Visiting hours are from 9:30am - 7:30pm. But they don't like you to be there before lunch, and really, they don't like you there after dinner either. Sometimes it feels like they don't really like you there at all.784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5NVarVgyXP
I once saw a young girl there, 17 or 18. She was crying, the tears falling from her face like a forty day floor, shuddering as emotion shook her within herself, breathing half breaths that caught in her lungs and looked uncomfortable. She was bunched up against the wall, next to an empty chair. I thought perhaps someone had passed, stopped and asked if she was okay. She looked at me, little black tears streaming from her eyes, coated in mascara, puffy and red. "Just a sad... place"784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5EVpXrkHCy
Later I heard some of the carers talking. She had visited her grandmother, whom no longer remembered her existence - lashing out when she had bounded into the room, excited to see her, enthusiastically throwing her arms out for a hug and being bonked on the nose and hissed at. A buzzer pushed, some things thrown and rush on crocs in the hall. Her grandmother was crying too, her head resting on the shoulder of another young girl - possibly ages with the grand daughter - the carer. Like she had been replaced.784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQjc6FEsUZj
There are passwords on the doors in and out of the building. That doesn't make it a prison, but sometimes I think it must seem it to some of the residents there, having to stay for their own good, trying to escape, wanting home. You hear some wonderful stories about the demented escapees! I heard once that a lady, found wandering the streets in the snow in a dressing gown - mid January - told police that there was a young man who went around in his van kidnapping old people, making them go and live in his prison. This young man was of course one of the careres in the home she was living. Police delivering her back to her residence having to seriously question a 19 year old carer to ensure there was nothing untoward happening.784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJCJdSzMias
Can you imagine his notes at the end of that shift?
But that's the walking wounded. Henry's mother doesn't fall into this category. She cannot mobilize well enough to attempt an escape. Thankfully it does not seem that she wouldn't anyway. She has a relaxed heir about her. Tells Henry to put the kettle on most days when he arrives, that must be a feeling of home? But at the same time, she is there lying in that bed, with the duvet pulled right up to her chin, her eyes sometimes more vacant than he'd like to see, she is smaller now. She confuses easily, losses track of what it was she was talking about. Sometimes just drops off. Calls tennis Golf. 784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4crQDicG76
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In its own right, it is heart-breaking. The lady that had all these stories committed to mind, the folk memory, many a song she would roll off her tongue at the slightest reminder.
"Time for a song...."784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG7bYtV2Ahm
And then she would just come out with it. She had always loved to sing, she had been a driver during the war, and when the soldiers came home she worked in a hospital for the wounded veterans; she would sing for them. Sweetly in the ears of men suffering post traumatic stress, her comforting, sleepy voice lulling them back from the trenches, away from the air raids. Taking them away from the brutality of war, from the memory of dyeing friends, of blood soaked lapels, mud and rain. Pulling them back from that someplace they could not escape, mopping their browns and being just there. A brilliant mind. A dab hand at almost anything she ever tried. A persistence of will power. Still took the stairs, even with a broken hip. 784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOnQh81Dhzx
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Sometimes she would call Henry 'Alfie', he didn't mind all that much, he loved her all the same. But it broke parts of him, he wondered if she really knew who he was, if she still loved him? But sometimes she'd have these fantastic moments of clarity. And she would be there, in that moment with him laughing and joking, reciting full verses from Macbeth. And then sometimes she was barely there at all, sometimes she was only seven. A scared child unknowing of her environment.784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzftE1RuJGL
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It doesn't and didn't make any sense to him. Why could your loved ones be taken away from you when they were still here? Why can the body remain, when the mind has decided to go? He was not a man that was profoundly affected by death. He had met it several times, shook hands and muttered will see you again, I'm sure. He understood it had to come, to us all. Sometimes he had even felt the warm rasp of that blade against his own throat, and borne back, he found he could stay another day. Or rather he had to. Somebody must visit mum. It wasn't that I was happy it was that way, but I was glad that guilt kept him alive. I guess it had been guilt that kept me too. I related.784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcMed25iiTY
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For all Henry's flaws, he was more than a pleasant man, he was funny and charming, talented and incredibly smart. His wit... was just too sharp, he would often unknowingly cut people with it, leaving scars on their skin for harms he did not see he was doing. The green eyes of envy staring at him across the bar as he, moodily sank out these minor chords of heart breaking song. His voice echoing through the drunks, their stench mixing with this sweet melody that was still bringing people into the bar, still intriguing them beyond mere drink induced enterprise. His voice holding the sadness we can all relate to, a siren song to each and every broken heart in the city. Sweet melancholia wept from the strings of his guitar, the patrons wept too. They wept for lost love, misplaced time for all the things they could have been; and everything they would never accomplish.784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7G8RHTuGs2
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He visited as often as was possible, it took time to get there, it was on the other side of the city. He could take two buses - as there were none direct - or a train and a taxi, or a long walk. And of course don't get me wrong, he was not the only one to go, but he was certainly the most consistent and almost seemed to accept the whole business as his responsibility. Which it does not soley belong to anyone. But in turn, henry was doing all he could for the woman who had always done so much for him. En route to that place he would often find himself, eyes fixed on the sky, picking out omens that were not there, heightening his anxiety. He saw murders of crows hanging in the endless grey of perspiration, the grim reaper knocking halos from callous angels. He swore he once saw god.784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv3WhatxQZq
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So I suppose it was to be expected that perhaps the stress may become a little too much. I guess other people involved could have done more, could have noticed warning signs. But they didn't.
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And that is why we are here. To save his soul.784Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6q1KUR1BLF
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