Fiction and real life

The first step of three this week in the winterizing program is being taken now.  Mark from Brown Mechanical Services is in the basement looking at the furnace.  Then he will tackle the fireplace, which will be a more difficult task I think.  I shut it down and turned off the pilot light last spring when I couldn’t get it to light and haven’t touched it since.  On Wed. I go to the doctor for a checkup, and on Friday the car gets its pre winter tire change, fluids check and general preparation for crossing the Coquihalla in mid Dec. for Christmas in Victoria with mom, dad, Barb and Terry.

Or will I be heading west earlier?  Mom and dad sounded terrible on the phone last night.  It’s all dad can do to dress himself and push his walker to meals.  If he can’t do these minimal things, he can’t stay at Shannon Oaks.  Then what?  Mom is still suffering the pain of post herpetic neuralgia every day and now she has the worry of Lymphoma.  She will have the first bout of radiation on Wednesday and is very upset by the idea.  They have always been so proudly self sufficient that they can’t accept their increasing dependency.  In some ways they waited too long before going into a seniors’ home so when they finally got there they have been physically unable to take advantage of its many programs.  Of course dad would have had to be dragged to such ‘hail fellow well met’ gatherings but mom would have enjoyed some of them and made friends for both of them as she has always done.  She’s what my friend Jane’s husband would call a ‘jolly hockey stick, that is when she’s not depressed beneath words.  Of course it’s very expensive where they are now, so they couldn’t have afforded to live there for twenty years.  I waited until they asked me for help with the move to Shannon Oaks and I’m inclined to do the same thing this time even though I don’t know what we’ll do about getting one or both of them into a care home because most of those have waiting lists of at least a year.  I know that if dad gets hospitalized again because of a fall he will be moved to a temporary care home as soon as he no longer needs a hospital bed but that could mean that he will be in a different location than mom and that will be hard.  I also know that they are frozen into inaction by the fear of exactly that happening.  They are waiting for something to happen so that a decision is not required, holding on for dear life.  And life is ‘dear’ when you’re that old, in the sense of costing every bit of energy you have every minute just to keep doing the most basic things.  I felt quite low after our last talk but I don’t know how to help them because as sure as I suggest something, mom will have a good day and think I’m rushing things.  She can still be pretty buoyant at times and then there’s no influencing her.  Or have I just given up?  If this were my novel and not our lives, I would resort to a good old ‘deus ex machina’ to solve the dilemma.

On the topic of novels, I have finally joined a book club.  Its members refer to it as the ‘sailing’ book club, a group of women who met sailing, so I expect some windy discussions.  Their numbers now include hikers and bikers, which is how I got to know some of them.  I’m sure we will all be full of hot air, and as each person brings an appetizer and $5.00 to cover the hostess’s purchase of wine for the event, the discussion should be lively.  No matter what happens, I am already glad I joined because the book we will discuss this Thursday evening is Ragged Company by Richard Wagamese.  It’s the first book of his that I have read and I love it.  He’s right up there with Alice Munro when it comes to being a medium for the transmission of the voices of the people he writes about.  And funny.  And humane.  He lives near Kamloops now but comes from a reserve near Thunder Bay.  His descriptions of the great outdoors are beyond my words to describe.  I’m now reading Indian Horse and it’s also great.