Me, Replying to her original tweet:
Jesus fucking Christ - as the mother of an adult daughter with late stage MS who can no longer speak or move and who lives in a care home this will haunt me. Fuck.
Her :
annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Too much too old Mental amounts of stuff going on. I think I'm winning, but it's going to be a list then a heavy bit.
So. A journalist I follow on twitter, whose work I've loved for decades, posted a story about a woman in Alabama, who's been in a vegetative state for ten years, living in a care home, who the carers realised just recently was going into labour and had a fucking baby. "Phoenix police are currently investigating the incident as a possible sexual abuse case." Possible? Possi-fucking-ble? https://jezebel.com/police-open-investigation-after-woman-in-vegetative-sta-1831490729?utm_campaign=socialfow_jezebel_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=jezebel_twitter To say I freaked out would be putting it mildly - I am still struggling to contain my thoughts and feelings. I haven't spoken about it to anyone because I cannot bear it, I just cannot. What makes it worse is that ED has this massive bloated hard belly that I have frequently described as 'looking like she's eight months pregnant'. I mean, I don't think she is but I don't fucking know that this has never happened to her because she can't speak to tell and she can't move to fight anyone off. She's on the pill to stop her having periods. I mean, I really don't think this, I can't think it, but it's making me crazy. I don't know the night staff so I have no sense of whether they can be trusted, though I do trust the manager, but presumable the manager in Alabama thought her staff could be trusted. Anyway, I had to say something in response to her tweet ("Men, listen - you GOTTA stop doing the very WORST things" and a link) and ended up saying too much but with good results. She's recently written a book about reading which is my current read so that's why I took it there. This was our exchange: Me, Replying to her original tweet: Jesus fucking Christ - as the mother of an adult daughter with late stage MS who can no longer speak or move and who lives in a care home this will haunt me. Fuck. Her : I’m SO sorry. What a terrible thing to be enduring. My heart goes out to you both. My prayers would too, were I a praying person xx Well it’s shit obviously but she’s a force of nature and has brought herself back from the brink of death twice. I read to her, whether she likes it or not. “Through the tunnel” this afternoon. Thanks tho xx Her: You both sound amazing. What do you/she like to read? I'll send you some books xxx Me: Ooh thank you - at the moment I'm reading your Bookworm - I tweeted about being at school all day and not being taught to read - but with my daughter I like to read decent short stories that aren’t too long. The kind that get set for gcse English (retired teacher) so have some depth and resonance but not too smart arse - helpful, I know! About women and girls. I don’t know if she understands so I don’t want to carry things over, but if she does I want her to have things to ponder, or maybe she just likes the sound of my voice Her: I am so sorry. Let me ponder your short story needs and when I'm home I will put something together for you. Can you send me your postal address? I'm [gives email address] So I emailed my postal address and added this little bit as well, on the grounds that it's about reading and she might just want to snap me up and recommend me for a column in the fucking Guardian, don't you think: Millions Frank Cottrell Boyce has been in the paper today for winning some prize. He's the guy who 'wrote' the London Olympic opening ceremony, plus the film 24 Hour Party People and some fabulous kids' books. I've been sitting here remembering when I was the hospital teacher, also doing odd bits of home-teaching for kids too long-term ill for school, and read his book Millions to one of those kids. I can't remember his circumstances precisely, but there was some kind of bullshit going on with his mother and the local authorities and everyone was grateful when I said I'd try and get some suitable work from his school and get going with him. He was about nine or ten and lived with his mum and two older sisters in a bungalow stuck in the middle of a god-awful, bleak, windswept estate - vast acres of uneven paving-slabs, all clean and neat and oppressive. At the beginning the mum would be getting on with dinner in the kitchen, leaving the door open between us and our lessons in the other room. The school hadn't coughed up anything useful in the way of work the kid should be doing, so we did maths games and some kind of project I've now forgotten, and for the English bit we did 'Millions'. I read him a chunk, we talked about it, made predictions, that kind of stuff, and I asked him to read the next chapter for my next visit. At the end of the first visit, the mum thanked me effusively, turning into tearfully, with sobbing. We had a hug and I really liked her - she was struggling to do her best on her own and it was hard. I had to tell her that I didn't really know what the fuck I was doing (I'm a secondary English teacher, muddling through everything else), but I'd do my best to get the kid learning and interested. When I came back it felt like coming to a friend's house, though the bloody kid hadn't read much of the book. "I like it better when you read it." And he really did - I used it as the carrot to get him through the other stuff - we'd end each session with 15-20 minutes of him sitting totally wrapped up in this odd story of two boys who find a huge bag of money. On my third visit the younger of the sisters was home and wanted to listen and the time after that, the other sister and the mum both asked if they could as well, after hearing about it. They were quite awkward as they asked, but I was so pleased they wanted to that I acted as if it was dead normal, and that was how it went. I'd come at the end of my working day, knackered - there were cups of herbal tea, steamy windows, a small room full of furniture. I'd have a laugh with the kid over his maths in the dark sitting room, then we'd all get comfy and settled in for another chapter - me, the kid (always in pyjamas but very chirpy for a poorly kid), his teenage sisters (serious girls, too scared to do much thinking) and the lovely mum, holding it together by a thread, a wing and a prayer. I'd forgotten that - it was good to remember. 12:49 a.m. - 28.10.12 Night night, busy day tomorrow, making beeswax wraps, yoga, meeting the end-of-life doula again and visiting my girl Grateful for: bed, house, chicken dinner, getting free books, dog, you guys xxx 12:22 a.m. - 07.01.19 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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