Today is Father's Day in our little country. The last time I saw my father was at the court house when I was aged 12 years. My mother sued him for support after we had left him. I think he made one payment. My father offered myself and my younger brother sixpence each to buy a slice of water melon at the little store next to the court house at that little town on the south side of the border, the town where we lived for two years in a corrugated tin garage, smelling of old oil from whatever vehicles with leaky sumps had once been garaged there, only Sisalkraft covering the dirt floor, divided in two by a curtain hung from a rope. Two beds side by side behind the swing doors, chained together, otherwise opening onto the unpaved street outside. Most evenings my mother used to "wash" herself over an enamelled dish and a douching device at the other end while we two boys (the third was still a "baby" in a basinet) were intended to go to sleep in one bed while our father was in the other bed. Then later in the darkness there were arguments about sex and demands "Take your hands away from there" as I silently wept. My mother told me years later that a short time before we four, accompanied by our two dogs, left our "home" that our father threatened to murder all of us and for which threat a doctor demanded him to enter hospital to dry out from his alcoholic stupor or be committed to the asylum in another town where we had lived for a few months. My father knew my mother was having an affair with the bloke in the house next door, accusing her of returning one night wearing nothing beneath a dressing gown. I once saw my mother with her hand down the front of that man's trousers while she, the man and his defacto were seated on the floor of the hallway next door, trying to keep cool on a hot summer's afternoon. The defacto seemed asleep at the time. Then after we left to live at my mother's cousin's farm that man used to visit when the cousin and his family attended church on Sunday afternoons. Then 18 months later, after my mother's father and uncle bought a small brick house for us to live in in the bigger town nearby, the same man often visited for "morning tea" when they stayed in the front bedroom to "talk" and sometimes I saw my mother entering or leaving the bedroom with an enamelled bowl and a red rubber douche device. The man was a civilian driver at the Army base on the south side of the river border and made a daily mail run across to the railway station on the north side. My mother sued for divorce and the man's defacto, having once lived in the big southern city, volunteered to escort us down there on the overnight train for the proceedings. I was needed to testify that my dog Lassie had been kennelled in the back yard dunny overnight because my mother had accused my father of beastiality. Poor Lassie was shot by my mother's cousin (although I was not told that until decades later) soon after we moved to the farm because he only had dogs at his property and did not want bitches producing litters of pups. It was assumed we kids would leave school sometime after turning 14 to "get a job" the nature of which was unimportant. I stayed until I was 15 which meant I sat for the Intermediate Certificate. Fortunately in the last term of that year I responded to an announcement by the Deputy Head at school assembly one morning offering traineeships to boys willing to attempt an entrance test to become a telecommunications technician. I passed. My mother said "Please don't go son, stay home and look after your poor old Mum". She was only 34 years old that year. I left by train for The Big Smoke a few months later after doing some work experience at the local telephone exchange. My visits "home" were only on long weekends and annual leave for a couple of years before circumstances changed discouraging me to return at all. As with most things in life, one needs to be trained to perform them well. In my case, as a school kid and into my teens, I never had a bike, I never had a cricket ball or bat, a tennis ball (well, not one with fur all over it) or racquet, a football and boots, I never went camping, I never learned to swim, I never learned to dance, I never learned to play chess, I never fired a rifle, I never went fishing, I never learned to drive a car, I never ate in a restaurant, I never learned to socialise or to be a host, I never learned to speak in public, I never saw how to be a father. Now at the other end of my life, I have attained a few of those skills, yet none very well. I did it my way.
Although I continue to attach the FitBit to her right leg each day I haven't bothered to look at the daily charts each day. By observation I know her dyskinesia is less these past couple of weeks. She continues to amuse herself pulling threads in pieces of fabric or clothes or towelling, sometimes attempts a crossword unsuccessfully, tears labels from objects. One day I found her cutting around images of pups and kittens on tissue boxes; the pieces being thrown out soon after. So I bought her a book containing glizzy clothing pieces intended to be stuck onto outlines of cats and dogs; instead of cutting out the shapes, she spent several hours picking off the price label on the rear cover, until a hole was worn in the cover and the small hand held vacuum cleaner was needed to collect the shreds of paper and cardboard.
Results of shredding some magenta coloured fabric 3 September
On Monday 13th September we celebrate the 30th Anniversary of her PD diagnosis and a two days later I may be permitted to take her to Hot Air City to have her stoma tube replaced, COVID restrictions permitting.
Recently a letter to her from a Government Department stated that our income and assets had been assessed and in consequence our contribution for her Level 4 Package had increased. After researching this issue for a number of hours I found that someone had cancelled the Level 4 Package and then reinstated it the same day. When I rang Wild Dog Carers asking whether they had a hand in this I was told their "Accounts" had made an error in cancelling the package and corrected the mistake. We will get a letter in due course explaining that all is OK. We will see, the August statement is yet to arrive. This error prompted me to check the monthly statements, a chore I have lately tended to ignore because it stresses me and wastes too much time and of course I have found errors.
