IT’S
NEVER TOO LATE
My mother is 92 years old next month.
She recently
wrote her first short story. It’s about a Siamese cat named Sam. Sam was an
integral part of the family for 10 years and mum’s story is so full of unbridled
affection and joy, it’s a tale that warms your heart.
For mum to
write this was an amazing achievement when you consider her background. She had
to leave school at 13, in the middle of the Great Depression, because her
parents couldn’t afford to keep her there. What with three brothers and three
sisters, life must have been very difficult for the family, especially with her
father in and out of work. She managed to secure a job as a shop assistant and
her earnings helped to keep food on the table.
She married
my father in 1939 when she was 18. My sister was born after a year and I made
an appearance three years later. My father was a builder, but was prepared to
try his hand at anything to provide for the family. We lived in a coastal town
50 miles north of Sydney where work was always hard to come by. However,
because he was an ardent gardener, as well as very competent in backyard
poultry keeping, we always had good, nourishing food to eat. Mum was the primary child raiser, keeper of
the house and maintainer of the flower beds that surrounded our modest house.
In 1978 she
had a major breakdown and after months of treatment was placed on Lithium, a
mood stabilizing drug, after being diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. Over
the years she’s had a range of health problems to contend with, including a
heart condition. However, always lurking in the background was the specter of
depression. Her despair surfaced big-time about five years ago and she became
virtually incapable of looking after herself. A rearrangement of medication
didn’t help much and it was obvious she needed full-time care, above and beyond
the home care and meals that were being provided. My sister, Carole, lives
about 1,000 kilometers north in Queensland and it was wearing her out driving
all that distance to assist mum through her bad patches. I was of little help
because I lived 800 kilometers south in Melbourne and had a full-on job
demanding my presence. To our relief, mum agreed to move north to an aged care
center near where my sister lived.
My mother had
always been a keen reader and letter writer. However, both of these pastimes
fell by the wayside as her depression enveloped her. Her first 12 months at the
aged care center (a new, impressive facility near Moreton Bay) was a difficult
and challenging adjustment for her, having left the family home where she’d
lived for over 60 years. Fortunately she struck up some immediate friendships
which made the upheaval easier for her. After some months, her reading began to
gradually pick up, but my sister had to do all of her writing for her. However,
her attitude was still predominantly coming from doom and gloom.
Then, late
last year, her best friend at the center had a stroke that impacted on her
mental ability as well as on her mobility and mum found herself spending more
and more time supporting her. Within a month, I noticed a shift in my mother’s
attitude whenever I talked to her on the phone. She was definitely showing
signs of being more upbeat and positive. This positive change of mood continued
to grow and in January she wrote me a half page letter, laboriously written
with a very shaky hand. A three page letter arrived a few weeks later and her
handwriting had improved noticeably. In between time, unbeknown to me, she was working
on her short story.
Mum thinks
her improvement in attitude and moods is attributable to changes in her
medication. My guess is that her attitude took a turn for the better when she
decided to put her friend’s needs ahead of her own. I believe her concern for
her friend’s welfare and her dedication in demonstrating her love and support
for her was the catalyst for her attitudinal change. Regardless of the cause,
it was a miraculous turnaround.
A couple of
weeks ago a parcel arrived in the mail. Inside was a folder with typewritten
pages, together with drawings, inserted in plastic sleeves. It was mum’s short
story – ‘SAM’ by R.J. Leane. My sister, Carole, had done the typing and
drawn the illustrations – mainly of cats of course.
Carole also
wrote a piece - ‘About the Author’. Here is an extract:
What makes this story rather special is that, on the 2nd
of April 2013, Jess turns 92 and this is the first story she has ever written.
She has already started on her second story called
‘Tess’.
Jess wishes this story called ‘Sam’ to be dedicated to
her daughter Carole, her son Don and her grandchildren Michael, Greg, Lisa,
Harvey and Hannah.
My mother exemplifies the fact that it’s never too
late to change our minds and change our lives.
I’m very proud of my mum!
My mom is 94 and was a Depression era kid, and it changed her whole life. She still lives in fear that she will lose all her money and sometimes I think rightly so.
ReplyDeleteHaving to leave school at 13 was something that left her unfulfilled. I can't even begin to imagine the difficulties of living through the Depression. I recall mum telling me about, at times, the family having fried bread and dripping for their evening meals.
ReplyDelete