Aaron Poeze

It is time to vent. When life decides to slap you around it doesn’t mind hitting you all at once.

Last week was not pleasant. It all started with Oma, my grandmother on my father’s side. She’s had a dormant form of leukaemia for several years and has aged not so gracefully. A robust tall and strong, no-nonsense woman at 70 she’s become frail and forgetful in her 80s now though she certainly has lost none of her feisty nature.

Unfortunately this summer’s dreadful heat wave got her. Her air conditioning failed that day and before it could be fixed she took a fall. For older people a fall seems to be an all too common and usually rather bad event. She was not in a good way and no one was there but after quite some time she managed to reach the phone and dialed 000, our emergency number. She didn’t know her address or make any sense. But they fortunately traced the call so she’s been healing up in hospital.

Unfortunately her leg has now healed but she’s not energetic enough to rehabilitate. Her leukaemia is now in full aggressive bloom apparently. It’s been damn hard to see her like this and though she’s gotten some of her memory back she goes around in circles again and again as well. In short her physical and mental health is a wreck.

And then my Uncle B killed himself. Suicide via a bag over his head. Aunty P, his wife, was leaving him after many years (which was also news to me) and as she was there to get her stuff she found the body. Uncle B was always the most conservative upstanding man in every way. The problem is it was a façade, the real man was someone else, a man I may never have met. I won’t bother to bring up his awful past with the terrible things he’s done and had done to him. But suffice it to say it’s a very big pity he didn’t get help much earlier.

To make matters worse the police are questioning Aunty P now for a week, for murder presumably. Just what she needs right now and done oh so sensitively, I have no doubt.

Then my other grandmother, the mother to Aunty P and my own mother, has an aneurysm which has been known for several months now and has just discovered she has bowel cancer in two spots. They can and will operate but that’s two big operations and she’s no spring chicken.

And that’s not all. My other aunty, Aunty J has also been diagnosed with bowel cancer, except it seems it’s everywhere and they can’t just operate it away. She’s daughter of the mother with bowel cancer and sister to Aunty P and my mother. She’s definitely not had a healthy diet and is anecdotal evidence of a strong sort.

Needless to say it’s been a very bad time for the family and my mother hasn’t taken it well. But what can you do against mountains of bad luck? I worry for my Aunty P so much stress in a short time. It’s a mix of emotions I feel. Anger. Anger at the police, at the family’s lack of supportive nature, and at the cruelties inherent in life. And fear. Though I so detest fear I do not ignore it’s presence. I’m afraid of more suicide, more deaths and of my own future in getting something like the Big C. And sadness, and frustration, and resignation and even some hope.

I can but look forward to seeing the air clear from the huge unpleasant mess.

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bad week, cancer, family, suicide