Since September 2014 when my now ex husband left abruptly at a time when we were supposed to be working on our issues and kept me guessing and more than a little confused by staying in my life and telling me he still loved me and wanted to be around me my life has been, well, I don’t even have a word for it.
Dear Husband left in September, with me holding the can so to speak. In March 2015 he suggested we get divorced and because I knew if I didn’t do anything nothing would get done I went to the regional court and initiated proceedings. Fortunately because there weren’t any children involved and there was pretty much no assets to divide it was a straight-forward, mutually agreed case so we didn’t need to go through lawyers and the High Court. The matter was over and done in about two months through the regional court with the thing taking the longest being waiting for our court hearing date. On the day it took longer to wait our turn than what it took me to stand in front of the magistrate and tell him I was satisfied with the settlement agreement and the terms of the divorce and for him to stamp and sign it off. Just like that almost 7 years of marriage was over.
Fast forward to August 2015 just after I had surgery and was still in recovery for the most part and what was an amicable, friendly relationship suddenly came to a halt with a begrudging admission that he wanted a clean break as I was unwilling or unable to choose between him and my mother.
I broke.
I broke into so many tiny pieces that I despaired that I would ever be whole again.
Nobody was more surprised than I at this development, who knew a man you no longer loved, whose relationship with you was over long before he even moved out, could break you in ways you never knew it was possible to be broken. But break I did. Slowly but surely, with the love and support of friends and family the pieces started coming back together again and just when things were kind of feeling okay-ish my mom fell and broke her hip and arm.
Due to the clerical error of the night duty admissions clerk at Garden City hospital they refused to admit my mom and she was sent to Helen Joseph hospital, a facility that I would not take a stray, rabid dog to, never mind a human being. My mother lay there from 10pm the Saturday night to some time after 8am Monday morning before a doctor even saw her. Garden City had transferred her with a drip in but the drip was laying on the bed next to her, she was not able to drink anything unassisted and the staff at Helen Joseph refused to let my stay with her because it was a “patients only” area, never mind that the patient didn’t know her own name, where she was or what had happened. Thursday afternoon, after much emailing, phoning, crying and praying Discovery finally got the mess sorted out and transferred her back to Garden City where she went straight into high care for stabilising. Hip replacement surgery on Sunday 20th and then months of rehab in the step down facility and finally shoulder replacement towards the end of December. Another few weeks in the step down and then home. Yay! Then she fell again in May this year. Nothing too serious, some bumps and bruises later but nothing broken. But now there is an endless litany of ooh, aah, ouch, eina, help. Coupled with what I believe to be early stages of dementia or something similar, I can honestly say I understand why children abandon their elderly parents in old age homes or similar facilities and institutes.
I get up at 5am, make her coffee that she doesn’t drink, leave for work before 6am to fight my way through northbound traffic on the N3 to go to work (where I don’t know if I will still have a job come end of June or not), fight my way back home through the same traffic, cook, wash dishes, make her lunch for the next day, pack my food for the next day – all the while to the background soundtrack of ooh, aaah, ouch, eina, help – try and unpack too many boxes into a too small space and hear how she used to do it in 3 days when we used to move.
Add to this the uncertainty of whether or not my contract will be extended beyond end June 2016 and if not how soon will I be able to find a job or get my own thing off the ground to a stage where it can support us and some days I am amazed that I am not abusing a substance of some sort, drugs, alcohol, both.
Ramblings of the lost 