Lol, I know right?
All of these stories about old couples are starting to make me think it maybe is possible. But it's so amazingly depressing! Especially the stories of one dying... or one's brain turning to mush. I just never want to have to experience that
its not all joy
my grandmother now suffers from severe depression. my grandfather got an infection in a bed sore and refused to admit it because she didnt want to be seen as a poor carer or incapable or caring for someone she loved so much. she candidly speak about how, if she knew itd kill them both for sure, shed park the car on the railroad crossing and wait for a train, because seeing the man she loves so much like this and finding herself so overwhelmed by grief and weariness is just unbearable at times
and for our family too, its just.. horrible
i wrote a poem about my grandfather that i read to my grandmother after shed been properly medicate and was seeing someone to talk about her problems and she reckons its pretty to the number
I feel as though there is a hundred words trapped behind this pen,
a hundred hungry words for hungry eyes caught
like the muddy brown crabs my grandfather sought
before the stroke left him broken and dribbling.
I have memories
solid as the bitumen leading to the mud flats
of my grandfathers bronzed shoulders smeared with creamy zinc
memories of the taste of mud and brackish, the way his body held him
as it now refuses. The man in my mind is bow legged and muddy. The boat
we teeter in is of his own design. There were no blue prints
only a longing for the rivers.
Here in lies a granddaughters heartbreak.
A man who crafted his own freedoms is now confined
stationary, not only with in his chair but with in himself.
Seventy-two and a mind trapped by a bust in a vessel outside of his design.
His scratchy cheek tasted of salt and ink. My shoulders blushed
under failing SPF and he is knee deep in mud. The memories splatter
together like the crabs at our feet. This time or that
is not important. What is, is the grin he gave me
gives me
a link between summers chest deep in river water and the cold resignation
of post stroke Bob.
My grandmother swears he moved mountains; I watched him build houses into homes.
Today I walk him to the bathroom
incapable he is, of moving alone to piss or shit. I feel a radiating shame
and I wish
to speak to him of the times we spent at Boambee East reserve
remind him of the way he carried me over oysters and the struggle of my father
yet I know
he is ashamed, irrespective of the lustre of his past. What exists
now is only the stroke. While I bitch about writers block
trapped behind a pen
my grandfather, my Bob, is trapped with in a sea wet shell.
And I too am suddenly ashamed.