Life

 

These insights are truly beautiful, thank you Grant for sharing your thoughts ...

 

Most evenings I get home, just before 11:00, to a quiet house where everyone is sleeping. I carefully unlock the front door, trying not to wake anyone. I make my way down the hallway, trying not to make the floors squeak. I ready myself for bed quietly, then read, write and sleep. The home is a beautifully restored and decorated period home with lead light windows, pressed tin ceilings, picture rails, fancy cornices, fireplaces and timber floors, but it is not my home. It's occupied by a wonderful family, more beautiful than the home, who are related to someone I loved when I was young and have not seen for almost 25 years. I've been living here for three weeks, with a key to the front door and unlimited access to delicious food and great company. A safe place to go, where I can unload the burdens of the day. I feel very comfortable here, like staying with family, only they treat me like an honoured guest. It's five minutes from the hospital, allowing us to remain close to our son and provide necessary care and support at this difficult time. It is difficult to convey how much gratitude I feel toward them for their friendship, generosity, love and allowing us, strangers, into their home. The only condition being to leave the hallway light on at night for the kids.

I am reminded of a saying, shared with me many years ago by a dear friend,

"Beyond the ugliness in this world is the incredible beauty of friendship and love, that is where I live"

With me being at home rarely over the past four weeks the family is struggling. The little girls are feeling insecure and unsettled, the teenagers feel guilty about asking for my time, and have their own set of teenage challenges to deal with. Madi and I were talking last Saturday and I thought she told me one of her friends had herpes. I responded by trying to be empathetic, and started telling her that it must be hard for her friend, she must be worried about her, and that is one of the consequences of not being careful and living a promiscuous life. "What are you talking about dad?" Madi asked. "Your Friend with herpes" I said. "Dad, I said she got HER P's". When someone gets a provisional drivers licence here in Australia they commonly refer to it as getting your "P's". I'm obviously still on my P's for listening.

It's been three weeks of groundhog day up in the spinal ward. Not much changes about the routine. The repetition is getting to me and making me restless. The last time I remember feeling like this was five years ago, six months before the global financial crisis. I went seeking adventure and ended up getting lost and putting my life in danger in the great Wollemi Wilderness. So it was welcome news to learn that there is a spot at the Royal Rehabilitation Centre for us, a month or more ahead of our expectations. One of the boys in the ward, who was ahead of Lincolne on the list had become ill, thereby relinquishing his spot at rehab to Lincolne. I feel for the guy, he's been here since early December, with six weeks in ICU and a host of complications that have continued to extend his time at the hospital. So Lincolne got the spot, but the spot became available when a couple of the patients at rehab were sent home because of substance abuse, breaking grounds, theft and vandalism. When we drove into the rehab centre we passed the only other patient Lincolne's age, smoking pot out the back with a couple of his mates. "Are we at the right rehab centre?" I thought.

The building is old, due for demolition later this year, but has all character of something stuck in the 60's. There is a large balcony that extends across the front of the building with lovely views across the Parramatta River and Homebush Bay where the 2000 Olympic Games were held. In many ways it feels more like an aged care facility, with two of Lincolne's room mates being in their 70's. "Do you mind if we turn off the lights?" Sharon asks at 9pm, "you can turn off that bloody fan as well!" Henry snaps, "it's dryin' me eyes out!" At the hospital we were told that 23 degrees celcius is the perfect temperature for spinal patients, who cannot regulate their own body temperature. So we were surprised to find out that the rehab centre has no air conditioning. Still, Sharon considers the early move to rehab an answer to prayer.

Lincolne has been quite fragile this past week. With a waiting room full of visitors he greets generously, chatting for hours and is seemingly his same charming self. But I see it in his eyes, often on the verge of tears but never quite giving in, a fragility that is foreign to him. For the first time this week he told me he wished he could go back in time "we all do mate" I said. "When I was running in the water a thought came to me that I should run out further..." if only he had. After prayers on Tuesday evening I asked him what worries him the most. He looked at me with those beautiful big fragile eyes, almost swelling to tears, and lifted his arms beneath the sheets at the elbows, motioning his eyes toward them and the rest of his body. I wanted to promise him he'd walk again, there's nothing I want more, but I couldn't. "I promise you will have a good life" I said, we can give him a good life, that's the best promise I could make.