Nadir and Zenith

7th August 2011 Sunday

The eye drop angel turns out to be my dear sister. She manages to explain to my father how to use the blue plastic contraption that holds the bottle that he has to squeeze into his eye. But when my husband and I visit him this afternoon for a game of scrabble both the little bottles are empty except for two drops. One for now and one for tomorrow.

This morning we walk along wide gravel paths through a forest of ramrod pine trees. My husband always notices the clouds whenever we are out walking. He says,

‘Aren’t they beautiful?’

He says it a lot. We stop and gaze at the sky which today is rolling grey smudged over glimpses of blue and cotton wool white.

He says he is happier than he has ever been. More real. More emotional. That clouds and music and animals touch his heart. That he doesn’t mind really about losing his vocabulary. That you don’t need words to feel the beauty of the world.

‘But you do need them to communicate,’ I say. ‘ To share it.’

When we leave my father this evening he says that the late afternoon is usually the nadir of his day. But today our game of scrabble made it into the zenith for him.

Later I ask my husband if he knows what they mean - those words - nadir and zenith.

He says, ‘Why would I?’

Because he used to.

But he knows he made my father happy. And he enjoyed the game - he won it with a huge score. He doesn’t need to know that canny means cunning or spume means froth. It’s only me feeling lonely now racketing around in the rooms of my big useless vocabulary. Which isn't that big - only a cupboard really compared to the palace that my husband used to live in. So now I'm downsizing it, choosing the words I think he’ll recognise. So I won’t have to stop and explain. My everyday nadir.

But he’s right - there are lots of ways of saying I love you. Without words. And anyway his heart is as big as the sky. I don't need to translate that.