'The Rain'

My mother recently sent me one of those ‘please pass on’ emails.  You know the kind…. imparting preachy life lessons, promoting breast cancer awareness and the like.  Although I read these when they pop into my inbox I rarely pass them on.  And I have to admit, even though some hit home, I forget about them as soon as I click on the little X in the top left or right hand corner to close the message.

Until recently.  Because the email forwarded by my mother was probably a bit more significant than most.

A year ago I wrote a post to celebrate the fact that it had been 9 years since my father had a heart transplant.  I pondered on the fact that we had him with us for so much longer than we might have; and how much more life he had experienced as someone else’s gift pumped blood throughout his veins.

But there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  And the gift of life, like everything else, comes with trade-offs.  Drugs that suppress dad’s immune system mean that, although he goes nowhere near the sun, he continually has skin cancers developing.  He is, in fact, currently undergoing radiotherapy for a deadly melanoma known for its attack on those with suppressed immune systems.

But the most challenging of side effects is not visible.

My father has vascular dementia.  Caused, I understand, either by an earlier heart attack or during his life-saving heart surgery ten years ago.

So far only his short term memory has been effected, or more specifically, his ability to transfer something from his short term into his long term memory.  I am sure there is a term for this but that doesn’t really matter… to us anyway.

It started slowly, as if he was just a bit absent-minded; where once he had been quick-witted.  But it is now at the point where he isn’t really able to retain any information.  Unlike Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates, he doesn’t remember the day’s events, only to awake the next morning in some sort of Groundhog Day fog.  He remembers nothing recent.

A typical 10 minute conversation with him (for me, for example) will comprise him asking the day two or three times – at least.  Each response will be followed by ‘When did we arrive here at your place?’ and ‘When do we go back home?’  In fact I sometimes entertain myself by pre-empting the next question before he can ask it.  He will also enquire why he is here (rather than in his hometown).  This visit I am having to explain that although he had a merkel cell carcinoma removed from his face, it is so fast-spreading he is here for radiotherapy.  Just in case.  Obviously then he queries how long the treatment lasts (5 days a week for 5 weeks) at which point he becomes despondent (at being away from home for so long) and usually comments that perhaps he isn’t worth all of this trouble.

But he is.  Obviously.  I feel for my mother who has the patience of a saint though admits to occasional sarcastic responses to his never-ending questions. But her dedication is amazing.  My father recently spent a week in hospital and my mother camped out beside him for 12hrs a day in the event a doctor visited.  Dad needed my mother to answer the questions.  ‘Yes his bowels moved.’ ‘No, he hasn’t eaten lunch yet.’  A doctor giving instructions or advice to my father was also not an option.  It is at those times that I am overcome with guilt at being so far away and not able to provide more hands-on support.

Hard as it is for my mother, I cannot imagine what it is like for my father, who marvels at his long term memory but who cannot tell you what he did 5 minutes ago, or 5 hours ago.

It makes telephone conversations difficult.  We are limited to me questioning him about the weather, or about whatever he is doing at that exact moment.

A couple of months ago I picked up the phone to call my parents. I then realized it was Wednesday and my mother would be out (as she is every Wednesday night for an hour or so). Although I talk to my dad most evenings when I call home, it is usually just for a minute or two and he asks the same questions (about work etc) again and again.  This night I started to put the phone back on the hook before I thought about what I was doing.   I checked myself and realized I was being incredibly selfish.  Just because I would find the call harder work, and because he wouldn’t remember the conversation was no reason not to reach out and make contact.  He is thrilled by calls.  If mum isn’t home, he dutifully writes down who has called, though not recollecting anything from the conversation.

So I called.  I think there was football on TV, so I asked him about that.  We talked about the weather, my work, my brother and his family.  The usual.   I talked to my mother later that night as she called back when she saw dad’s note.

The little tale in the email my mother forwarded me was called ‘The Rain’.  It was (supposedly!) relayed by a nurse who encountered an elderly man who came into her hospital to have stitches removed.  It was early in the morning and he was impatiently looking at his watch.  She asked if he had another appointment.  He said he did and she enquired what it was, expecting another medical appointment.  He told her that his wife was in a nursing home and he went to give her breakfast every day at 9am.  He also said that she had Alzheimer’s and hadn’t recognized him for years.  The nurse asked why – if his wife didn’t know who he was, or indeed, when or if he visited – did he go everyday.  His reply was, ‘She may not know who I am, but I still know who she is.’

I saw a distant relative a little while ago.  We were talking about my father.  They commented that they were worried that his long-term memory would be next and how horrible it would be when / if he forgot who we were.  I knew they hadn’t seen my father for 6 months or more but innocently queried if they had ‘run into him’ recently.  No, they said, they actually preferred to remember him more as he was and didn’t really want to see him like they believe he is now.

Another friend recently commented on an elderly relative who had Alzheimer’s.  The relative was dying, but my friend said it wasn’t really upsetting as (the relative) had really died to them years ago.  I didn’t say anything but was horrified.  Would she, I wonder, want her family to stop visiting her if she forgot who they were, or would she hope that they still held her in enough esteem that they actually wanted to see her even if she was oblivious.

The old man in the email wasn’t expecting anything in return from his wife.  He didn’t expect her gratitude or adulation.  Perhaps he felt it was his duty or his obligation.  Perhaps he felt he signed on ‘for better or worse’.  It did, however, remind me that particularly in my father’s case – although I hate to admit it - it isn’t all about me.  Even if my father doesn’t remember the moments, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

SATC - The early years

There are a number of good things about this house-sitting gig.  Not just being away from the building site-that-is-my-home; the larder full of cooking stuff (like choc bits, which I will have to replace before I leave); the excuse that I am out of my routine and can’t exercise; but also having access to Pay TV. 

 

My brother doesn’t have the movies’ or sports’ channels.  The focus here is predominantly on all-things-Disney, for my niece (who has a bit of a thing for Avatar, Hannah Montana and some show about two boys who live in a hotel with their mother).  So I am spending most of my waking (and tv-watching) hours in front of ARENA and reveling in repeats of Sex and the City, which appears to be on constantly and usually in no logical order.  The other evening, for example, there were two episodes in a row.  The first one was the actual pilot episode (circa 1998).  The next was from Season Four.

 

Why I am glued to them I have no idea.  I actually have all of the DVDs at my place.  All six Seasons.  I could go and pick them up.  Or wait until I get home and watch them.  But instead, I am strangely transfixed to the randomness with which they appear on ARENA.  I have to admit, I had forgotten how many men Carrie and the girls went through over the years.  Samantha aside, the other three constantly dated with a never-ending stream of men through their lives. 

 

Is this why we liked it I wonder?  Not just for the clothes and fashions – and to see what strange combination Carrie would next don (and even more amazingly, pull off).  Or did we just envy their seemingly glamourous lives and the fact that they seemed to be constantly in demand by the men of New York. 

 

Critics railed at the realism of the show and the fact that – in the real world – similar women would be hard pressed to afford their apartments, let alone the lifestyle they portrayed; their clothes, their Jimmy Choos and constant stream of visits to the ‘happening’ restaurants and bars of NYC. 

 

But did we care?  Hell no!  Who cares if, in the real world, one pair of Manolo Blahnik’s would set Carrie back a year’s salary.  Instead we all envied their fabulous lives.  We all wanted to be them.  And, we’ve all done the Facebook quiz, wondering which of the four girls we really are.  I suspect we probably all wanted to be Carrie (around whom the SATC world revolves) and I think the Facebook doyenne believed me to be so, but I always felt more like Charlotte with a bit of Miranda thrown in.   Sweet but cynical. 

 

So, having been exposed to a veritable kaleidoscope of episodes in the past week, not only am I surprised at how little the women changed over the six seasons (yay for botox!), I am reminded of a few favourite moments (and seasons) and amazed at the things I had forgotten.

 

Very importantly, I had forgotten that in the first episodes (and perhaps a few to follow – I will have to check later) Carrie speaks to the camera and the show featured mock interviews, with little captions.  So, it started as a faux-documentary.  Watching it now, I cringe.  I resolve to watch the first season to see when this changes - when the producers realized they needed to go with engaging storylines, supported by narration, rather than a thought piece with a one-dimensional supporting cast.

 

I had also forgotten that ‘Big’ appears in the first episode. 

 

I have also seen the final two episodes in the last few days.  I remember – like hordes of others – being disappointed at the final episode.  Unhappy that, for a show about how it is okay to be single and alone, the four girls all ended up partnered off. 

 

I recall that when it first came out in 1998, the show was a celebration of independence and of strong single women.  So, while I sympathise with the producers’ desire for a happily-ever-after ending, it fell like a sell-out.  Carrie’s move to Paris was very much about her fear of being the ‘last-one-standing’ and being alone, rather than following her heart, or even her head.  Bringing in ‘Big’ at the last minute, seemed too contrived, with the producers obviously in a rush to wrap six-years up neatly, tie the bow and present it expectantly to adoring fans.

 

This aside, when I think of the show, I think of it being about relationships and most importantly, about friendships.  The scene I most remember from the movie, for example, is Charlotte’s anger (in the street) at ‘Big’ after he failed to show at the wedding ceremony.  Her distress for her friend felt real and devastated me more than Carrie being left at the altar.  It made me wonder about selfless relationships where true love, loyalty and devotion are fundamental. 

 

The episode I watched (The Agony and the Ex-tacy) after the pilot was about the girls attending an engagement party for a guy they had knew (and several slept with). 

 

The episode was about finding your soulmate.  I hadn’t remembered that the show had really articulated the level of desperation evidenced in that episode.  Miranda faking happiness at her singleness and Carrie’s despair (after everyone missing her birthday celebration) at perhaps never finding her soulmate. It ended with the girls deciding they were each others’ soulmates and the guys that came along were just a bonus.  A lovely sentiment – but in my self-styled Miranda-cynicism I wonder if they were saying the same thing several years later when they were all paired off. 

 

I have another week of house-sitting so who knows what morsels are before me.  Either way, it has given me a taste of a favourite-but-forgotten treat.  My appetite whetted, I will have to pull out the DVDs when I get home.

 

Finally, another perplexing question.  Whatever happened to Skipper?

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159206/