Matching Socks

11th June 2011 On Saturday - about Friday

Yesterday I felt the whisper of courage in my ear. I shared lunch with two gorgeous women - a bright and fresh Greek salad platter on a wooden board, and a huge chocolate brownie to follow. Our talking took us deep into our lives and I didn’t notice the rain falling on the lavender bushes outside till it was time to go. It was their listening that fed my heart.

Nearly home and a shower of hail stones clattered on the bonnet of the car bouncing up onto the windscreen. Ice balls zinging from the sky in June - as unexpected as a disease biting into the cells of my husband’s brain.

I just had time to put the kettle on and wipe the smears from the glass topped table in the sitting room before my councellor friend arrived. She reminded me that in our last session I was exhausted by trying to keep everyone alive - my father, my husband and the cat.

I said ,‘Well, my father is better, the pussy cat is better and I am trying not to rescue my husband from his fear and loss. Trying not to come up with solutions - to make me feel better at least.’

The other morning I was sorting socks in the bedroom. He came in and said,

‘I’ve made the one phone call I had to and now I have nothing to do.’

I noticed the familiar clutch in my stomach, a spurt of anger and hopelessness. I could think of a dozen things he could do.

I said instead,

‘That must be tough’.

‘It is,’ he said, ‘ is this what it’s going to be like from now on?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said and carried on matching the different coloured toes of his socks into pairs.

He went back upstairs and a little later I heard him talking on the phone.