"There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open up and you fall through them into somewhere else. Somewhere Else runs at a different pace to the here and now, where everyone else carries on. Somewhere Else is where ghosts live, concealed from view and only glimpsed by people in the real world. Somewhere Else exists at a delay, so that you can't quite keep pace. Perhaps I was already teetering on the brink of Somewhere Else anyway; but now I fell through, as simply and discreetly as dust sifting between the floorboards. I was surprised to find that I felt at home there.
Winter had begun.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
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Two days after Dad's stroke last year, Lucy gave me a book called "Wintering", by Katherine May. I started reading it on the aeroplane as we flew home, earlier than anticipated, to join my family for a sober Christmas while Dad was housed in an ICU unit with a 30% chance of living. It helped me understand that the year ahead was going to be different, and was going to require a different approach to the usual. Things that I'd often pushed aside as something I could do after the more exciting thing was done were going to be crucial to getting through each day: rest, reflection, vulnerability, hard conversations, prayer, boundaries. Those uncomfortable things that are antithetical to a world that says you can have it all were necessary now, but they also meant that me and my family were going to move at a different pace to the rest of the world.
Sometimes it's difficult to remember just what those first few month were like. I was working from home and during lunch breaks I would cycle to the hospital to sit for 40 minutes with Dad, then I'd cycle home and start working again. Dad was sometimes conscious, sometimes not. He hated having his left arm bound (to stop him from removing his tubes) and he didn't know my name. Sometimes I saw, or thought I saw, lucidity, like once when I was crying and he fixed his one good eye on me with a mixture of curiousity and reflected sadness, or when he said very clearly 'no!' to me putting on his wrist restraint again. Then when COVID measures tightened and hospitals closed to visitors we'd zoom call at 5pm most days. We saw him learn to eat, and slowly words came back, some smiles, and once or twice he sang back when we sang well known songs.
Dad returned home in March, thin and curiously looking at the new house fitted with ramps for his wheelchair and a hospital bed. We started a new rhythm of exercises to maintain Dad's mobility, medicines to manage his pain and night duty to bring him to the toilet in the night time. We also quickly got tired, and there were different ideas of what was best for him, a combination that meant more conflict as well.
In May Tim started in the army, felt miserable, and went in to see a psychiatrist. He came out with a diagnosis for depression and suddenly so much of his past behaviour made sense - how did I not see it before, that my brother was not hormonal and sullen but depressed? He started going for therapy, and more quickly than I expected we saw change in him.
When we flew to the UK again in June, it felt like a milestone moment. We could mark already the progress Dad was making since we last left. We were there to celebrate our first year of marriage with our friends and family in Britain, and though the day began rather fraught after we found out Jacob had COVID, after everyone rallied around us it turned out to be a wonderful day. Perhaps it was some magic, spun out of friendship and love that day but the rest of the trip was golden. We spent 5 days in the Lake District walking and walking, eating sandwiches and chocolate, walking some more. The days grew sunny and hot and me and Izzy swam in the Victorian bathing pool and went to London for brunch, and then I went home while Jacob stayed a while with his family.
The magic must have extended back to Singapore because when I got home, like the grandparents who exclaim how tall their grandchildren have grown, I was awed by how much Dad had improved. He spoke so much more fluently, and could walk a little way without his stick. He continued to improve over the year, learning to shave, brush his teeth, use the toilet and change all by himself. By the end of the year he could walk around the block without his stick unassisted, a far cry from the man who couldn't stand up by himself in March. Another seeming miracle was seeing a gynaecologist who listened and understood my menstrual pain, and being able to work with hospital for a treatment plan that (so far) is working. The relief of not fearing crippling pain each month is immense.
At Christmas time Jacob' Mum and Izzy visited, then Tejin, and we felt what it was like (good) to host and give generously after a year of feeling limited in that area. The combination of holidays and showing them our world opened the world up to us afresh. When Tejin suggested we watch the fireworks at Marina Bay on New Year's Eve, a year ago my instinct would have been to say no and hibernate, but this year I thought - yes, I want to welcome the year in with celebration. This year feels like hope, renewal and life. It feels like the time to be brave and say yes to new things. Jacob has started playing football and I've joined a choir. In February we have three weekends in a row where we have a social occasion (which would have been foolishness last year but is so good now). The lessons of care and rest remain, which is why I'm typing this on a slow Tuesday morning after pancakes while it rains outside, but now it feels like rest coexists not just with coping but with exploring and embracing something new.
2022 began as one long, hard winter after Dad's stroke.
2023 feels like the beginning of spring.
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"We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again."
― Katherine May, Wintering: The power of rest and retreat in difficult times
