They say that youth is wasted on the young. I think there’s certainly some truth to it. But it’s also a little unfair. You don’t know what you don’t know.
I was decluttering my home the other day, as people my age do these days. Some people call it “death cleaning”. They are not very subtle, are they? Anyway, I was going through the store room and I stumbled upon an old framed photo of myself and my first boyfriend from school. We were seated at a dining table dressed to the nine. It might have been a school formal or something.
I was a little struck by the prettiness of the girl in the photo. Oh my goodness, was that me? Look at those gorgeous skin. Flawless and plumb. The eyes were full of hopes and ambitions. The hair was dark and healthy. I could kiss her. How funny! I had never thought of myself as pretty. Definitely not at that age. There, youth can’t see its own beauty.
Recently, an interesting video came around. It was a collection of photos of famous celebrities posing next to their younger selves. They look like two separate persons in a photo except that they were the same person taken years apart. The photos were very well done, super clever. So I forwarded it to my peers. I thought it was amusing.
The video made them all upset however. One said that they reminded her of her lost youth and all the good times. Another lamented the fate of being old and ugly. There was not one positive comment about how clever those photos were. It was all sadness and grief.
Look, I think we focus too strongly on appearances. Looks is not the only defining feature of youth. There are many other characteristics such as exuberance, naivety, impulsiveness, arrogance, restlessness and a sense of adventure. These attributes aren’t limited to the young.
So I maybe older, but I enjoy a thrill as much as the next person. I feel exuberant when I have a few drinks with friends. I am bored if I am at home all day. I am still naive on many matters.
What should an older youth be doing then? Bilbo went on a life changing adventure with a wizard and some scary folks. Is that what I want? Of course not. That’s fiction. I don’t want to go to any clubs either. They’re just awful for me. I don’t understand how young people can stand those places.
I don’t know. I am a little scared to be honest. Peter, my husband, has lost his marbles. I don’t know how much longer I will have him around for. Whatever I choose to do, I will be doing them on my own.
It was confronting to put him in a home. But I have to. I couldn’t do it anymore.
It was awful. Peter was soiling his pants and was using anywhere in the house as a toilet. The stench was overwhelming. I had to clean up his shit everyday, literally. When he fell, which happened quite often, I couldn’t lift him back up. He was too heavy for me. The poor thing had to lay there until he could find enough strength to get himself into a position where I could then pull him up.
He barely spoke anymore. He dribbled like a new born. When he ate, more food fell out of his mouth than into his stomach. He slept most of the day. It was really depressing watching him.
When I had to go out to get groceries, I dreaded coming home as I didn’t know what I would find. Would I find a body on the ground or more shit to clean? I was starting to lose my mind. Our kids suggested that I put him in a nursing home.
It all started after his heart surgery a few years ago. He became a different person after that. Some say it was to do with the anaesthetics. Maybe they used too much. Maybe the anaesthetics exasperated what was already there. Who knows. Come to think of it, he did start to slow down after his knee surgery. But the heart surgery definitely put the foot on the pedal with his decline.
Peter used to be very jovial. He would be cracking jokes all the time. We used to laugh a lot. The jokes stopped abruptly after the heart surgery. He became a more serious person. Then he talked less and less. His voice got softer and softer until it became a whisper. It was very difficult to understand him. And then the mistakes started. He had put his keys in the microwave and his coffee cup in the fridge. Oh my goodness. We were forever looking for his keys. It used to make me so mad when I had to go out and the car key had disappeared again.
After that, it was the repetition. He would call me and ask me the same question over and over again in his breathy, laboured way. I know he couldn’t help it but it was no less annoying. I could feel myself rage with his lack of reality. Despite knowing that it wouldn’t make any difference, I repeated my answers to him. I guess we’re just wired that way. But it was near impossible to get anything done. The repetition put my patience to the test. I failed the test and I started to loathe him.
Then things got worse. He also lost his sense of day and night. One night, I heard noises downstairs. When I went to investigate, I found him fully dressed trying to open the front door thinking that it was time for our walk. It was 2am in the morning. You can probably guess that it wasn’t a one off. I was getting so tired myself.
During the day, I had to lock him inside the house if I had to go to the stores or to go to my appointments. Guess what he did one day? He broke the balcony door and escaped. He was found later on lying flat on the street by a passersby. An ambulance was called. He had fallen on the concrete path and cracked his head. He ended up staying in the hospital for a month.
The doctor at the hospital said that he needed 24 x 7 monitoring because he would try to escape again. They told me that I had to make him a priority. Everyone just expected me to comply. Nobody, not a single person asked me how I felt about it. Yes, I was the wife. I know I have the responsibility. But I was also exhausted, fed up and at the edge of my capability.
The hospital helped me get in touch with aged care and to have carers come around. Oh, the amount of paperwork to fill out. A bunch of people showed up and asked questions. The process was very confusing and I didn’t know who was who.
I also had to drag Peter to see an array of specialists on the geriatrician’s order. Peter had to be poked and prodded to prove that he had dementia. I thought that was pretty obvious. But the doctor had to rule out that it wasn’t an infection in his kidney or liver or something else. Peter was 85 and he had no fever. Go figure.
Peter’s condition deteriorated. His balance was shot. He toileted on the carpet, in bed, in the hallway, and outside the bathroom. Maybe he had forgotten where the toilets were or maybe he just couldn’t get there in time. I don’t know. The cleaning was awful. Even when I could get the stains out, the smell lingered in the room. They seeped into the carpet, the curtains and the furniture. I hated every second of the clean up. I hated him.
His next fall landed him back in hospital. This time, I agreed to move him into a nursing home upon his discharge. I could not cope with him anymore.
I cried and cried when I got home that day. I had been strong all these times. I thought I could take care of him. I was telling myself that he would’t want to be in a nursing home. I fought and fought with it. Now that the deed was done, I felt empty and I sat on the floor. I cried and sobbed and cried for a long time. I didn’t know what I was crying for. But I felt a huge load had been lifted from my body.
Not having to live with Peter anymore has saved me though. I can feel like me again. I can clean the house and live like a regular person. I visit Peter in the nursing home most days, but I don’t spend a lot of time there. He still recognises me but there s literally nothing to talk about. It’s a strange thing to say but I don’t actually miss him because he is no longer the Peter I know.
I find solace in thinking that he had a good life. He had a long career and he pretty much did what he wanted.
As for myself, I will have a different ending. I won’t have the luxury, if you can call it that, to have someone pick up after myself and then put me in a home. No one will put up with my shit, let alone pick them up. Oh sorry, that was gross. No, my kids won’t do that and I will have to organise all of that for myself ahead of time.
I also didn’t live life the way Peter did. He knew what he wanted. I followed him. We lived his life.
Without him at the helm anymore, I find myself making completely different choices to when Peter was home. For so long, I’ve been a couple. I didn’t realise how much of my life had been revolving around him. I brought him his medicines upon waking. I prepared all his meals. I waited for him to come home from work. We went out with his friends. I brought him his pyjamas each night.
Who am I without Peter? What do I want? When I asked myself that question, I just felt a pang in my heart. I have no answers. I don’t know. It was unsettling. But looking at the picture of my younger self gave me hope. She looked strong and she looked like she had hopes and dreams. Maybe I can do that for her. I want to find myself again. I want to do it for her.
