Living with fragility

I'm not sure if I've talked much about the way my family's brittle bones have shaped our lives, but an incident today reminded me. Cecil, who has come to be near me, was taken by one of the carers for a first visit to the doctor this morning. She tripped and fell onto one knee on the way back. The knee was bruised - a not unusual thing for an elderly lady, but no lasting harm was done. It was being ice packed when I arrived and she was quite happy to come out with me after that.

I realised later, what a curious pleasure it was for me not to have to worry about broken bones. For all of my life, so long as Mum was alive, from my first steps, every tumble has been met with the anxiety that something was broken. During my childhood, this was Mums major fear since, for her, every childhood fall resulted in breakages. I was frequently asked, with great anxiety, can you wiggle your toe? move your arm? articulate whatever limb had been hurt. Then I grew up but she reached menopause, and began to break again so, once more, every fall was a crisis. I truly have spent hours in A&E, sitting beside her, hoping her pain was not too great, as some limb or other had been broken. I have been lucky enough to escape the brittleness, though not the entire effects of having a connective tissue disorder. Cecil has escaped entirely, her mother taking after Nanya, 

unlike my grandmother, who took after Howard, whose fine featured face gazes at me in my study. 

So poor Cecil is bruised, but not broken, and could take a walk with me along the seafront for coffee and cake. We had a fine time but I am always careful to make sure she holds my arm unless on very steady ground - a habit learnt with Mum. I hook my left elbow; we say, in unison, "take my arm and call me John", and off we go.

Honeysuckle and Great Great Aunt Harriet

Painted by her sister, Alice Katherine Rowe

a harvest of blooms 

Mindful Ironing

I’m not much of a one for ironing, but I had some sheets that had to be washed – sheets I’d found tucked away in a drawer in Mum’s flat, The were stained, but had evidently been put away after a good laundering, compressed but perfectly ironed, rust marked and rather stuffy. I washed them in a good hot wash, tumble dried them (it’s been raining a LOT) to a perfect dampness, then ironed them mindfully. That is I paid attention to what I was doing, savouring the rising steam, enjoying the feel of hot cotton under my fingers getting smoother and smoother, letting my body get into a gentle rhythm of ironing, rather than dashing at it because “it’s got to be done”. Once you find the swing of a task, you do it quicker and better anyway. While I ironed I remembered.

The last time I ironed sheets was with Mum, in the “up in the eyrie” top floor that was her flat in our building. So I remembered that. I remembered her courage in the face of a body whose bones were crumbling within her, while her bright blue eyes still smile dot light up a room. Remembered the fun we had at times, even though other times were difficult.

The sheets bore labels saying “English Lady” and “Horrockses Linen”, which spoke of days gone by, one declares itself to be Egyptian Cotton. One was laundry marked – “Lomer”. Now they are single sheets, and the name Lomer was my grandmother’s (Ganna ) surname  once she married my grandfather, Gerald Hugh. Here they are on their wedding day in St Leonards on Sea, Sussex.

Gerald Hugh Lomer

Here is Gerald,in his uniform, helping with the gardening in the garden at Arklow, where she grew up. He an English soldier in a Southern Irish town at the time of the troubles, keeping the peace. He met her as the family put on evening entertainment for the soldiers; Dr Rowe’s three daughters with piano, violin and voice. She Ethel, the daughter of the town apothecary – known as Dr Rowe, at a time when armed men could be found skulking through the ground floor rooms, while you stayed upstairs, silent, ‘til they had gone. So I remembered them too.

Alice Constance and Alice Katherine Rowe

Then I recalled how, when first married they had a double bed. This, Auntie Connie, Alice Constance Rowe, and their mother Alice Katherine, declared incondusive to the good health and strength of the newly weds. They strongly advised twin beds for a good night’s sleep. Astonishingly, the newlyweds complied with family wishes and twin beds were bought, hence the single sheets for a newly married couple.

Then I remembered further back, to the time when Alice Katherine, four years widowed, aged came across to St Leonards on Sea, England, with her three unmarried daughters, from Arklow, County Wicklow, on the whim of a pin placed, with eyes closed, onto a map of southern England. Why choose such a curious means of deciding when she had a brother in Liverpool, who had six girls of his own – known collectively as “The Frodshams”. Perhaps because said Gerald Hugh was a son of the south, having been born to a family in Southampton who had been “county solicitors for generations”.

So I ironed, and remembered: remembered talking of all these things with Mum, who had talked of them with Ganna, who came across the Irish Sea. And the remembering was good, the ironing done in fine company. For such is the passage of family myth.

Memory

I have been thinking a lot about memory recently. In the past 14 years I have watched three close members of my family succumb to one sort of memory loss or another. The first was my mother in law, who was brought down by Alzheimer’s disease some time in the 1990’s. Then in 2005 my mother had a very bad fall, from which the essence that was her never quite recovered. A few years later her cousin, my dear Aunt Cecil had some kind of mini stroke, and is now classed as having dementia, whatever that term is supposed to mean. In each case there has been, as one effect of these afflictions, a loss of short term memory.

This loss of day to day memory affected those dear souls in a variety of ways. For my Mother-in-Law the Alzheimer’s gradually robbed her of the ability to be rational. We moved her to live with us, “us” at that time being my ex husband, my daughter and myself. By then, for her there really were “monsters under the bed”, not in the sense that she felt there were strange creatures waiting to grab her ankles as she went to her rest, but that the whole world was out to get her. She was by nature not a trustful woman, and as the disease took hold, that distrust was intensified by her profound anxiety. She would spend hours looking for her things, convinced “that bloody bitch has took it all”. Another activity would be a desperate hunt for whatever it was she was “just going to do” – her drive for hard work and useful activity hadn’t died, she simply didn’t know what it was she was supposed to be doing any more. No attempt at distraction could override this need to be useful, yet she became incapable of undertaking any activity as she could never remember what it was she was supposed to be doing. Her days were spent in restless anxiety until the disease progressed to the point when all awareness was gone and we had to place her in care.

My aunt Cecil, known to my Facebook friends as the Kidmore End Fairy since that is where she lives, also has memory problems. They started in 2007 when she was 82 and had some kind of happening in her head which left her bereft of short term memory. She finds this both frustrating and frightening, in particular since her own mother succumbed to memory problems after a bash on the head. Cecil is a tremendous character, full of stories, since her mother, like Ganna, was a writer, yet sadly bereft of children since she never married. She reminds me of the Queen, both in her manner and her way of speaking. She worked, for the majority of her adult life, for the National Trust as custodian of Grey’s Court and secretary to its owners. In place of children, Cecil has always had dogs, and I recently had to drive up to stay with her as one of her dogs was to be put to sleep. Part of my role in this was to constantly reassure her that she was doing the right thing; with no recall of the vet’s diagnosis, given the previous week, she was sure that it must be done, but not sure why. The deed was done with great kindness and delicacy by the vets, as Jamie sat in her lap. 


After they had gone, I took Cecil out to lunch to "take her mind off things". Already the fact of his absence was receding from her awareness. I had to leave that evening, and I wondered as I drove home, how often during the following days, she might start up to look for him, only to realise at some point – how long would this take? – that he was gone. I went to see her again last week, this time for a trip to the solicitors to sign her will. We drove into Henley, had a very pleasant day and were treated to a delightfully humorous vignette by said solicitor’s son, who works with her. Again, by late afternoon all memory of the trip had gone, the laughter we had shared at a young man's antics was inaccessible to her. While this means that every time I take her to Henley her delight is new, as she’s sure she’s not been there for “at least a hundred years”, that delight soon fades as the experience can’t be revisited in the fullness of time. Her days are deprived of the pleasure of recollection and also, presumably, of any sense of existing within a sequence of events.

My Mum’s memory loss seemed to be combined with a dreadful inertia. After her fall, from which she emerged with multiple skull fractures amongst other injuries, I thought we’d lose her, but her tenacious spirit won through and she sort of recovered. I moved her to be with us; by happy coincidence the flat above mine came available. However, some vital essence that was her had gone.  She stopped doing things, while having no memory that nothing had been done. This, combined with a very vivid form of daydream, resulted in such problems as convincing her to eat. She would be quite sure that she’d cooked and eaten a large meal, and so had no appetite for food. Her poor little frame got thinner and thinner, yet I could not convince her to do more than nibble at the meal I had prepared for her. She would forget that I had been with her each day until I went upstairs. I would be greeted by the blazing light of her pleasure at my arrival, shining out of her blue blue eyes, as though each appearance was utterly unexpected. Rarely aware that I was with her many times during each day, a sense of having been deserted would trouble her. She knew that there was something deeply wrong, we would talk about her condition and sometimes a deep feeling of dread would overcome her. She would look at me with a sort of hopelessness and say “I’m frightened”, yet not understand why. Friends would visit and she would enjoy their company a great deal. She had what her mother called a “gift for friendship”, her pleasure in people was intense, as sometimes was her ire if crossed! Yet in those hours she inevitably spent alone while I was at work, she could not review these visits and happy conversations to glean more pleasure from them, they were gone.

My dear little Mum died last year, and the loss of her, of whom I think daily, is also in a way a loss of memory for me. She was the repository of our family history, not in the genealogical sense, but in the form of family myth and a sense of shared experience. I can no longer ask her to remind me of what my father said on such and such occasion – nor relive the shared delight of my great grandmother’s maid, exclaiming on the “striped ass” - a zebra, shambling down Arklow High Street when the circus visited. Granted my childhood wrongs are no longer visited on me either, but the sense of a void, where family companionship was once, is profound. I am an only child, so there is no one else to recall these vignettes with, just silence.

These thoughts on memory and its function in our lives come to me often, in particular as I have read and pondered a great deal about mindfulness, in the Buddhist sense. As I understand it, it is about letting go of all distractions and living wholly in the present, which is the only time and space we can be certain of. Our past is gone, our future a mystery, the present is here and now. In placing ourselves in that present, experiencing it to the full and releasing ourselves from the endless cycle of thought that traps us elsewhere, we are advised that we can find freedom from anguish and suffering; our yearning for something other than the lives we have will abate. I can accept this intellectually, it makes perfect sense to me and I try to live my life as best I can with an awareness of the value of now. Yet watching these poor souls suffering in their forced relinquishing of thoughts of recent things, I feel that our time spent revisiting recent events, conversations, happenings is central to our sense of being. We cannot thrive, nor move logically through our lives without thoughts of who and what and where. Without them, are we not abandoned souls, crying in the darkness?

War was declared

I have just had the delight of my daughter's company for a week and we were going through some of the things left in Mum's flat when she died last year. One of the gems, of which there are many, was this little writing case that belonged to my grandmother

Inside it are precious letters, collected over her lifetime. One, which Jen and I read together, was written by my mother, when she was thirteen years old, while staying with her aunt in Hastings. I reproduce it here as it is such a poignant document of the declaration of war in 1939, as seen through a young girl's eyes: almost incidental to the pleasures of staying with a much loved relative.

My own precious Mummy,

The time is 7:30 and I am sitting up in bed writing this with the new pencil I bought on Friday on the new pad I bought ditto. Yesterday I had a lovely run in the car, I ate no barley sugars, I only felt sick once a wee bit, and I didn’t get out at all. My chauffer went at about 40 per hour the whole time (nearly). He overtook about 20 cars. The car was lovely and I felt I was in a Rolls Royce. This pad is perfect. When I got here Gags and Haza were out so I got all my things upstairs and unpacked very busily. Then I unpacked my writing case. I am sleeping in the winged bed in the centre room facing the big windows. In front of me at the window is the table that was our dressing table, minus the cloth, with books on it. On the left are all the chairs for the meeting Barbara has just brought me a cup of tea). Gags every Sunday is going to take my bedding away and turn it into a couch, and is going to hold the meeting. (Gags says that she will give Nanya a treatment.) On the right is the little table that you can make into a chess table that used to stand in the window. (It is simply pouring outside). On it I have my clock, Roly my little glass dog, my mouse, my bird, my glasses, Bible, Science and Health, my little picture, my brush and comb and all my little ornaments that I used to have on my mantelpiece at home. On the left of me on the floor are my gum boots, barley sugar and gas mask. I love looking at the picture of the boat on the river, with all the mountains behind that we have in the drawing room beside the door because it brings back home. I will continue this letter later because I have to get up now.

...Later

I am sitting at the drawing room table and the time is 10:30. We are still waiting to know whether there will be a war or not. It is awful. I have been in the park with Gags. We made up a rime [sic] about Benjy, that he was a “blue bag bright billeting beautiful bally Benjamin boy”. I don’t think that “bally” is right and I know there was more than that but I can’t remember. Yesterday when Gags and Haza were at Iden Lock they saw Mac and he still held to it that there would be no war. I have made a lovely “Own Desk” out of my writing case. I have put it lying down on the table beside my bed with a little box beside it for a waste paper basket. I lock it and when I open it everything is like it was at home. I put the blotter of my writing case on top so that I only have to take it out and write on without disturbing anything.

I confess that I shed about four tears last night but I think it was more due to tiredness than unhappiness, the day had been rather hectic. Gags says that she will, or I will remove the books from the table and that I can have it for an “Own Desk”.  It is very kind of her. I have settled down here and am very happy, especially after the treatment I gave this morning. I have eaten one sweet out of my war supply. I am afraid my writing is rather tending towards getting worse and worse, I must try and improve it. I am just going to listen to the Prime Minister’s speech so will stop a minute. War has been declared and just as we turned off the wireless we heard and air rade [sic]. I got my gas mask, mac and we all sat in the darkened hall while Gags took the meeting. It all seemed so sudden.....

Must stop now, tons of love and kisses to all including yourself

Rosemary (Baa)

...PPS It is very funny to think that the air rade warning was not true at all, “not at all” as the Americans would say.

"Baa" is the pet name my grandmother used for Mum. I had forgotten it 'till I read this, and was intrigued since one of my pet names for Jen is "lamb".
The place she describes was also my home from the age of 11 'till I left home at 25.  "Gags" was her aunt, "Haza" was her Aunt's lifelong female companion, quite daring for those days. They lived by Alexandra Park in Hastings, hence their walk in the park. The "treating" that is mentioned is the Christian Science "version" if you like, of prayer. My grandmother and her two sisters, though brought up as Methodists in Ireland, became deeply involved in Christian Science and were quite sure that they had received healing through these treatments. Weekly meetings were held in the room that Mum was evidently sleeping in while she stayed with them. The picture of the little boat she describes, one of Nanya's, is waiting to be hung in our new home and I have the little ornaments mentioned, carefully packed away 'till I have found a safe place for them.

Mirror Mirror

  

Nanya

This lovely beveled glass mirror once lived above a large oak sideboard in my grandmothers sitting room. I preened my teenage self in it but perhaps, before me, Nanya's face might have been reflected as she glimpsed herself in it while visiting her daughter.
We managed to hang it yesterday in our new sitting room, my good man providing the strength and being a dab hand with an old fashioned, hand held drill. A skill I am in awe of, though I'm sure that's bad grammar!

What do Grandmothers leave behind?

Well, mine left me a wealth of things,

her novels, published in the thirties and fifties

Howard Rowe at the far left, was my great grandfather - Nanya's Husband.
The six novels to his left are by his daughter, my grandmother

and strange little ditties like this

Wiggle Waggle Man

There was a little man

And he dressed all in brown

He raced and he ran,

Right round the town

Catch me if you can

            Said the Wiggle Waggle Man

Up came all the people

Chased him round the town

Chased him to the steeple

There he laid him down

When they came up roaring

The little man was … snoring!

He winked a bright blue eye

And jumped into the sky

Catch me if you can

            Said the Wiggle Waggle Man

It would be recited, by her, later by Mum, with the greatest of glee and the most sparkling blue eyes.

One suspects the glee is of Irish origin and comes from

Nanya

I have no idea where Wiggle Waggle Man comes from - it might be an "Irish'ism" - there were a number of them.

Courtown Woods

I have the great good fortune to live with this every day.
It is Courtown Woods 

by Alice Katherine Rowe, my great grandmother - Nanya

Why Grandmothers?

Perhaps because I find myself  for the first time in my life without a grandmother anywhere in my domestic space. The loss of Mum has taken my daughter's grandmother from us. 

My grandmother, Ganna,  and me

My own grandmother looked after me after my father died when I was seven. She was a jewel and much loved. She told me tales of George Penny, who routinely fell out of a little girl's pocket, to roll n the street and find an adventure. Then later, the most wonderful made up games where we jointly narrated a story together as though we had heard all from a third person and were actually part of the world in which this was taking place. Of course in the tales a young girl was for ever getting up to mischief! She was also gentle but utterly firm in her discipline, never raising her voice, but somehow ensuring one knew what the right way to behave was. She died in my 21st year.

My Mum and Jen

And now we have lost Mum, who gave my daughter her own tales of the imagination. Old 'Arry with his awful cough, the fish and chip shop. She too was a special soul, with such a vivid blue gaze that you always felt that her delight in seeing you was absolute. A very special gift.

Nanya - Alice Rowe, nee Atkins

Then of course there was Nanya, the Irish artist, my great grandmother whom I never knew. She would come in from her garden querying why "none of you girls" had made supper. She had been communing with the garden fairies I guess. Her paintings hang in my house, her sister forever poised wistfully at a spinet, Courtown Woods ringing to the sound of three little girls playing on the bridge.

So, I am feeling the loss of these women. And am aware that now I am the repository of family myth and culture. A condensed trickle of tales, edited by time and made warm with love.

Beginnings

This is a start of sorts, I am embarking on a house move that is pretty significant, attached as it is to a whole load of life changes. My mother has died, my dear man is about to retire, I return to work soon after a year of staying at home to care for Mum, my daughter is easing away into adult life.

And so we are moving and taking on a new garden......

The move means downsizing, editing away the vast collection of books I have been wandering this world with, asking myself what matters; in particular since I have just lost an irreplaceable person who mattered, without whom I would never have been, without whom I have never been. It is a new experience, and we are starting a new life.

So, what is going?

off to the charity shop

And what is staying? Books and music enough to be getting on with, and still a need for plenty of shelves.

space to move!

It also means leaving the first garden where I've perhaps begun to understand what it's all about. So, the new garden, a blank slate, will be the test of, and exploration of that understanding. 

The space in which I looked after Mum until she died was also a space where I could begin to explore those things that have interested me as long as I can remember, working with needle, with sketchbook, with fabric and thread. There have been some experiments, some openings up in the weave of life for little bits of me. These I may share, not because I think they are of any worth, but because I have found others' accounts of their journeys on the web inspiring. The love of needlework was a gift from my grandmother, the love of art from my great grandmother who painted; a part of both of them still nestled in me. The love of these two women came to me via my mother, who will always be with me and who gave me my love of music. She and my grandmother were the heart of my life after my Dad died, the year I turned 8. We left everything behind and came to Hastings to start afresh in my grandmother's house; she too had been widowed that year.

This blog will, I hope, be a reflection of these varied things that make up a life.

Or perhaps it will fail after a few months.

The journey is what matters.