Paralysis

I have just returned from my usual Saturday afternoon with Rosie, the 88-year old lady I visit once a week as part of a neighbourhood care scheme (I've previously blogged about her here and here), and I am overcome by a muddled sense of impatience, mixed with excitement and fear.

Like most of us I dream of writing a great novel, and although I have, in recent years, downgraded my hopes and expectations to something of the Mills&Boon variety, in Rosie there is an amazing story to be told, something that could, if handled right, become that great novel... if I only knew how, or, should I say: if I only dared to try.

I have toyed with the idea before, told myself to start small; that all I have to do is sit down and write the skeleton of the story, or perhaps a short story version. It doesn't have to be of epic proportions. And occasionally I do get as far as the computer before paralysis sets in. The expectations I have of myself are crippling, and the only thing I can believe in is my failure.

How do you do it? Because I know you do...

Shopping with Rosie

Rosie and I are standing in the supermarket checkout queue.

“What does that say”, she says pointing to a sign on a pillar next to us.

“It says that if you want to purchase cigarettes and you look under 16 the supermarket reserves the right to ask for proof of age”, I say.

“Well, I don’t suppose I would be mistaken for 15 these days”; 88 year-old Rosie replies and flashes me a mischievous smile.

We both laugh. I ask if she was ever a smoker.

“No, not really, but I once smoked hashish with a Lebanese chap”, she’s looking thoughtful; obviously her mind has taken her on a detour down memory lane.

I try to imagine my own parents ever smoking hashish with Lebanese chaps, and fail miserably.

“How did that make you feel”, I ask Rosie.

“Oh, I don’t know… a little bit funny I suppose.” She’s quiet for a moment, “but no more funny than usual, really”, she winks at me.

It’s time to pay for the shopping.

Fury

Every Saturday afternoon I spend with Rosie. She lives nearby and I usually walk over sometime between 2 and 2:30. After I arrive we sit and chat for an hour or so; we talk about her health, about what she’s been doing during the week. Then she calls a taxi and we head off to the supermarket where I help her do her weekly shopping. After we get back to her flat and put the groceries away, we sit down with a giant cup of tea each and a jaffa cake or two. And she tells me tales of her life. She’s a fantastic story teller and has had an incredibly rich and interesting life.

Rosie is 88 and was always very active and independent. But when she moved to Brighton 10 years ago, she became quite depressed when, for the first time in her life, she felt that nobody actually needed her. She started feeling useless; a burden on her family, on society. She still takes a daily anti-depressant and something to help her go to sleep at night, and usually when I call during the week and ask her how she is, she answers “not very well, dear”. And there are times when she opens the door to let me in, when I can tell that she is indeed quite down. But I like to think that she enjoys our visits as much as I do.

Rosie suffers from severe osteoporosis; she is almost completely deaf; she is registered blind; both her hands and feet are badly twisted from rheumatism, rendering them almost useless at performing simple tasks like opening a jar, or getting through the impossible plastic wrapping that covers most food items. Things I do mindlessly, can take her the best part of an hour. In many ways she is a prisoner, both in her body and in her flat.

When I called her after I returned from Istanbul on Tuesday, she told me that last Saturday she was robbed in the supermarket. Someone distracted her and while her back was turned, his accomplice snatched her purse from her bag, which was lying in the supermarket trolley.

How anyone could do something so cowardly is beyond me. I feel absolutely furious. At 4’8” she is clearly deemed an easy target. She is quite unsteady on her feet and walks with a cane. “Pick on someone your own size”, I feel like shouting. I still want to throttle them.