You Are My Sunshine

Although we lived in the same street, I didn’t know the elderly Dutch lady who was currently fighting to pull up the stubborn weeds taking over her front garden on a blistering hot summer’s day, but I squatted beside her and began to help. What neither of us knew, was that we were both very hard of hearing, and, twenty minutes later, as she thanked me and invited me to join her for coffee, I simply smiled, picked up the bag of garden rubbish and bade her farewell. I hadn’t heard her invitation.

A week later our paths crossed on the street again and she invited me in for a glass of wine. As we chatted, I learned that she lived alone: The younger woman I had seen here occasionally was indeed her daughter but she lived 120 km away. I immediately gave her my mobile number — we all need to know there is someone we can call in the event of an emergency.

A mere 10 days later that call came. I was out shopping but dropped everything and drove straight there. I can still see her standing in front of the house, covered in blood and holding a tea towel to her forehead as she waited for me to arrive. She had fallen face down onto the patio whilst gardening, she explained. I helped her quickly but carefully into the car and 45 minutes later the doctor had reassured us that it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Much relieved, we drove home and I made us some tea whilst she changed out of her blood soaked clothing. By the end of the afternoon it was as if we had known each other half a lifetime.

Over the coming days and weeks we spent countless hours enjoying each other’s company and together we laughed, sang and even cried. By now I couldn’t imagine my life without her. She called me ‘my daily sunshine’. The feeling was entirely mutual and You Are My Sunshine became a song we would sing together every day.

Three years later we had established a friendship nothing or no one could destroy. The 33-year age difference served only as a balance — her hands were badly deformed by arthritis and she was rather wobbly on her feet. I am not at all practical and hate cooking. I became her hands and she cooked for me. I took her to the doctors and shopping and she helped me with things I had no idea how to do. We were a team.

Much more important, were the things that had nothing with ability or practicality. We laughed, oh how we laughed. She found humour in everything and her laugh was so infectious that she had me rolling with laughter without knowing what the hell I was even laughing at. She also had no qualms about laughing in public, it didn’t matter whether we were in the supermarket or on the street, if something tickled her, she laughed.

She was just about the only person who could make me smile when I wanted to cry. She listened when I talked about my writing and always managed to fill me with fresh momentum when things weren’t going well. She became my biggest fan and no one could’ve been prouder when my book was published. Whatever happened in my life, whether wonderful or awful, she was always the first one I told. The first one I wanted to tell. She talked about her life, her hopes and her fears for what the coming years would bring. Getting old can be terrifying and no one should dismiss such fears. What I could do, was be there.

As is often the case, that day came out of the blue. A few weeks before Christmas she went to Holland with her daughter to visit family. I missed her terribly and on the morning after their return the previous evening, I ran up the street to see her. As she saw me coming a wide smile lit up her face and she rose to greet me. I rushed in and swept her into a huge bear hug. My sunshine was back where she belonged. She hung onto my hand and over the course of the next hour I couldn’t get a word in as she told me all about the trip, hardly pausing for breath. As she talked I couldn’t fail to notice how tired she looked, but I put it down to the long journey and the excitement of seeing her family. Eventually she ran out of both words and steam and settled herself on the sofa to rest for a while. I went shopping and on my return she was sound asleep. I put away her shopping and let her sleep. Tomorrow she’d be fine again.

But she wasn’t fine, neither was she the next day, nor the next. My attempts at persuading her to let the doctor check her over were met with flat out refusal and her daughter fared no better. Eventually though, I’d had enough and drove her, still complaining, to see the doctor. Although he was unable to determine what was wrong, he was sufficiently concerned to take a blood sample and refer her for a brain scan the following day. A quick call to her daughter saw her drop what she was doing and hurry to her mother’s side. As we waited for her to arrive, we drank tea and talked. Talking openly had never been a problem for us and today was no exception. She told me she was afraid but also thanked me for dragging her to the surgery. Without my insistence, she admitted, she’d never have gone. That much I already knew.

From our many previous conversations, I also knew that her greatest fear was not death. The thing she feared the most was being a burden on another person because she could no longer do things for herself. That, she had often said, would be worse than being in hell. Now, as I sat and held her hand as we talked, I didn’t try to reassure her that everything would be fine. She was 82 and had a variety of health problems — she knew how quickly everything could change. Blind reassurance would go against the honesty of our relationship and I wouldn’t and couldn’t do that to her. Instead, I assured her that whatever happened she could count on my remaining by her side.

The next day her daughter took her to the hospital where she was promptly admitted. The doctor explained that they wanted to observe her for a few days. And then came a shock — the blood test results indicated that she’d suffered a heart attack and she was flown by helicopter to a specialist unit where a team was standing by to operate. Oh God! The operation went without a hitch and she was transferred back to the local hospital to recover. It wasn’t, of course, as easy as that. Whilst there she developed the flu and for five weeks we had no idea whether she would come through or not. She had lost a shocking amount of weight, had no appetite and looked as awful as she obviously felt. I was sick with worry but eventually she won through and was discharged home at the end of January. My delight and relief were tempered by her frailty, but after a couple of days she was eating better and the twinkle was back in her eye. At month end we celebrated her 83rd birthday and it was wonderful to see the return of her beautiful smile as she sat among those who loved her.

What none of us could have known, was that her old friend ‘impatience’ was waiting for his chance. She was fiercely independent and as she began to feel a little stronger she began to move around unaided. And unsupervised. One night she fell in her room because she didn’t want to call her daughter to help her to the toilet. An hour later she was back in hospital, wracked with pain and crying tears of frustration. My heart broke for her — not only because of the pain and the frustration, but also because I knew that the fractured pelvis she had sustained would take a very long time to heal, if it healed at all. In the attempt to regain her independence, she had lost it forever.

I visited as often as I could and although I loved being with her as much as ever, I also sensed she was slowly slipping away from me. She was happy when I was there and in her eyes I saw the same love which had always been so easy for us to express, but I felt so helpless. There were so many problems I had simply been able to make go away. This time, I could do absolutely nothing. She had become exactly that which she most feared, bedridden and a burden and she hated it. A few weeks later she was discharged back into her daughter’s care. This time it was different. She seldom left her bed and had no appetite for food or for life. I visited every morning before her nurse arrived and every afternoon I told her about my day, massaged her ever painful feet and did everything I could think of to show her that she was surrounded by just as much love as before. It wasn’t enough. Love couldn’t save her and a few weeks later she was back in hospital. It was clear, I think, to many of us, that she would never see her beloved home again and less than a week later she closed her eyes for the final time. Her suffering was over. Her pain was gone.

For three years I was fortunate enough to have her at the centre of my world. There, where she once was, remains a huge hole. She was my second mother, my soul mate and my very best friend.

If an elderly person lives alone on your street, please go and knock on the door. I guarantee you will make someone’s day and, if you are very very lucky, you might just find your very own sunshine.