Man, but this life is
hard! You know how much trouble and pain I’ve had ever since I was a kid? A father
who beat us until he cleared off to the US, never to be heard of again, and a
mother who drank herself to death. Then my first marriage. What a disaster that
was! Two kids and nine years later she divorced me, and I can’t say I blame
her. First I lost all of her savings and the money her father left her. That
was when my business went under and the creditors grabbed everything we had. And
when she caught me messing around for a second time it was the final straw.
It was good that my
present wife had a hysterectomy before we met. At least we don’t have children
to bring up. Things were kind of alright for a while. We both had quite decent
jobs, she at the guest lodge and me on the whale boat. Then along came Covid
and tourism collapsed. We drew unemployment benefits for as long as we could.
She was lucky to get a job at the supermarket in Gansbaai but the hours were long
and the pay half what she used to get. As for me, I eventually gave up wasting
time and money hunting for non-existent work and became a house husband.
I had to do all the
cooking, cleaning and washing, and I was garden boy as well. It was not too bad
at first, there being just the two of us, but then disaster struck. Her mother arrived
on the scene. She had been living alone in her house in Cape Town. It was an
old place but, because it was in the City Bowl, was worth close on five
million. After her husband died she became depressed and began to show signs of
dementia. When it became clear she could no longer live alone, the house was
put on the market. The old boy had stipulated in his will that should the
property be sold the proceeds were to be held in trust and only the interest
could be used to take care of his widow. He probably knew that my wife and her
brother would have tried to get their hands on the money and there would not be
enough to see her to her grave.
She could have gone to
an old age home where she would have been looked after in style, but my
scheming brother-in-law, who had also hit hard times, came up with a different
plan. For one third of the monthly interest money, he would handle the sale of
the house and contents, and attend to all the admin, while my wife would get
two thirds for taking in her mother and looking after her.
There was not much
choice. We were two months behind with the rent, the price of petrol meant
getting to work took nearly half her salary, and by the 15th we were
eating pap and gravy just like the folks in the townships. The extra money has certainly
made a big difference, but it now means that I not only have to do the
housework and the garden, but also take care of a senile old lady.
Because of her
depression, for which she takes a load of useless medication, she is reluctant
to get up in the morning. After the wife has gone to work I tidy up and do the
dishes. Then, at eight o’clock I take her coffee. I knock on her door and as I
open it, I call out, “Mom, are you awake?” Of course, she is not awake. I put
down the coffee and open the curtains. “Are you awake, Mom?” She mumbles and
stirs. “Time to get up, Mom. It’s after eight on a lovely Thursday morning.” I
tell her what day it is in the hope that she will remember and not keep asking
me every five minutes. “Don’t go back to sleep, Mom. Drink your coffee.” Only
when she sits up and reaches for the mug can I leave her.
I eventually persuade
her to get out of bed and come to the kitchen, where I give her breakfast and
make sure she takes her meds correctly. Around nine she goes to the bathroom.
She cannot handle the shower on her own so I run her a bath. She finally
emerges after splashing a lot of water on the floor for me to dry up. It is
close on eleven when she comes out of her room to sit and have tea in the lounge
or on the stoep, depending on the weather. She used to love novels, I am told, and
now likes to sit with an open book in her lap. I think it is just a pretence,
though, because she is evasive when I ask her what the story is about. I make
lunch for one o’clock and we eat it together, mostly in silence. Sometimes I
will turn the radio on and listen to the news and make comments but she hasn’t
a clue about what is going on. “Man, but these ANC monkeys can’t stop
stealing!” I say, and she looks at the window, a little alarmed. “Are there
monkeys outside?” “No, don’t worry, Mom. The monkeys are all in Parliament.”
My wife insists I take
her mother for a walk every day if it is not raining or blowing a gale. She
says it will help to keep her mobile and it is also good for her mental health.
And what about my mental health? It is no use complaining, because I know what
she will say. If I don’t want to cooperate, then I can forget about sex. Not
that every two weeks is much of a sex life. And the last time, can you believe
it, she actually fell asleep while I was still doing my thing!
Inside the house she
uses a stick, and she has a three-wheeler for outdoors. When I get her out at
3pm I find it easier and safer just to take her arm. We need nearly half an
hour to shuffle round the block. I once said to her that if we go any slower a
tortoise will overtake us, but she ignored me. Sometimes I try to encourage her
with motivational rubbish about what a beautiful day it is, and how spectacular
the flowers have been, but normally she just grunts. Then, a couple of weeks
ago, I urged her to cheer up and enjoy being out in the fresh air while she was
still able to. She came to a halt, looked into the distance, and sang in her hoarse,
old woman’s voice the refrain from an almost forgotten song.
Enjoy yourself,
it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
She turned to me and
actually gave a triumphant smile. I nearly fell on my back. So, there was still
a faint spark left in her, I thought, but it soon went out and she lapsed into
gloomy silence once more.
When we get home, she
collapses onto her bed and stays there until the worker returns. During the
evening meal my wife tries to engage in conversation with her mother but it is
so one-sided and unrewarding she soon gives up. After supper the old girl
stares at the TV for an hour and then goes to bed. And that is the routine,
seven days a week, week in and week out.
No wonder I feel
trapped. No wonder I have become increasingly desperate in my search for an
escape from this purgatory. I suppose it was inevitable that my thoughts would
turn to euthanasia.
Our situation
deteriorated. With constant load-shedding and the ever-rising price of petrol
and food the supermarket was losing money. My wife came home in a state and
announced that she would have to take a pay cut or lose her job. And the car
was starting to use oil.
It was after she got
stuck in the bath that I began to work on a plan of action. I heard her
shouting my name and when I called through the door and asked if she was
alright, she said she needed help to get out. Instead of kneeling, as she had
been told to do, she was sitting in the bath. Of course she could not hoist
herself up. Over the years she has been putting on weight until now she is
built like a hippo. I had to take off my shoes and socks and stand in the bath
behind her and grab her under her arms in a kind of bear hug and heave her up
enough for her to get onto her knees. I helped her to stand and climb out of
the bath before leaving her to dry off and finish her ablutions.
Well, after having
manhandled the naked old woman, I tried to analyse my feelings. Apart from
acute embarrassment, I was filled with a strange mixture of pity, anger and
self-loathing. Was looking after this miserable old vegetable all that was left
in my life? What kind of excuse for a man had I become?
I now began to see her
in a different light. When I studied her features all I saw was unhappiness.
The deep lines around her down-turned mouth make her look bitter and resentful,
and her eyes are dull and unfocussed, giving the impression of sadness and
disappointment. There is no joy in her life, and no hope. She merely exists.
More than that, it is a futile existence that benefits no one, including her.
We would all be better off if she were dead.
This is how I began to
think. If she died my wife would inherit her two and a half million and we
would be free to start living again. But if the old woman is not taken out by a
heart attack or stroke, her Medical Aid could keep her going for years to come.
Maybe the time had arrived to not only help her out of the bath, but to help
her out of this world and into the next.
I began to daydream
about a modus operandi. I ruled out staging a suicide, and shied away from
poison. Then I remembered a scene from some years back. I had trapped a rat in
a cardboard box, and to kill it I dropped it into a bucket of water and held it
under with a pair of braai tongs. It struggled violently for about a minute and
then went limp. I was about to let it go when there was a final flurry. The
drowning process had taken no longer than three minutes.
Of course, I wasn’t
going to attack the old woman while she was in the bath. But what about
smothering her in her sleep? I could creep into her room during her afternoon nap
and use a cushion to suffocate her. She would struggle like the rat did, no
doubt, but not for long. The horrible process would take no more than five
minutes at the outside.
I told myself that it
would be an act of kindness. She would be released from the hopeless misery of
this pointless routine she was forced to follow. By keeping her going we
weren’t doing her a favour, and at the same time we were ruining our own lives.
It was ten days ago
that I finally made a move. In a state of extreme agitation, my hands shaking,
I quietly opened her door. The curtains were closed against the afternoon light
and all was quiet. I stealthily approached her bedside, holding the cushion
before me.
“Yes? What do you
want?”
I tell you, I nearly jumped
out of my skin. In the gloom her eyes were wide open and she was looking at me.
“Oh, I just wondered
if you would like some tea?”
“Tea? Not now. I’m
trying to rest.”
I suppose I should
have followed through anyway, but my courage deserted me. I would have to psych
up again, and next time only make the attempt if I could hear her snoring.
A week went by before I
was in the right state of mind to act. Then, on the morning I resolved to do
it, to calm my nerves and keep busy, I went out on the pavement and started to
trim the hedge. I had not been at it for long when the old man from up the road
came by with his dog. We exchanged greetings and he stopped to talk.
He said he had been
meaning to speak to me for some time now. He just wanted to say how much he
admired me for the way I was looking after the old lady. Was she my mother? I
put him right and he went on to claim that there weren’t many young men today who
would sacrifice their time to improve the quality of life of a decrepit old
relative. I didn’t say that 46 was hardly young, and he continued to heap
praise on me. My behaviour showed that I was a compassionate human being with
strong moral fibre. In his book that was what constituted a real man.
He went on his way and
I returned to the house. In the bedroom I closed the door and lay down on the
bed. After a while I began to cry like … like a man. My cheeks were wet. Then I
heard her calling. She was shouting my name the way she did when she got stuck
in the bath. Now what?
Yes, when I say life
is hard, I know what I am talking about.
To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.
