Oh, Flo.
Flo, Flo, Flo…
I only met you twice, in person.
Once was in your flat. Grandmama had saved you a magazine
article that you wanted to read. It was during one of the three run-ups to her
hip operation, and I was staying with her at the time, sorting out her filing
system (oh, what a joy that was). I offered to pop it round.
She accepted. She was confined at
the time, on stern instructions, lest she contract an infection, and so sent me
on my way.
I remember her warning me, after
giving me directions which turned out to be wrong – easy enough to sort out: by
‘left’, she actually meant ‘right’ – that you would talk my ear off in a
constant stream of barely decipherable stories and subjects that you had on a
loop in your loving and confused 89-year-old brain. She warned me, too, that
being soft hearted, I would find it difficult to stop you and tell you that I
had to leave, which was why she was going to set her kitchen timer for fifteen
minutes and then ring me on my mobile phone with the excuse that “my dinner was
ready and on the table”, which would allow me to escape.
Bless her (and you); what she
didn’t warn me about was that as well as talking incessantly in a barely
audible fast-paced mumble, you would also decide to give me a gift to say thank
you for “taking the trouble” of making the (for me very easy) journey from her
flat to yours to bring you the magazine that Grandmama had chucklingly confided
in me that you wouldn’t with your failing eyesight actually be able to read.
It was with great difficulty that
I managed to deter you from handing me a twenty pound note, accepting in the
end a little bottle of hand lotion instead just to make you happy, and then
sitting down to listen for my dutiful fifteen minutes (which became thirty;
Grandmama had the television so loud that she didn’t hear the timer).
The second time was approximately a year later.
You were in
hospital. You had been in and out for some time, now, since your already
failing body began to fail so badly that even with nurses visiting four times
daily you were unable to cope.
In this instance, you were
recovering from pneumonia, and were very much better than you had been; so much
so that you had requested that Grandmama bring you the folder where you kept
your pads and envelopes and pens, so that you could set about writing the
letters you had been meaning to get around to for some time. You also wanted a
birthday card for a 4-year-old ‘Great Grandson’ (preferably adorned with a
spaceship of some sort). Grandmama was once again confined to her flat, so I
agreed – as I was still at a lose end most afternoons then – to walk to the
hospital to deliver them to you.
You were thrilled to see me. Even
more thrilled when I sat myself down and proceeded to stay for an hour and a
half (my standard Duty Visiting Time Span).
I chatted to you, a little, about
the dog, and the cat, and the holiday I had booked. Mostly I listened. You were
far more coherent, then; less confused and easier to understand. From the few
words I had been able to make out then, I knew that the stories you were
telling me now were different ones. You talked about the flat you had owned in Wales and all
the problems you’d had, and how you had decided to move back to Wolverly even
though it was a long way from your Daughter and you missed her. You talked
about the fact that she was coming to visit you over the next few days – the day
would depend on her husband; he was in hospital himself after having surgery –
and that she had promised to sort out the muddle you had got into with your
finances. You talked about Grandmama and how you had enjoyed going to the
little get togethers in the the conservatory, when she had put films on for you
all to watch, and there had been coffee and biscuits.
At the end of the visit, when I
stood up to go, you grasped my plump, smooth hand in your thin wrinkled one and
kissed it. You told me I was a good girl, and that you would write to Grandmama
and tell her how kind I had been.
I told you it was nothing, and
that I hoped you’d carry on improving until you were granted your wish and
allowed to return home.
Three days
later, Grandmama received a letter, as promised, and inside was a small card
for me, containing £30. I was implored to take it, so that I could “go on a
boat for a whole day to see the seals and the dolphins”, as apparently your
nephews had done. Researching the company your nephews had supposedly used, I
discovered that it had gone up an extraordinary amount since then (enough that
even with your money to go towards it I couldn’t have afforded it), but you
weren’t to know that. It was a lovely gesture, and proved (as Grandmama had
pointed out) that you did indeed listen and take things in.
Other than that, the only knowledge I had of you was second
hand.
I learned from Mother and my two Aunts that you put upon
Grandmama terribly; asking her to fetch and carry for you to a ridiculous
degree, which, as she became less mobile herself was passed onto all of us.
I learned from other residents that they liked you, mostly,
and you “meant well” but that you were “batty”, you were “materialistic”, that you “didn’t listen” and that you could
“talk the hind leg off a donkey while still saying practically nothing”.
I learned from the nurses that at one point cared for both
you and Grandmama at the same time that you were a “dear”; sometimes “confused”
and “very stubborn”, but “unerringly polite”.
I learned from Grandmama a great deal:
That while you did indeed “talk the
hind leg off a donkey while still saying practically nothing”, it wasn’t true
that you didn’t listen, because she knew that you did.
I also learned that you would
talk so much when you rang her that unless something rescued her she would end
up stuck on the phone for over an hour, unable to bring herself to interrupt
you.
And I learned that you were
indeed “materialistic”, buying thing upon thing that you had no need or use for
and then buying something other needless object days later because you decided
you were dissatisfied with the original, you were also generous. Your needless
things – good quality, expensive needless things – were rarely returned or
exchanged; when you decided you didn’t want them, you simply gave them away to
someone, anyone that wanted them. You were also generous with your purse, “to a
fault” as Grandmama put it (which I agreed with. £20 for three minutes worth of
slow stroll, indeed), worried as she was that people would take advantage of
you.
You were definitely “stubborn”, I
found out, too. The price you paid (in full; no care benefits for you, as you
didn’t qualify) for carers to come several times a day, rather than move
somewhere that you could be cared for far better for far less. The fact that you
would sleep in your chair when your legs began to pass the point of no return, but
would lie to the carers that you had slept in your bed so as not to be
readmitted to hospital (you kept this fiction up even during the period that
you hadn’t GOT a bed). The refusal to move closer to your daughter, even though
you missed her terribly, because; “the Welsh are so unfriendly”. The shock and
disapproval people would get when they urged caution on the purchase of yet
another needless thing that you would get no pleasure from and end up giving
away. The irrepressible urge to ply people with cash if they did the slightest
favour for you (Grandmama got round this by asking for a blank cheque and then
never filling it in)… The list went on.
It all built up a picture of you, long before I ever met
you, and long afterward.
A picture of a frail, determined, contrary, maddening, generous, irrepressible
elderly lady; a woman that knew her own mind, even when in the throes of yet
another infection the mind didn’t quite know her.
I knew you, Flo.
And I liked
you.
And I am
heartily sorry that the world has lost you.
Rest In Peace.
I thank God that it was gentle, and in your sleep.
May your dreams go on forever.
And may they be happy ones indeed...
B.C.B.F.L.B x
No comments:
Post a Comment