How Do You Take Your Coffee?

Even when my dad’s Alzheimer’s was progressing like a boss, he continued to prepare a breakfast tray for his ‘wife’ and deliver it to her in bed, each morning around eight. I put wife in inverted commas because they never actually got married but they referred to each other in the correct spousal terms. This was my dad’s third wife. All three had sing-song, three-syllabled names ending in a cheerful ee. My mum was the first wife. And the best. Felicity.

The breakfast tray continued as did many daily habits, but it was always going to be a tricky game of remember-what’s-on-the-tray. In time, the boiled egg came without a spoon. Or with the spoon came and without the egg. Only the egg cup. As far as I know, the egg was always cooked. But one thing remained a stalwart, the mini Bodum of coffee, freshly brewed, piping hot.

Everyone loves their morning cuppa, eh? The H was reading an article out to me the other day. “The Top Reasons For Divorce”. The info was drawn from a bunch of divorce lawyers. Where are you reading that?! I asked (and why, more to the point.) One dude’s reason for divorcing his wife was that she asked him each morning how he took his coffee. For a long, no doubt crap-morning-cuppa-filled, seven years. I know there’s a minefield of milks around these days but it can’t be that hard. Bovine. Almond. Oat. Soy. Coconut. Rice. Macadamia. Warmed. A splash. Half and half. Black.

One time, I went to look after dad while his ‘wife’ (we’ll call her Verity) went away for a well-earned holiday. Dad still prepared her elaborate breakfast tray by 8 am. Each morning as I appeared in their sunny kitchen, Dad looked at me with curious eyes, as though freshly arrived. Verity’s away I reminded him. I’m here looking after you, Dad. 

Oh yes, so you are, he’d say.

After breakfast, I go with him on his first walk of the day. We’d ambled east along the Pohutukawa-edged clifftop with the sea green-blue and glistening in the background. Then inland passed houses and back home via Penguin Place. Dad’s cat came with us. We walked as slowly as a three-legged tortoise. Stopping to listen to Tuis or if a car approached to herd SmudgeBum the cat into the safety of the gutter until it had passed. Miraculously that cat was never run over. 

But not long after my stay, dad fell off the cliff in front of his house. How he didn’t die instantly is a miracle. He was throwing over some leaf litter he’d collected. Being a gardener from way back there were probably a couple of weeds in his clutch too. He managed to slip down a wide clay crack, between tree roots and land on a rock ledge above the tide. He knocked himself unconscious, didn’t remember a thing, and never once complained of the pain of his injuries. He dragged the local volunteer fire brigade from their dinner, won a ride in a Westpac rescue helicopter, and had his escapade noted in the New Zealand Herald. He also won a seven week stay in North Shore hospital's geriatric ward. And a one-way ticket to a rest home.

I ate expensive deli sandwiches with dad in the ward’s day room, telling him we were in a café. Are we the only table? he’d asked. Fraught family meetings were held in that room when deciding on Dad’s next move, once his ribs, neck vertebra, concussion, and lacerations had healed sufficiently. At the first meeting, I suggested he and Verity move into a villa in an aged care residential whatnot, so they could stay living together. That went down like a tonne of ammonium nitrate under the sky tower. He had become a liability. Verity could no longer cope. No extra carers had ever been employed to take the load off. Most of his wanderings off up to the village to check the post box at the store several times a day were safe. Until they weren’t. He was a familiar sight. His white hair, browning above his ears because he refused to shower. His corduroys smelling of urine and losing their pile around his fly because of it. Try telling any old dude he needs Poise-for-boys or adult diapers then ensure he wears them. It’s a fragile line between dignity and loss of freedoms. Independence. 

The hospital aged care facilitator did some basic life-skills-test with dad in that room. What the fuck they were supposed to achieve I do not know. Dexterity: 8/10. Dad’s results basically dictated that he’d never set foot in his seaside home again. One test was making coffee. Dad failed. The facilitator told me, he put a heaped dessert spoonful of coffee into the mug! She scoffed as though he was clearly deranged. I told her right back, that’s because he and Verity don’t drink instant coffee. He thought he was making real coffee, with fresh grounds. In a mini Bodum. He just got the vessel mixed up. She was not impressed. Her Moccona clearly had lost its Mmmmm. 

Dad was always a creature of habit. In his working life in London, he wore Church’s brown brogues. He had two pairs which he wore on alternate days. I was never quite sure why he didn’t just wear one pair out and then buy a new pair. It’s like driving a car way below the empty mark to save petrol. Many of his shoe rituals probably started when he was a naval officer in New Zealand. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood was dad sitting on the edge of the parental bed tugging on his long white naval socks. Firstly, he would pepper in between his toes with athlete’s foot powder. Next, came these white, inside-out sock snakes. He would peel them on over his feet and up his calves. Tanned despite the sock-wearing. A thick rubber band, hidden by a wide turndown, held the socks in place just under the knee. The shoes were white also. Sort of white-washed leather. Strange that my father wore white shoes without realising their possible nuances; he was a major homophobe. At the same age, my future husband’s mother was warning him to never trust men in white shoes. We grew up with a lot of ignorant schizz in the 70s.

 

I saw my dad in the nude once. I was both mortified and impressed by the size of his (what I later found out when mum read my sister and me a small green book titled Where Do Babies Come From) was his penis. I think at the time I thought it was some form of mini elephant trunk. A trouser snake. I might have smiled.

Once we were playing tennis in Malaysia, back when my dad had a job at the New Zealand High Commission in Singapore. Dad was a wasp magnet and highly allergic to them. He was getting hassled by a thirsty bunch of vespas. He hopped about the court, waving his tennis racket in defense. I helpfully yelled out, Dad, Dad you look like a fairy! He blew his top. I was hurt and confused, only thinking that what looked like playful antics required a compliment. His outburst probably coincided with the exact time that he was stung. Several times. Right above his eye, which blew up like a prize fighter’s post pummelling. My mother had to administer whiskies and water back in their hotel room. Later the kitchen provided a raw steak to draw out the sting. Not long after that, my parents divorced. It was nothing to do with coffee. Or milk. But another woman. My godmother.

But that’s another story. 

If there is a moral to this tale it would be – learn how to make your partner’s morning brew. Make it with love. Make it good.

Jane xo

My Nana Always Wore A Hat - a prose poem

My Nana wore a flapper-style wedding dress and carried an enormous bouquet when she got married. She loved parties and people, tennis and matching hats. Perfect for a vicars wife.

My Nana read interesting snippets out of the paper and took up dressmaking. She scrimped on material so there was always a patch over a seam in a poignant place like centre front.

My Nana was widowed young so she took up travelling. She collected crystal handbells and souvenir matchboxes from the cities she visited around the world. She’d appear like an over adorned Christmas tree at the end of each trip, beaming as she sauntered off the plane.

My Nana wore orangey-red lipstick and grew a bristly kiss. She bought a white Mini Clubman and rode the clutch like a fury to morning teas around the village. On the days the tar melted, she’d collect us for a swim in her towelling housecoat; you could hear her roar streets away.

My Nana loved a good suntan. Her lower legs came to look like her crocodile handbag. ‘Just doing the fronts today dear,’ she’d smile from her sun lounger, while wasps nibbled plums on the grass beside her in the Hawkes Bay heat.

My Nana had terrible bunions; it was surprising her feet could get into those rows of going-out shoes. Her bedroom was a treasure trove of handbags and water-colours and clip-on earrings. Her glass topped dresser held a black and white museum of memories.

My Nana kept her hair dye in the bathroom cupboard. She used, ‘Cha Cha Gray’ and mostly left it in too long so her hair turned a flattering mauve.  

My Nana tried to discourage my love of ponies. She said girls who rode horses ended up looking like them. She had a friend who looked like her pug dog. I could see her point. She also told me I was kind and could be a nurse when I grew up.

My Nana liked sherry. When I got my licence I’d drive up from Onga Onga to visit, she’d pour me a couple in her blood red crystal glasses, as we chatted in the drawing room. I’d be shickered by the time I left.

My Nana was never a great cook. But when she started making toad in the hole from sausages peeled off the bottom of her fridge, she went into a home. She complained Mr Witherton-Jones had terrible manners when he slurped his soup beside her, and she wasn’t staying long.

My Nana used to hold parties in her room and invite her favourite nurses. She always had a cask of Blenheimer under her sink. ‘It’s so refreshing,’ she’d say.

My Nana sometimes went missing. But she always wore a hat!

Losing Our Minds

It’s feels like running downhill full tilt as a child when you leave the high energy of a Writers & Readers Festival then begin a three day father-sit, only your untrained young legs do not brake you at the bottom of the grassy slope, so you fall with outstretched hands. FOOSH. Into the nettle patch below. Not that my Dad is prickly he is completely mellow in the world that is now his. Dementia is a bastard and I hope I don’t get it. It looks lonely and confusing when you’re on the outside looking in.

I’ve read somewhere that it’s not necessarily hereditary.

However, while I’m caring for my Dad I eat fish twice a day and do more aerobic exercise than I’ve done since I attended Les Mills in a nasty turquoise leotard (which was actually a pair of togs) and attempted a do the grape-vine to Everybody-Dance-Now. Jazzergetics aside getting your heart rate up and over resting 3 times a week along with turmeric, kale, cinnamon and omega 3 are my Alzheimer preventatives du jour.

Dad’s house sits on the edge of a cliff over Leigh harbour bordered by neatly trimmed paspalum grass on a pohutakawa edged reserve. A series of steps and scoria filled boardwalks drop to the left through a steep gulley lush with native bush and chirpy tuis. I do-the-stairs first thing while Dad does his solitary walk to the store to buy the Herald.

I like running incognito, under the calm canopy of karaka leaves. I fold my arms under my boobs by way of a sports bra and run up then walk down. Three sets, increased daily to six by the third day. Back and forth back and forth. When I’m sweaty and barely breathing I dash home, change into my togs and drive to the beach for a salty dip. The cool down is instant and pleasant. Body parts do not numb. I do a Nana swim with my head above water. Breaststroke up and back-kicking on the return. It’s mid-May and winter after all.

Over three days Dad and I fall into an easy silence, reading together on the verandah. I look out regularly towards little Barrier (whose silhouette looks like Queen Victoria in repose if you look closely). Dad focuses on the latest printed murder and mayhem, tutting and sighing at the good bits.

Every morning he sets off on his second walk to check the post box. Sometimes he buys the newspaper again. I tag along uninvited. His is a solitary routine. I slow my pace to his, by folding my hands behind my back, taking staggered steps and bird watching.

Dad shuffles more than six months ago, more stooped, scuffing the toes of his worn out boat shoes, his legs a deep tan his feet sockless. It doesn’t feel that long ago that I was the child running after his striding 6ft 2 frame crying,  ‘Dad wait for me, wait for me.’ The song Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast ringing in my ears. Even though we’re now 80 and 50 apiece.

Back home we sit in the sun and read some more.

‘I wonder what the poor people are doing today,’ says Dad, staring out to sea.

‘Where did that saying come from?’ I ask, but he doesn’t remember.

Dementia is akin to losing small parts of a person little by little. Though it can be surprising what histories are still sharp. I brought a pile of old photos to jog his memory into conversations about my childhood. I showed too many. I’ll never do it again. The images were obviously confusing. Some sort of test. He did perk up over a photo of a cat. He’s always loved cats.

Afterwards he said, ‘Do you have any grandchildren yet?’

‘Not yet Dad,’ I said. (My children are 11, 13 & 15).

In the evenings as Dad sat on the sofa and read and re-read, I’d prepare dinner. Used to a noisy household I found the void deafening. I didn’t want him to hear me slosh gin into a glass then the grinch of the screw top as I added tonic so I put on some music. In Classical Mood – Reflections seemed apt.

‘Oh it’s Bach in a g-string,’ noted Dad reading, from the cd cover.

Go Bach.  I was thrilled to hear him hum occasionally and see him tap his long fingers on the sofa arm. At one point he rotated both ankles like you might on a long distance flight. Sofa dancing.

I finished US author A Homes’, May We Be Forgiven sitting beside Dad on the next glorious 18 degree day. Tuis warbled and solo gannets buzz the cliff tops. In this book Harold the protagonist collects an assortment of people into his family when he’s charged with the care of his brother’s children after the murder of their mother (by their father btw). These people become his knew family as he and the children try to come to grips with their situation. An elderly couple, Cy and Madeline are part of the motley-crew when their daughter abandons them.

On the page Cy and Madeline are easy care, they’re funny and cute with great one liners. You cannot smell their old person smell, nor see their unwashed white hair turn from yellow to dirt brown. If they pee with the door open throughout the day it doesn’t say. Cy no doubt has long spidery hairs growing from his ears and nose and eyebrows but Homes keeps stum on that too. If only being elderly was like that - the sad lonely frustrating bits edited out.

It would have been simpler to let Dad go about his business on his own. To be hurt and offended by not being included. But I’m the grown up now. I butt in. Organize. Make chat.

On the last night I take him out to dinner. Dad loves an occasion. He goes to take a shower and change his shirt.The door of the upstairs bathroom is left ajar. The water runs, the shower door opens. He’s talking to himself again. He can’t find his towel. Clatter of door. Mumble mumble.

‘Ohhh fuck it,’ he says.

It’s the first time I’ve EVER heard my Dad use the f-word. I sit in his cream armchair beside his table with its reading lamp, his little green diary littered with odd random pencil scribbles and his pile of Economists and I smile really hoping it’s not the last. 

(Statistics: In 2010, 35.6 million people had dementia worldwide, that number is estimated to nearly double every 20 years.)