I apologise to Goldfish followers for the long gap since my last post. I hope more regular postings will now follow this one as I continue with his story from where I left off. I have to admit, it has been more difficult than I expected to keep writing although I can’t really explain why. I have also been picking up writing work again here and there with some magazine features and a local history book coming out next month.
I think I have already said I kept a diary, so it is not difficult to pick up where I left off in terms of knowing the sequence of events. Although, looking through entries for those early weeks after I moved in, I find I’d forgotten just how desperately tired I was much of the time. I also struggled to accept that, for the time being, my writing career was stopped. One day in March 2014 I wrote: “Achieved nothing today. Book sales are slipping and I need to do some promotions but when? No time. Have written nothing for weeks. No magazine features, no poems, no writing full stop. It would be fine if I accepted that for the time being (and it’s not as if it’s going to be for years) I did nothing but take care of the Goldfish – but it’s so hard to totally turn my back on my own life.”
At the same time the Goldfish and I had a lot of fun the evening he discovered a new amusement – one which should keep me fit. He had been to the loo and on the way back suddenly turned round and sat on the seat of his walker. I don’t know if he confused it with his wheelchair or if he was simply too tired to walk any further. There was no budging him so I pulled the walker, with him enthroned upon it, along the hallway and back into the living room. “Nice,” he said, with a big grin on his face. I spent the next hour (well, maybe 15 minutes but it FELT like an hour) pushing and pulling the walker from the living room, through the hall, turn at the bathroom door and back again.
The Goldfish thought this was great fun. I must have looked a sight – red-faced, sweat pouring off me and exhausted – by the time I convinced him it was enough for one night. He happily agreed to a nightcap and we shared a bag of posh crisps. Maybe I did achieve something that day, after all. What’s not to be satisfied about a happy Goldfish?
So lovely to read this. I can picture the scene completely, red face and all. What a wide range of experiences you have.
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Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m still not sure if it was one of his better ideas or not – certainly meant I didn’t feel guilty about eating the posh crisps (chips) afterwards.
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I can feel how tired you were.d But you will do anything to entertain them, to fill the time.
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Yes, we will, Nancy. The time between evening meal and bedtime could sometimes feel endless.
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Good to read GF again. X
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Thanks, Carolyn. I hope there will be more to read on a regular basis now. I hope!
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It’s a very big serious question this one of ‘ do you put your own life on hold while doing the necessary or rather while making the choice to put parent first and keep them out of residential care etc etc etc’. After all, they put their lives on hold when we were unable to look after ourselves. There again they chose to have us! And so the arguments for and against could continue. It’s one that there’s no right or wrong to don’t you think and each individual family does what it does. Also makes us wonder what we want for ourselves. At this moment I’m thinking that much as I might like some mobility aid games of an evening, I hate the thought of my daughter halting her own life and having to do it. Difficult on so many levels!!!!
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Thanks for commenting and I agree there are a few big serious questions surrounding this issue and each individual family has it make its own decisions. No one from the outside looking in can see the full picture and know all the circumstances. I was quite shocked by the number of people who told me I should put the Goldfish in a residential home where “he’d be properly looked after.” There’s a loaded statement!
As for the mobility aid game (I like that phrase) I gor a lot of pleasure out of it, especially seeing the Goldfish’s enjoyment of a game he’d invented himself!
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Aw Mary I can’t stop laughing at you and the Goldfish ‘playing this game!’ You’ll never forget this!!! Bet you kept a stock of posh crisps in for fear of a repeat performance. Hehe!!
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Thanks, Noreen. It was a game which was repeated more than once. He would plonk himself on the seat and away we’d go. I was glad it was not a very big house!
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Glad to see you posting again, Mary! You are so much more generous than me – I’m afraid that I’d be too selfish to put my life on hold for anyone, let alone MIL…
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Thanks. I hope I can post more regularly now. That’s the idea, anyway. You do quite a lot for the MIL already – and I hate to tell you this, but you’ll probably find yourself doing more in times to come. Besides, this is my dad so it’s different. However, I do wonder what would have happened if he had lived for longer. It’s a question I won’t ever have to answer.
Hope things are okay with you.
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Hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That must have been quite the struggle pushing him around while he SAT on his walker! LOL!!!! Sounds like he got a real kick outta it too! 🙂 I don’t even know how you did that…
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It was pretty exhausting but I kept telling myself the exercise was good for me!
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Oh, those photos are wonderful! I had read this once before but had not commented, I guess. too tied up in the reading. Such happy memories of sharing some fun with your dad will last forever. He has a lovely daughter to keep his spirit alive in her writings. Clare
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