What Price Freedom?

11th June 2011 Saturday

I wake up early in a thudding spin cycle of grief and terror. Why did think I could manage this hell, survive it, grow into a better person because of it? All yesterday’s hopefulness and lightness forgotten in a heartbeat.

I leave my husband snoozing in bed, go downstairs and start chopping onions and parsley for the rice salad I’m making to take to a big extended family gathering in a church hall in Bristol. I was looking forward to this annual occasion meeting up with all my cousins and their children and grandchildren. I have recently told them about my husband’s brain disease. But now I feel anxious and jittery. I make bad decisions - leave behind the lemon cake I made for the lunch. I feel dull in my is-it-hot-or-cold? dress and trousers.

En route we take my father to visit his first great grandson. He has bought smart new clothes in shades of cream and coffee for this longed-for occasion. He laughs and cries at the same time while he jiggles this tiny peaceful baby in his arms and says he’s afraid he’ll drop him. He says he wishes my mother could be here to hold him too. My sister says how radiant they all look - the glowing new parents and their beautiful son. She shines too, when she cradles him.

When we arrive at the church hall it’s buzzing with the voices of the family and the squeals and laughing of their toddlers and babies. It’s two years since I’ve seen some of them. Over lunch all my cousins and their partners find a way to come and talk to me and they are generous and warm in their sympathy and understanding. My husband remembers them but not always their names.

Later I talk to the daughter and also the husband of my cousin who has Alzheimer’s, who is only a few years older than me. I’m deeply touched by his courage and openness, living with the daily reminder of his loss of her as she was - and creating another kind of life together.

But I didn’t feel brave today - just bogged down in feeling sorry for myself. And ashamed that I couldn’t or wouldn’t shake it off.

We stay up late and watch The Shawshank Redemption. As I usually do, I close my eyes in the violent bits, and stuff my fingers in my ears. But they filter through - the sickening thuds - and this time I think that the price they paid to finally escape to the world beyond the prison walls was too high. I wonder what price is my freedom.