to the start of the rest of our lives.

It came as a great shock to all of us when six weeks after being given the good news that he was free of cancer that Graham suddenly and unexpectedly died. He was gone and the bubble of our hopes and dreams burst around me exploding into tiny fragments. My expectations for our future evaporated in a moment.

Dark days

The dark night of bereavement and grief settled down around us. As a family we all gathered together to help each other through this sad time. The families returned from overseas. Sandra and her family from Samoa and Fiona and her husband from America came to join with us in this time of mourning. We managed to gain support and strength to survive those first days comforting each other as we had to come to terms with our loss. The daughters had lost their father and the grandchildren had lost their Poppa. It was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I had lost my friend of forty seven years and my life partner of forty years. There had been no time to say our goodbyes or even any awareness that time was running out for him. So much we had wanted to say now could never be said. It was all too late. I felt so lost and alone. I revisited how I felt when I had had the stroke and relived the pain and suffering of loss and death of the old self.

All the colours of my life drained away. I felt I needed to hide away and took to wearing only black clothes just like the stagehands in the old Chinese operas. They were always present in the background, moving the sets around but appeared invisible to the audience. The latter’s attention was held by the colourfully clothed actors and followed their actions. The stagehands in their black outfits did not exist and neither it seemed to me did I. The blacker and larger my clothes were, the easier it was for me to become lost in their depths and disappear from sight.

It took some time – months not days – for Rae and Alli to try to persuade me to introduce some colour into my life and to learn to celebrate that I was still alive. I realised I felt cheated. I had waited so long for our retirement when we would be able to have time to do all the things we had planned and now it was never going to happen. I believed Graham would be feeling even worse than I felt. I was still here and therefore could still carry out our dreams but for him they were gone forever. We had thought we had at least another twenty years of life expectancy ahead of us. Now the grandchildren had no Poppa but at least they had me to continue our relationships.

Memories of our life together would come flooding in unannounced and I would feel myself turning around to share that thought with Graham only to realise he was no longer here to share it with me. Those memories were mine alone now. If I wanted to share memories with others then I had to share experiences with them. I would have to start living again and forging new relationships with the family.

Silver linings

Life goes on for the living even if we wish it would not. The sun still rises each day and sets each night, and no matter how hard I try to hold my breath, I still keep breathing. The first few weeks after Graham died are still a blur. I have no idea what I did or where I went. However, as the days passed by I realised I had to start looking for some positives in our lives.

How incredibly lucky that Graham, two weeks before he died had had the opportunity to be present at Latrobe University for the conferring of degrees. Our daughter, Fiona was presented with her Doctor of Philosophy qualification. We have some wonderful photographs of the two of them together. Fiona dressed in her brightly coloured academic robes and her floppy black velvet beret and her father with the broadest smile lighting up his face.

How blessed we were that his death had been so sudden. He did not have to experience the chemotherapy and its harrowing side effects. We had been spared the heartbreaking time of perhaps watching him slowly succumbing to his cancer. Dying a little every day before our eyes and knowing that we were helpless to change the outcome for him.

His death was swift and terrible without any of us having the opportunity to be with him or to have a chance to say goodbye. It still upsets me when people around me complain about the discomforts of aging. They are depressed because they can no longer do the various activities that they once could do. My response to these unhappy souls is that getting older is better than the alternative. At least you are still alive.

The right moves

After Graham’s death I had plenty of decisions to make. It no longer seemed such a good idea to move to Warburton as we had planned. I did not want to be alone on that large block of land, with an hour’s drive separating me from family and friends and all my activities. It was far better if I continued to live in our house that had been our home for forty years. It held many memories for me and I was not ready to move on and leave it all behind. I needed to consider that Alli would marry and move out. It was important that if I lived in the house alone I needed to address a number of safety issues.

With help from the rest of the family Alli and I began to renovate the house. The first item to go was our carpet to expose once again our beautiful Australian hardwood floors. We had them polished for twenty years and then covered for twenty years – now it was time to see them again. We found that changing the house gave us an opportunity to find ways to work through our grief. Alli’s method was to forcefully tear large strips off the wallpaper that decorated our hallway. ‘I hate this damn wallpaper!’ Little by little the hallway walls were cleaned and ready to paint.

I decided to prepare the timber floors for re-polishing. My two sons-in-law had lifted off the old vinyl tiles only to discover that the tar paper under them had been stuck to the floor boards for forty years. It seemed a fitting penance for me to undertake. On my hands and knees on the floor patiently and gently scraping at each floorboard with the head of a small screwdriver to remove the sticky tar without damaging the surface of the timber. I had survived my stroke, but Graham with all the expectations that he was cured had not survived the assault on his body.

Over the next two years Alli and I worked hard to update the house. We changed the bathroom layout to include a walk in shower incorporating anchorage points for future handles. This would be much safer for me when I was alone instead of having the shower over the bath. I found climbing over the high edge of the bath could be quite hazardous. We also replaced the bath with another with a large bench around it so that I could sit down on it if I needed to.

The kitchen was next on our list. The cupboard doors below the bench height were removed and large drawers were installed instead. I was now able to see the contents of each drawer and remove items without fear of dropping everything. I no longer needed to keep replacing all the crockery that I had broken. The only remaining cupboards in the kitchen were at eye level allowing me to see my hand at all times. We had new lights installed to illuminate the dark corners and the ageing plumbing was updated. With a fresh coat of paint masking the old mission brown statement our house moved from the seventies to the new millenium.