smokingboot (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smokingboot) wrote2020-03-15 08:26 am
smokingboot) wrote2020-03-15 08:26 am
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When the panthers came
The night before last I dreamed of panthers. I was living in a wild place where they roamed and kept seeing them. They didn't hunt/stalk/bother me. Panthers are a symbol I kind of connect with Grandfather, because of the leche de pantera cocktail beloved of the Spanish Legion. It's a primitive personal magic; panthers are beautiful and dangerous, but maybe Grandaddy is nearby. In the end, I am still a little girl.
I woke to messages from my family in Spain; my eldest and very dear aunt is sick with a perforated bowel and peritonitis. The night of my dream she was in theatre, a high risk operation as she's in her late 80s, but there was no option. It was this or she would die.
She has survived the op but has not regained consciousness. The doctors are saying that her situation is grave.
My grandmother had five children, two sons, three daughters. One of the sons is dead, the other in the North of Spain. My sick aunt is the eldest of the family, my mother is the middle child, the lady co-ordinating everything is the youngest sister, now in her 60s. She contacted me saying she couldn't reach Mum. I contacted my brother and my mum. My brother broke it to Mum via text message no less; fortunately I got through to her before she read it.
So then, my first long conversation with Mum, as her schizophrenia, already catapulted sky high by the coronavirus, went stratospheric. Emotionally her response is first of all very aggressive, angry; how could this happen? She must have been in pain for days! How long, what hospital etc...My answer to all these questions remained the same; I don't know, you must phone your youngest sister, she needs your support. It is your duty; right now she is carrying the whole family on her shoulders.
It took a lot of work, my mother shuns anything at all to do with death and illness; she would even rather hear news from me than from her sister, almost as though the further away the messenger, the less likely any form of contamination. No, she would not join her youngest sister visiting the hospital; in many ways that might be a relief to my sick aunt. After all, who wants to wake up to my mother glaring at them saying 'I told you to eat sprouted alfalfa seeds and propolis! Did you take those herbal supplements like I said, did you? No, of course you didn't, because you always know best! And now here you are...'
Moving Mother out of her default and just getting her to phone her youngest sister was a work of major manipulation. It happened through me talking to my brother, whose automatic response was to get on a plane and go over. He was not afraid of the Wuhan virus (I suspect he's the only person still calling it that) It took real effort not to pull my own hair out talking to him, bringing him round to the idea that his vulnerability, while real, was not my optimum worry; that his recent self isolation of 14 days might make no difference if he spends a couple of hours in an airport, then on a plane, then goes to visit two octogenarians, one of whom is already at death's door in an hospital! This had better results than I expected. He phoned Mum and said if she did not phone her sister, he would go across right now. That worked. Her mortal terror of either of us contacting anything conquered her fear of germs via bad news, and she did the humane thing to the best of her ability.
I am exhausted. They are two of the most unreasonable people on the globe.
No news this morning, my aunt must still be alive. And that gives me hope.
Aunty is a tough old bird. The panthers can wait.
I woke to messages from my family in Spain; my eldest and very dear aunt is sick with a perforated bowel and peritonitis. The night of my dream she was in theatre, a high risk operation as she's in her late 80s, but there was no option. It was this or she would die.
She has survived the op but has not regained consciousness. The doctors are saying that her situation is grave.
My grandmother had five children, two sons, three daughters. One of the sons is dead, the other in the North of Spain. My sick aunt is the eldest of the family, my mother is the middle child, the lady co-ordinating everything is the youngest sister, now in her 60s. She contacted me saying she couldn't reach Mum. I contacted my brother and my mum. My brother broke it to Mum via text message no less; fortunately I got through to her before she read it.
So then, my first long conversation with Mum, as her schizophrenia, already catapulted sky high by the coronavirus, went stratospheric. Emotionally her response is first of all very aggressive, angry; how could this happen? She must have been in pain for days! How long, what hospital etc...My answer to all these questions remained the same; I don't know, you must phone your youngest sister, she needs your support. It is your duty; right now she is carrying the whole family on her shoulders.
It took a lot of work, my mother shuns anything at all to do with death and illness; she would even rather hear news from me than from her sister, almost as though the further away the messenger, the less likely any form of contamination. No, she would not join her youngest sister visiting the hospital; in many ways that might be a relief to my sick aunt. After all, who wants to wake up to my mother glaring at them saying 'I told you to eat sprouted alfalfa seeds and propolis! Did you take those herbal supplements like I said, did you? No, of course you didn't, because you always know best! And now here you are...'
Moving Mother out of her default and just getting her to phone her youngest sister was a work of major manipulation. It happened through me talking to my brother, whose automatic response was to get on a plane and go over. He was not afraid of the Wuhan virus (I suspect he's the only person still calling it that) It took real effort not to pull my own hair out talking to him, bringing him round to the idea that his vulnerability, while real, was not my optimum worry; that his recent self isolation of 14 days might make no difference if he spends a couple of hours in an airport, then on a plane, then goes to visit two octogenarians, one of whom is already at death's door in an hospital! This had better results than I expected. He phoned Mum and said if she did not phone her sister, he would go across right now. That worked. Her mortal terror of either of us contacting anything conquered her fear of germs via bad news, and she did the humane thing to the best of her ability.
I am exhausted. They are two of the most unreasonable people on the globe.
No news this morning, my aunt must still be alive. And that gives me hope.
Aunty is a tough old bird. The panthers can wait.