you were one of the first people i visited. when everything was new and nerve wracking. and i stood at the entrance to your building, your home, and waited for you to buzz me in. your reputation went before you. words like ‘dragon’ ‘difficult’ ‘infuriating’ ‘miserable’ your name would always be followed by a roll of the eyes and a groan of sheer exasperation.
i keyed in your apartment number and waited. hugging my clipboard tight to my chest. it was probably raining. it always seemed to rain when i visited you.
pushing in through the glass double doors. the thick heat of your place, difficult at first to breathe. and the smell. the strangeness of this shared living space, the anticipation of ‘the very end of things’ lingering in the stuffy corridors….and i was scurrying in, half running, as i was, and still am, perpetually late. you really didnt like it when we were late. or early.
that first look you gave me as i bustled in, wet from the rain, my unruly hair, nerves pulling my voice into a thin and difficult ‘hello! lovely to meet you! my name’s…’ and your brisk reply as you turn and pick up your cup of tea with a sigh and a weary entirely unimpressed ‘good morning.’ a pause and then. ‘you’re late.’
i liked you. probably from that very moment.
you were one of the first of the large army of naked old people i have bathed, dried, creamed and dressed day after day. at first it was always so shocking and awkward, trying so desperately to stifle my horror at mother natures cruel blow to the human body, for that is how i first perceived it, the cruelty of old age. now i think there is a strange and wonderful beauty in the sunken, shriveled, elderly appearance. we wear our bodies whether we like it or not, a loud and telling tale. a book about our life.
i dont know why you liked me. whether it was because i wasnt fazed by your abrupt manner and the way nothing was ever right. maybe because i would sit and listen to you speak of your pains, loss, grief and ill health. i wouldnt say anything, not until you had finished and then i would look you in the eyes and tell you i was sorry. and i really meant it. i was sorry for your suffering. it broke my heart listening to yours.
i remember how you were so particular about the way your tea was made. the length of time the tea bag touched the water and what went in the cup first. the way the towels were folded. the way the bed was made and the way the blinds were drawn in the spare room you never once went in. always so bloody particular as if it made a difference.
you were so very grumpy about everything. sometimes i would have to find an excuse to leave the room just to roll my eyes and pull a face. but i liked you. really rather a lot.
and day by day something softened in your eyes and face and you would smile at me and shake your head at the holes in my shoes and the fact i never wore a coat even in the most horrid rain. you would smile at the way i always used to sing in the kitchen as i made your breakfast, ‘whats that your singing?’ you would say. ‘nothing really’ i would reply. ‘well sing up i’m rather enjoying it.’ would be your curt reply. you would eventually smile at the way i would forget things and at the ways in which we were wholey and entirely different, and sometimes, on those most difficult of days you would let me pray for you, you would squeeze my hand so very tight and when i finished there would be tears in your eyes.
i will always wonder what it meant to you. what hidden place in your heart the tears were born and how you felt as they overwhelmed your eyes and rolled down your cheeks.
sometimes you would scold me for forgetting, or for hurrying you, or for being late and yet when it came time to leave you would hold onto my hand as if you couldnt bear it. as if the soft click of the door closing behind me was frightful and terrifying, that the sound of your empty apartment was too loud, too cruel. your day slowly freezing as just outside your walls it would burst into life.
i think about you most days at some moment or other. and when i drive past your building i always look and wonder if you are still alive. i would so very much like to see you again and yet a kind of fear grips me, i imagine myself ringing your bell and waiting and hoping and waiting and hoping….and i lose my nerve and i keep driving even though my heart is pulling me backwards, is parking my car and i’m jumping out and i’m brushing passed the flowers all the way up to your door…
the last time i saw you i took you a flower. the most beautiful one i could find, in the purest white. it was my prayer for you. it had been nearly a year when i visited. you already had guests and so i busied myself in your kitchen finding a vase, humming quietly. i didnt stay. but i put the flower right in front of you so you couldnt forget it, so that later when everybody had long gone and night was drawing in, you knew that i had been. you squeezed my hand and i could feel the imprint of arthritis in your fingers, the bones, the fragility beneath your gruff facade. we said our goodbyes and i stepped away but your grip on my hand never faltered until i had to ease my hand from yours until only our fingertips touched, aged and youthful, a twinge of shame for my youth and a desperate and wild desire for you to return to yours. to see you get up from your chair without wincing in pain, to laugh without the sadness that always shrouded your eyes with everything you had lost.
i hope you are well mrs m, wherever you might be, i hope your bones are not aching and crippled, that the weight of things no longer burdens your shoulders, that you are smiling and dancing and filled with an extraordinary light.
i will remember you. always.
c
x
