How much things can change in a week. And yet, not change. My decision still stands. I have started thinking about the how. The fact that my world has turned upside down doesn’t change that. The number of times in my life that my world has turned upside down, I’m getting pretty used to hanging on by my ankles. But to see my father, the rock of my life, lying paralysed in an acute stroke ward has created a bubble that I exist in, removed from everything that happens around me. And in some ways my decision is inside that bubble, but in some ways it’s outside as well.
Dad was agitated when I saw him today. He was trying to watch the Melbourne Grand Prix, and he kept pulling himself down the bed rail. I thought he was trying to sit up, but he eventually managed to tell me he was trying to get to the end of the bed, to stand up. Paralysed completely on his left side, tubes coming out of him everywhere, barely able to open his eyes and speech a struggle. But determined to stand up. We thought he wanted his socks and slippers because his feet were cold (as usual). But no, he wanted them to stand up. Stubborn old man. But determined. Reminds me of our family emblem; the Macfarlane warrior, bare-chested, brandishing a sword and vowing ‘This I’ll defend’. Have I inherited any of that? One can only hope…
Mum and I went to the cinema together before we went in to see Dad. Some long overdue Mum-daughter bonding time. Pity it’s taken Dad being in hospital for us to do it.
