Last week my mother fell getting out of bed. She didn't tell anyone. She found an old pair of crutches she had from a hip operation she had last year and used them to get around. She knew that as long as she could walk, nothing was broken. But the pain wouldn't go away. On Friday, she rang her doctor and asked would he come and see her. He told her to go to the Mercy Hospital for an x-ray. My husband brought her in. She has a tiny fracture in her hip, not serious, but the doctor said she needed complete bed rest for two weeks.
Immediately, my younger sister Catherine came down from Dublin, Louise, another sister from Mahon and I called into her yesterday. It's like we needed an excuse to see her - she's been cocooning - and this was a legitimate reason to do so.
I texted her from Aldi, "What can I bring you?"
She replied, "Daffodils, I need brightness." So that's what I got her, a bunch of tightly closed bunch of green stalks for €1.49. I apologised for the state of them, but she was delighted. "They're perfect like that; they're ready to burst into colour; I love that potential."
Louise brought a cooked chicken, sliced bread, milk, biscuits. You know, practical things.
The three sisters and their mammy sat around, catching up on the news. Mum, sitting up on the couch tucked under a rug, next to the plug-in radiator, a cup of tea in her hand, and her daffs, was the happiest I'd seen her since Christmas day. My nephew, his girlfriend and their new baby, Isabella popped in.
It was a lovely afternoon.
During this past week, Pat Kenny on Newstalk discussed how people were 'hitting the wall'. When the first phase of Lockdown was announced on the 12th of March, I was attending a First Aid Refresher Course in a separate building with no access to phones, computers or a radio. It was only when I returned to my office at 4.30 pm did I hear the news. It was like the end of World War 1: the guns of normal office life fell silent, nobody felt like talking as they quietly and urgently packed their stuff into boxes, and left.
Once the loneliness and reality of working from home sank in, I hit the bottle. I went from a can of Bulmers once a fortnight, and usually only if a Munster game was on the TV, to 12 cans on the weekend, and ice-cream, chocolate and Taytos every single weekday evening. I wallowed in a massive, self-made sulk. I felt these indulgences were my reward for getting through another day of having not a single other person to talk to. I was angry at having my carefully constructed life dismantled without my consent or even discussion. There was no one person to blame or get angry with, so I turned it inwards. Being the extrovert that I am, I had no outlet for my 'fabulous personality' and no one to share the nuggets of wisdom I learned that day. Eventually, after several weeks and once the summer arrived, I saw an upside to all this, the value of getting back time previously consumed by the daily commute.
Someday some wise person will explain this time we've been forced to endure, but I suspect that none of us is the same person we were 12 months ago. I've taken this time to work on my anger, to forgive my many enemies, to empty my backpack of favourite grudges and to 'let that shite go.' I meditate daily, and sometimes I even pray. Alan, the puppy, has been a pain but he's brought so much joy. Most days I wouldn't leave the house only that he has to go for walk or he'll tear up the house. I've also taken up running again and try to get out first thing in the morning and at lunchtime.
My office these days is my son Conor's bedroom. It faces south-west, and the sun, when there is any, starts to appear just before lunchtime. I watch it as it sets behind the house at the end of our garden, and on Friday, it cleared the chimney. The daffodils are out, the days are lengthening an inch a day, the quality of the light is changing, and this tells me that the earth is still turning on its axis. The Universe is doing what it always does; it's moving on.
Mum will mend. This time will pass. So far it's a cold but sunny day in Cork this morning. Some day all this will be over. In the meantime, I am grateful for friends and kind work colleagues. I will never take relationships, intimate conversations or the freedom to travel for granted ever again.
That's a promise.
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