Lindsay Waller-Wilkinson

It’s been an age…
My father became ill. He was admitted to hospital. My mother came to live with me. She needs 24/7 care pretty much. Then my mother became ill too. They both have heart failure. They’re both 84. She was admitted to hospital also. But not the same one. Then she came home to live with me again. And then my father died. In between my father’s cremation and his funeral my mother became unwell again. I took her to the doctor’s repeatedly. They didn’t listen and they didn’t DO anything. And then she had a fall. Now she’s in hospital again. She missed my father’s funeral. It was beautiful. I hope she’ll become well enough to join us, in some way, once more.
I’ve not been able to write. I’ve not been able to think. I’ve not been able to live.
When I last looked at this blog I had well over three hundred followers. I see now that I have only 101. I’m not sure if I mind or not. I think, maybe, I do, but I can’t change it. Sometimes life takes over from everything else and you just have to accept it, and get on with it.

Here are two poems I wrote just before they were both hospitalised. I wrote these while on a writer’s retreat in Spain with the wonderful TLC and my parents were both uppermost in my mind.

Voyagers

Then she tried to anchor him –

his bold and brazen bulk

buffetted and broken

by repeated storms

of his own making,

dealt with the flotsam

that rose on the tide

of each new wreckage,

catalogued damage,

instigated repairs,

raised his standard before

launching him once more,

turning her gaze inwards,

unable to witness him drifting

so swiftly from the safety

of their small harbour,

the fear he would not return

running deeper than the dread

of his next reckless voyage.

Now, he tries to tether her –

her frail and fragile frame

tossed by night-squalls

awakening each day

a little further from the shore.

I Must Learn

I must learn to say goodbye

to a woman I have always known,

a body lithe and lean,

a spine of toughened steel,

a wit so sharp it keens.

I must learn to say hello

to a smile that spreads with ease,

settles in a grey-green gaze,

flushes softened cheeks,

spills to words that please.

I must learn to take my leave

of a woman I have always loved,

learn instead to greet

this saccarine imposter,

this child, this thief.

How things have changed since. How this is a record of how I felt, right then, with no knowledge of what was to come. How must I move forward…