Scots Taffer on 13/1/2006 at 05:14

---

My wife and I are expecting the birth of our firstborn in two months, around the start of March. We've just begun to settle in Brisbane, the apartment is coming together and we're slowly furnishing the place so it feels like a home. We're even adapting to the stifling weather in the absence of our broken aircon unit, which might be getting fixed today. My wife's job is coming along well and she has a ton of friendly colleagues, which is fantastic. My impending job hunt doesn't look too bad either, I've already been given two verbal inclinations from both of the major academic institutions that I should easily find a place there should all else fail.

It's an exciting and tumultous time, there's so much in flux and there are simply a million and one things to keep in your head at once, so the last thing you want is a tramua that fucks up your head.

And there it is. I got a call today from my parents who'd just returned from a short holiday and they told me that Grandmother has two months left to live.

I love my grandmother, but she is stubborn in many ways and being secretive about her health is one of them. I know this woman so well... I lived a few minutes from her house my whole life and for a large part of my childhood, I spent one night a week living there because I enjoyed both her and my grandfather's company so much. When my granddad was diagnosed with cancer, I thought it might hit them hard, but they came through it in the way that only those pre-WWIIers can, like it's absolutely nothing but a change in the wind.

My grandmother. My mother's mother. In my mind there are countless memories... the Sunday dinners, the lovely homemade vegetable and ham soup she made, the family haircuts in the kitchen with the hairdresser, the cups of tea she made me in the mug that I'd loved as child (which had my Uncle's name, Michael, written on it), the grilled bacon and pickle sandwiches on Saturday nights before Casualty came on, the Christmas and Easter feasts, the old wine goblets from Germany that she kept pristinely clean that reminded me of the Evil Witch's goblet from Snow White.

Ah, this woman. She is the long-suffering wife straight out of One Foot In The Grave, my granddad is a less grumpy and more cheery natured Victor Meldrew, and her mild-mannered, quick-to-smile nature always made her an instant winner with every child in our family. She is the uber grandma basically and she'd kick all your grandma's asses around the block. She is in her seventies and could still look after two babies while cooking dinner and cleaning the place. She walked everywhere, went swimming all the time and was generally fitter than many twenty year olds.

She never complains about a thing... and that's the problem.

About a month or two before I left, in the middle of all my chaotic packing and arranging and finnagling, I started to notice some changes. She wasn't with my granddad when he went swimming, which they did around 3-4 times a week. I queried this and got back that she had a headache. Around the sixth time she said this I really pushed her hard about going to a doctor, and as I later found out, my granddad had been pushing her for months. As I said, stubborn old woman. She reads a lot, another habit I share with her, and I always ask what she's reading... "Oh, not much these days". Decidedly fucking odd, I think. My granddad later tells me that she's been getting forgetful too, and when they were on holiday a short while ago in Portsmouth she forgot which train she was supposed to be getting. "Perhaps a bit of senile dementia?" he wondered. We all wondered. So finally she goes to the doctors, I was there on the same day as she was by coincidence (I'd fractured a knuckle) and it was then that I was told she was going in for a CT scan. Just after this, she had a dizzy spell and a few blackouts and she went into the hospital, they were going to fast-track her for a CT scan but then they heard she had an upcoming appointment so they jettisoned her out of hospital at the first opportunity (fucking YAY for the NHS you fucking bastards). In many ways we were grateful for this, because it was nearly Christmas and she seemed miserable in there, not to mention absolutely fine. The speculation at this time was that her bad arthritis was constricting the bloodflow to her brain and causing the blackouts/memory loss.

She was fine over that period, from then until I left, and we all began to think that it was nothing at all. Just a bad spell, perhaps it would all right itself. It turns out she has a brain tumour that is inoperable and so progressed that they can't see her even making it to Spring. They are still waiting on the "official" diagnosis from the oncologist but basically they don't give her much time at all.

Being on the side of the world is a double edged blade, in some ways it's almost a blessing that I won't have to go through the heart-wrenching struggle of watching her die in a way that I'm sure will totally transform her from the woman I know into someone else, and on the flip side, I have positively no closure about her impending death and I feel emotionally numb about the whole affair while the rest of my family are wounded, bleeding and greiving. When I left she was hearty and hale, she came along to a meal before the leaving party we had in the salsa bar and she was totally on form and 100% there - the woman I know and love. This is hard for me to process. I can never return to see her alive. That's almost a certainty. There will be a headstone waiting for me in grey-skied Scotland with my grandmother's name on it and jesus fuck, I can't take that...

The real punch is that I can't even think about going back, not even for the funeral when it comes. There are two major reasons, money and our soon-to-be-born child. The cost of setting up home here has been staggering, but still a piss in the pond compared to what it would've cost back in Britain, but the fact remains that I don't have any money at all for an air fare. However, even if I was offered a ticket for free, I couldn't take it. My wife and I are alone in this end of the world and I couldn't even think about deserting her at a time when she could either be waiting to go into labour or actually postnatally looking after the child in her convalescing period. I'm my grandmother's firstborn grandson and this is my firstborn, there isn't even a question about it and the worst part is that I know she'd completely agree.

Anyway, I just got a call from the aircon repair guy and I'm on the other end of town at a crappy internet cafe, so I gotta go...

Matthew on 13/1/2006 at 09:51

---

Aw Scots, I haven't the words.

SubJeff on 13/1/2006 at 11:19

---

I'm so sorry to hear that Scots. :(

You need to focus on your wife and your baby now though.

There is nothing you can do and whilst that is an awful thing (that you know anyway) you have to keep your strength up for your wife as she is going to go through a whole lot soon enough. Your grandmother will never see her grandson, as you realise, but you have to forget that and be happy with your wife because as much as you are wanting at the moment; she needs you more than ever and that is the most important thing.

Life always throws things at us with no care for timing or convenience. These next few months are going to be bittersweet in a way I can't imagine, but your baby will be here soon and that is going to be 200 types of fantastic :)

Naartjie on 13/1/2006 at 13:24

---

Sympathy :(

Bad Breath Dude on 13/1/2006 at 13:41

---

That´s.. Incredibly sad.