I have been reading Doris Lessing’s – the diaries of Jane Summers. I am a huge Doris Lessing fan and this is the book that she wrote under a pseudonym , she describes the process of writing this way and why she did it in the preface, she also mentions that some did not recognise it as her work and some did. As I knew it was her and as a fan I find it impossible to believe that people could not spot her in its pages. I have almost finished the book and have enjoyed it immensely although it has been tough reading. The first diary deals with Jane’s encounter and eventual friendship with an old lady, the descriptions of the way old people live and the way they are viewed by others and the loneliness they experienced really struck home. It made me think of my grandmother who has recently gone into a home as she is suffering form Alzheimer’s and it made me respect the work my aunt has done to keep her at home for so long, especially as my aunt also has two autistic sons.Lessing also describes the rage and anger that old people have and how often it is those that care for them that feel the brunt. The rage comes from the indignity of dying and the frustration of age. That part made me think of Ernie Watt.
Ernie Watt was my maternal grandfather and my great friend. We became really close when he moved to the same town as me and because the year my grandmother died was the same year my parents spilt up. It wasn’t easy to be his friend or granddaughter because he was a cantankerous old git who often refused help from everyone but me, my mother as a nurse found it very difficult.
That first year we were both on our own we would have lunch once a week in the pub near the bookshop I worked in and he would tell me stories, most of which I knew of by heart. I loved those lunches and always came back to work drunk as I had to try and drink more than him so that he would not drive too drunk. He was a drinker, I am loathe to call him a drunk or an alcoholic as I feel both words sully the memory of the wonderful man he was.
So he was a drinker, first drink was at 11am, he had a running joke with the doctors that when they took his blood it would be pure Bordeaux. He was often angry, grumpy and told outrageous stories. He was diagnosed with lung cancer when I was 10, had a lung removed and took early retirement, he developed a shadow on his other lung, had cancer of the throat and towards the end had a series of strokes but he did not die until I was almost 31, it was long time to live in pain. I think that is why he drank.
He passed away two years ago this month, I could not decide at the time if I should fly home but I did and am very grateful I had the opportunity to say goodbye. Even if he did yell at me in the hospital for not massaging his feet properly. And I am very proud that with the help of family and his friends we managed to keep him in his home . He was a popular man a great big show off who loved company and never tired of telling people he was not English, he was Scottish. He even had his own ‘Sippers Club” a no women allowed whisky drinking club. I miss him.
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