I have been in tears quite a bit. I called Jo Body, the aptly named dog physio, who uses laser and massage to help his stiff joints to cancel her next appointment. I explained his condition.
`I don’t know if you’ll ever see him again ….’ I trailed off. After all, stiff joints are the least of his problems now. It choked me up that her happy visits will draw to an end. It’s the end of an era for me, for Nutty, for our happy life. Like King Canute I am trying to fend off the inevitable. My heart is bloated with tears and fear. Other times I am calm, efficient, almost buoyant, which must be the mind’s reaction to a crisis.
Boyfriend on a Short Fuse is moody as usual. Spends night and day railing
against EDF who are over charging him for electricity. He is more vexed by this
than anything, I think Nutty’s condition just a blip on his worry list.
He shouts for me all the time to help him on the
computer, sending and scanning documents via email, but I haven’t a clue which
makes him even angrier. I have arranged for saintly D to come up and help him
but still he insists on struggling through it himself. He really has a very
mean side to him and I wonder why he stays with me when he so obviously finds
me completely useless. Oddly enough he still seems quite keen on sex and is
disappointed at my lack of interest. If only he could see that his constant
belittlement of me completely takes away all my desire for him. Sometimes there are glimpses of his good side,
but these are increasingly infrequent.
Sometimes unexpectedly he will be quiet and kind and
apologise for shouting at me and promise not to do it again. But he always
breaks the promise. I think I do still love him but the bigger emotion I have
now is fear and wariness. I walk around on eggshells trying not to get on his
nerves. He finds lots of things I do irritating (cleaning my teeth, washing,
typing and yet he does all these things in front of me and doesn’t expect me to
be irritated - I’m not, these things are daily life).
I’m reading Jo Wood’s fascinating autobiography
about the emotional abuse she endured at hands of her ghastly husband Ronnie.
As she says, after a while you just get used to it and end up walking around ion eggshells, trying to keep the peace. I know I have to be strong, at the moment
I am just an enabler, allowing him to show his darker side with no
consequences. No wonder he is so depressed all the time.
Elusive-eco-brother emails me to let me know about our
poor stepmother’s terminal cancer. I rang her last week and had a lovely chat
with her. We bond over our various impending dooms, share some black humour. It is hard to know what to say, the important thing is to say something, to mark this dreadful time with kindness and sympathy. I know people sweep death under the carpet but you can't. She is buoyed up with morphine, thank God for it. But we agreed it is the people left behind, me, Teflon-Dad, the bereaved, who really need some sort of drug to get us through.
She and I haven’t always got on so well over the years, as on some level she
distrusted my close bond with Teflon-Dad and various other things. However she
is a nice lady and has made him happy, which is the main thing. She has about
six months left. I wonder if she and Nutty will die at the same time? Maybe
they will be granted longer?
I called eco-bruv back and astonishingly (because he
does not do phone calls) he answered and I told him about Nutty. I am glad I
have him for support in extremis, we are not in each other’s pockets but I do
know in crisis he is kind of around.
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