Enough Now. Going Going Gone

I didn't know if this was a moth or a butterfly..... peering into  the kitchen through the  glass of the back door this evening.

When I opened the door she flew off into the mass of clematis leaves rampaging over the fence  - showing me the  beautiful zebra stripes of her wings. How can her inside be so different from her outside?

I didn't know the beginning and the end of my evening would be so different either.

6.15 pm. Supper is made.  On the counter a cooling pan of roasted sweet potatoes, carrots and butternut squash. Another pan of orange and red peppers, purple onions and  yellow courgettes. A feast of sunsets. Waiting for wilted spinach and a fried egg on top.

I'm going up the stairs to wake Robin after his usual early evening rest after his two outings today.

I hear him shouting for me. I hear distress.

I'm coming.

Can you help me - I can't get out ....I'm falling.

He's lying across the mattress, his feet on the carpet but I can see he's nearly slipping off the edge of the bed.

I get him to hoist his bottom  backwards but he can't sit up, can't do his usual rocking movement using his stomach muscles. I get the handling belt and strap it round his waist but it's not the right thing. I get one of the fat foam wedges that the OT left me and shove it behind his back. It does the trick and gives him some leverage. I  push him from behind with my knees and once he's sitting up he can stand up easily.

After his shower he wants to lie down again. I say No, not tonight. It's only 15 minutes till supper time. He says he'll play on the computer. I follow him up the stairs to his office on the third floor.

 Then he slips or trips and falls forwards and sideways, bashing his nose on the stair and hurting his shoulder.  He says he's falling. I say You are OK. Take a breath. I help him to turn and he manoeuvres himself onto the bottom step and stands up. He's shaken and shocked.  The side of his nose is bleeding. The first blood of all his falls.

I say no more.  Enough now. No more stairs.

So tomorrow he agrees he'll sleep in the hospital bed in the dining room.  I will make the room ready.  I phone a dear friend who will bring Robin's computer downstairs and set it up on the new table he assembled for me a few weeks ago, in anticipation of this day coming. His wife will take Robin out while we make preparations.  Two more angels looking out for me.

So another ending...the end of an upstairs life for him...the end of the life I live in my kitchen - which is attached to the dining room ,where he will be - for me. My last safe haven going, going, gone.