A Non-Covid Event

There were times when I thought that I would never get to write this blog. It was as though I were part of a crazy, Marx brothers’ movie these last few weeks, with me in perpetual prat-fall mode, a puppet, with no control over the sadistic puppeteer who was pulling its strings; all of this when my life seemed to have stabilized a little, to be hinting at a safe harbor just within reach. Then Covid struck, sort of, well depending on whom you ask.

But before that happened…

My sister Moya was here at the time, aiding and abetting me with my mother. Between us schedules were drawn up, dinners made, shopping done, and doctor’s appointments kept. Anybody my age knows the routine. Where once my generation talked of Leaving Certs, College courses, Career advancement, friends’ weddings, kids, and dogs, and mortgages, we now explore the process of aging. Not ours of course, that would be ridiculous. You see, for many of us, our parents have become our charges, and, for a while at least, this role defines us. In a way we are rather like young mothers in a toddlers’ group talking about their smiling, burping burdens of joy. Only where teeth and potty training are discussed with pride in a mothers’ group… Well, we discuss those too, only without the pride and we follow up with remarks about cataracts, kidney function, mental robustness and the curse of cheap hearing aids. And where we might share a young mother’s sleep deprivation, ours is not caused by teething, or other physical issues. It is generally caused by nightmares, where, perhaps, we might find ourselves contestants on The Chase; a quiz show which seems perfectly harmless until watched four hours a day, for months on end. And in these dreams, we are alone, on stage, staring up at The Governess, who is as grim and plump as any Victorian, hospital matron Dickens could have conjured up to freeze the blood in the veins of his readers. If lucky, we wake up before we are asked a tough question on Greek Mythology, or a simple question on bunions. By comparison, what mental harm can come from the kids’ song, ‘And the Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round,’ played, non-stop for three or four months, or until the child loses interest.

And all the while, as this role reversal continues, there is a sad and horrifying thought never far from the surface. How long have I got before I join the ranks of the terribly old? If I ever get that far.

If I were to pick a moment when things began to go wrong, I would say it was when my sister Moya, a nurse, took my mother’s temperature and reported that she had a very high fever. That was not a serenity-inducing moment as this is Ireland, where hens’ teeth are easier to find than a hospital bed, especially on a Friday afternoon.

From there, it was anything but a hop skip and jump before my mother was admitted to hospital. The 5-bed ward was filled to bursting point with life, hospitals are weird that way. Drips hung beside three beds, a fourth patient carried an oxygen bottle with her everywhere she went, and a heart monitor regularly accompanied another patient to and from the smoking area outside. There were guests galore, and chat aplenty. The only thing missing, it seemed to me, were masks. Thankfully, with or without them, my mother was soon on the mend. She was discharged on a Tuesday, and it seemed that we could finally relax, not worry about visiting hours, spare nighties, or emergency sweet supplies. Only there was no time to relax, because by Wednesday my sister and I were complaining about hay fever but, when we tested on Thursday, our hay-fever turned out to be Covid.

We would have tested my mother too, but she refused, she is not a fan of having cotton buds shoved up her nose. However, there was more to her resistance than first appeared, and it was only later that we realized her refusal to be tested was in fact a tactical decision. So, my sister and I suffered our way through Covid, testing regularly until we got the all-clear. Our mother, however, slept. There was nothing wrong with her, you understand, she just needed to sleep. And she needed to sleep, night and day, for the best part of a working-week.

Moya and I were clear of the virus quickly enough, but it took weeks before the final stay-behind policy of the virus left us. Meanwhile, visitors and medical professionals began turning up to see my mother again. This is when we finally realized why my mother refused to be tested. As each person came and went, she would tell them all, “Moya and Jim got Covid.”

“Really?” they would ask, “And what about you?”

“Oh, no, no,” she would shake her head, “I didn’t get it.”

And she would smile, the smug smile of a strong man watching a weak one struggling under a load he himself could carry without any trouble. A Mona Lisa smile, hinting at a genetic advantage she had somehow failed to pass on to her own children. A reminder to us that behind the façade of old age ticks the calculating mind of a chess master. And if you think I’m fanciful here, you should have watched her eyes flash in our direction every time she repeated the words, “Oh, no, no. I didn’t get Covid.”