17
On the way to your room, I heard ‘The Kinks’ sing out ‘I’m thinking of the days,’ so I knew
you were up. I knocked twice on a door that bore your name in red and green block capitals
and gently pushed. You were sat in the corner, in a high back chair. Only half shielding a life
sized cardboard cut-out of Elvis Presley, with his finger pointed to the ceiling, dressed in a
white and gold all in one.
It was September. But the Elvis calendar on your wall said July, because that was your
favourite picture of him. You told me once that you kissed that picture every night, then
denied it the next day. But you blushed crimson so I knew it was true.
You were fidgety that day, twisting a tortured tissue into knots before unravelling, starting
again.
‘How’s things?’
‘Good,’ you said, but it was an awkward reply, tight.
‘I love your hair,’ I tried. You tucked a strand behind your ear, with the shyness of a
seventeen-year-old who hadn’t been used to compliments, so they never quite landed, you
never got to hold them.
My head was full of things to say, but I had learned that this was your time to show me
who you were.
‘How is Sam?’ I had asked, struggling not to grin because I knew what was coming. You
looked up, and there was the sunshine, the upturned corners of young love.
‘I saw him last night,’ you whispered, pulling your fingers across your lips like a zip,
because Sam was our secret.
‘We went to Raffos, the best chips in the world. Have you been?’
The question was as earnest as you, full of expectation, a longing to keep the conversation
going.
‘The best chips.’ I replied.
‘I think I want to marry him,’ and you glanced over your shoulder as if to check if he was
listening.
‘What would Elvis say to that?’ I asked.
‘Awk Elvis doesn’t even know I exist.’
I remember thinking that that was his loss and that for such a long time, I hadn’t known
either.
‘Did I tell you how I met Sam?’
God you had, so many times, I could have repeated it verbatim. But I let you tell me again.
How he waited for you outside the factory where you stitched hankies. How you
made him wait 8 weeks for a peck on the cheek and how you lay awake at night wondering
how long you could keep the secret from your mother. She was strict you had told me,
leather belt strict. You had been going strong (that phrase still makes me smile)
for ten months now and he was the most amazing kisser.
You got distracted after that. The music had stopped and you started looking for a tissue
and I passed you one from my handbag, kissed your cheek and said goodbye. I
pressed play on the cd player as I left. I stood outside the room for a long time, forehead
and palms pressed against the cool of the wood, listening to you sing along and wondering
how my heart could soar and break at the same time.
It had started with the post it notes, that littered every surface of the living room. Luminous squares of green and yellow that yelled repeated commands.
Pay window cleaner.
Pay credit union.
Ring Cathy.
Pay window cleaner.
Pay credit union.
Ring Cathy.
Except, the window cleaner never got paid, nor the credit union and you never, ever rang me. Then there were the things I told you that you forgot and the things you told me a thousand times.
The day I visited during election time, and you closed the door in my face, telling me you were sick of Sinn Fein canvassers and you weren’t voting that year.
The time you bought me chocolates for my birthday, left the room, came back in, thanked me for them and ate them all. Every single one! Even the coffee ones and you hated coffee!
The phone calls in the small hours of the morning to tell me that you were worried, Dad hadn’t come home, when Dad had been dead for five years.
There were countless visits to the doctor, diagnosis of depression, anxiety, loneliness, bi-polar disorder, psychosis. None of them helpful because none of them were right.
Ten years in elderly care told me what this was. This was dementia.
But you were forty-eight.
You were found one night wandering the rain in your nightdress, barefoot and soaked through. It took three months in a unit for them to decide that this was early onset Alzheimers, and three seconds for me to decide that you would live with me.
On the first night you had a delirium, that had you ripping the curtains from the rails, biting, kicking, screaming, thrashing, spitting. Unable to find the bathroom, you soiled yourself and you cried like a child. So, I took you to your home, where you attacked me in the night, thinking I was an intruder. You thought I stealing from you. You phoned the police.
Finally, after guilt that sucked the core from me, came an acceptance of sorts that I could not continue and I placed you into care, where you flatlined into a shell of all that you had been. I admit, visits became painful, less frequent and I consoled myself with the thought that you would not remember if I had visited or not.
Years passed.
I had already lost you.
A phone call came to work one day to tell me you had been admitted to the hospital with a chest infection where amidst your rage and delirium they told me you had terminal lung cancer and they transferred you to hospice.
You were fifty-nine.
I visited one day during music therapy. Stood frozen at the doorway as I watched you dance in your chair to the music of The Kinks, as much as your frailty would allow. Your were lit up, with youth and joy and something I had never seen in you….hope.
As I approached you turned to me, face full of mischief and said,
‘I bloody love The Kinks! Do you like them? I’m Kay Agnew love, what’s your name?’
You had introduced yourself with your maiden name!
Something inside me folded as I realised that this is who you were before my father broke you. But even in the moment, I knew I was being given a gift. I was meeting my mum, before she was my mum. So, I played along. I sat beside you. You told me you were seventeen, that you were dating a boy called Sam. We talked about music you loved and the places you went to and all the things your mother never let you do and you made me laugh so hard.
We established a routine of sorts. I would arrive and find you vacant, unengaged. I would play the music of the kinks and there you were…seventeen-year-old Kay Agnew. I fell in love with you, with your cheek and your charm, your infectious laugh and your insatiable passion for The Kinks.
On the night I lost you the second time, the nurse said you had been distressed, calling out. Unable to settle you, she had put the music of The Kinks and left the room. A few moments later she went back to turn the volume down and found you gone. It still tickles me that as The Kinks sang out ‘Aw yeah, you really got me,’ someone came and got you. The medical records say you died aged fifty-nine. Me? I say different, because The Kinks were playing.
You died aged seventeen.
Flight of the dragonfly 