Doug’s care home is located on a road we’d driven many times as it’s a short cut between our house and my childhood home, when Mum still lives, just over 100 miles away. The building is well known - originally the site of a dark episode in Canadian history, but the morning he moved in was the first time we’d stopped there. As I parked, I knew that when I left at the end of the evening I’d be alone in the car. Leaving him behind. And I did, though I had to sit in the car for a long time before I felt safe to drive.
The first two weeks were absolutely the worst (until Covid struck and I realised how much worse “the worst” could be). I arrived at the home after breakfast and stayed until he was tucked into bed in the evening. We had lunch and supper together every day, joined in all the activities, and both of us endeavoured to navigate this new routine. I tried to hold my tears while we were together, because my crying upset him. I was often unsuccessful, but I managed (I think) to suppress the worst of them until I was once again alone in the car, driving home to Piper-the-Cat.
About four minutes from the home there is a house which, then, had an elf on a bicycle at the end of the driveway. The elf was dressed in seasonal outfits, and his bicycle was decorated to match. Over time that became my cue to pull off the road, blow my nose, wipe my eyes, and find a big smile.
Sometime during Covid the elf disappeared. (I liked to think he was on a round-the-world trip.) Then the house was sold. (I hoped the elf had relocated with his family, and was given a new bicycle.) The new owners posted signs making it clear they supported the freedom convoy and were not in favour of vaccinations - views diametrically opposed to mine.
Pavlov knew what he was doing. Even now, when I am far less likely to arrive at Doug’s home in tears, the empty bicycle where the elf used to live reminds me to find a smile in preparation for our visit.
Recently a late season snowfall coated the bicycle so it resembled a ghost bike. I remember reading about the white roadside bicycles when I first started noticing them. They are part protest, part memorial, a way to make visible the invisible, and bear witness (Reverend Laura Everett, author of Holy Spokes: The Search for Urban Spirituality on Two Wheels).
Doug is NOT dead.
But.
But.
It has been such a long time since we were able to make new memories together. Every (one-sided) conversation we have is a distressing reminder of how far apart we are. Of what we used to do together, and how very much we’ve lost.
The day of Burns Night we listened to Burns’ poetry and songs; I was okay until “A Red, Red Rose” - the song to which I walked up the aisle on your wedding day. I had brought Doug’s wedding sporran for him to hold, but he wasn’t interested in it, so I was the one who clung to it, stroking the tassels and tracing the pattern engraved into he cantle.
Holding on and letting go; I struggle with both.
So then to my blog: a way to make visible the invisible and to bear witness.
