OF A ROSE, COURAGE AND JACK

I fell last week. I am waiting for a new hip from the government hospital but the waiting list is one year. I have nine months to go. Occasionally my right leg does not listen to my brain and fails to lift. So I fell on my boob of all things! Very painful, with the pain going right through to my back.

In this retirement village that I live in news travels fast. I was in bed nursing the pain when there was a knock on my window. Enter Eleanor with an ultra sound machine and a rose. “Mary sent this.”

Now Mary has had some sort of throat trauma and cannot speak. Eleanor spends a lot of time with her and Mary communicates on a Tablet. Mary also has a digestive problem and has to feed herself each day with a syringe. Meet Mary on any of the myriad paths in this complex and she always walks with purpose, always smiles. Bends down to pat Jack. Mary lives each day of her life. Unbelievable courage.

I have the rose in a glass next to my bed. I asked Eleanor to please tell Mary just how much I appreciate her gift.

Courage is everywhere in this complex where more women that men live. I never cease to marvel at how these women, after lives that encompassed much pain as well as joy continue to live each day as it comes, many of them giving time to charity. This year we had a craft exhibition and the variety and quality of the work was outstanding! That is not to say that the men don’t have those qualities, it is just that in the part that I live in there are many more women living.

My other precious gift some three years ago is Jack. I was earning extra money doing pet sitting and was at a local veterinary practice handing out printed notices of my services.  The receptionist greeted me having read the note. “You have come at just the right time!” It appeared that a young couple with a toddler had bought a Dachshund puppy without checking whether they were allowed to keep a pet in their flat. They were moving to a proper house soon but in the meantime did not know what to do.

In next to no time a very small puppy was handed to me with his medical card. He had had all the necessary injections. I agreed to keep him for three weeks until the move. I climbed back into my car and settled the little man on my lap. His name I was told was Jack.

Now I had some shopping to do and did not want to leave him alone in the car. As it happened my daughter was staying with me at the time. So I went home, opened the door and handed Susan this little animal. “I am going to do the shopping and will be back soon. Will explain later!”

When I returned Susan told me that Jack had howled his lungs out at my disappearance! In those few minutes of sitting on my lap Jack had decided that I was his person!  As the time came to hand him back I realized that he was so bonded to me that to send him back would be cruel. I consulted the vet who in turn consulted the owner who graciously told me to keep him and he would find another puppy for the family.  Jack had found a home to his satisfaction!

Jack is well known and loved throughout the complex. He likes everyone, loves a few favourites and the staff always greet him. “Howzit Jack?”

One of my neighbours, Murray moved here only a week before her dear husband died. Murray somehow coped by joining the needlework group. She does the most exquisite embroidery. Jack and I often drop in for a chat. However a cat moved in, deciding that Murray had what was needed for any cat’s wellbeing. The cat lies indolently on the back of the sofa while Jack trembles at the end of his leash like some bloodhound on the trail! On the days that the cat is out on his rounds Jack lies exactly where he does! Occasionally he will sit on Murray’s knee surveying the world through the open doors.

Jack has one fault. He hates cats. When he was still a puppy I took him to Mozambique. We stopped overnight in Nelspruit  at Mbombela Backpackers. Here two enormous dogs made a huge fuss over Jack so that he was covered by slobber!

However a large black cat that had the reputation of a Black Mamba snake killer lived there too. The Backpackers overlooked a vlei wetland that had tall elephant grass. Ideal Mamba cover. The black cat would stalk and kill this, the most poisonous and dangerous snake in South Africa. Very, very few people survive a bite.

The cat was on the kitchen counter and Jack gave a puppy bark at it. The cat flew to the ground and proceeded to hit poor Jack with a left and a right just as the line of a song I remember from my youth described! The song lyric ran like this:  “Come on kid! Come on kid, hit him with left and a right!”

Jack also has the run of Heather’s house. Heather had to put her elderly Dachshund, Oliver down and loves Jack to pieces. Jack loves Pat. We cannot pass her house without him scratching for permission to enter. He makes a fuss of her and goes straight to her fridge, standing there in expectation!

One lady here has a severely handicapped son who visits occasionally and drives around in his little automated chair. Jack runs up to him and sits beneath his toes patiently allowing the man to rub him with his toes.

Barbara walks a lot and has offered to walk Jack when my hip gives trouble. Jack can spot her from a long way so I let go of the leash and he gallops up to greet her with much enthusiasm. He is happy to go and walk with her just giving a last look at me to get a double “Okay, go Jack!”

Jack and I had a routine for our walks. Early in the morning we would stroll so that he could read the newspapers on the due wet grass. At eleven we would take a proper walk for exercise. On a Tuesday I would attend art classes and come home in time for the walk. One Tuesday I was late and arrived at twelve. Now I enjoyed listening to a political commentator called Stephen Grootes at that time. So I settled with a glass of wine thinking to take Jack for his walk afterwards.

Jack had been restless with the disruption to his routine and in desperation jumped on to my bed and proceeded to bark angrily at Stephen Grootes’s voice emanating from the radio on my bedside table! I got the message!

Jack can get very angry at me. If he wants a second helping of chicken and rice and I refuse he sits in front of me the picture of indignation with his ears out, glaring, then with funny fierce barks registers his anger! If I tell him to stop he runs around in circles then recommences the performance until I am forced to dish out a little more!

I could go on and on but must be off to give a lift to a friend and thence to my son TJ and his wife Maud and their children Greg and Neve. Jack considers them part of his family and loves to visit! TJ will put this blog on the internet for me. It is useful having an IT son!

 

 

A STRANGE TALE OF A NEW FRIEND AND A LITTLE WOODEN BOX

I lived in Langebaan village on the lagoon that lies just off Saldanha Bay on the West Coast of South Africa. My daughter Susan and I were producing a little monthly magazine called Out & About on the West Coast.

The magazine diarized current events, horse racing news, stories, recipes and information about the surrounding areas. It was very popular with residents waiting eagerly to read it every month. Susan did the layout and I was journalist and editor and coffee maker, you name it.

One day as I was at my computer writing an article a knock on the door disturbed me. I opened it to greet a strange young woman with blond hair who was not beautiful but very attractive. She held a back copy of Out & About in her hand and asked if she could come in.

Over coffee she introduced herself as Debbie. Debbie had always had a dream of writing and up to now her life and not allowed this. She asked if I needed a hand and could she do an article for the magazine each month. Well I knew how difficult it was to get published and I asked her to bring me an article. She pulled a sheet of paper out of her pocket and handed it over. I told her I would read it and come back to her.

Now just recently geologist David Roberts was picnicking  on the beach at Kraal Bay in the West Coast National Park. David knew that fossil prints of a large carnivore had been found on the dunes here and he began to scramble among the cliffs searching for more animal prints. He found three paw prints of a large carnivore on a rock slab.

David returned to the area a few months later as a scientist with the council for Geoscience to begin research on the geological history of the western coastal platform. He noticed a piece of quartz shaped by a stone age person protruding from the sandstone. Holding the artifact up his gaze was attracted to the low cliffs a few hundred yards away. Eureka! There he spied human footprints!

He splashed across the flats to reach the cliffs and began a systematic search that resulted in him arriving at a pinnacle known as the Pulpit Rock. He hauled himself up to a large block of sandstone and bent to examine it more closely. He brushed away the loose sand and had a heart stopping discovery for here lay two beautifully preserved human prints and so the existence of Eve as she was subsequently named, was discovered who lived and walked along these shores some 117 million years ago!

Debbie had written about this find and her writing was so vivid that I could see the real Eve walking upon the dunes thinking and dreaming much as I had done on many an occasion. I was overwhelmed at my discovery of an exceptional writing talent!

Debbie became my right hand man and little by little I learnt her story. She was married and had three children. Her husband abused her so badly that she ran away from their home in Maun, Botswana. She showed me the scars on her hands where he had forcibly held them against a hot plate on the stove. In desperation she had fled, leaving her children behind feeling sure that he would not abuse them.

She settled in Langebaan and met someone she could love and moved in with him. Some months went by and I was planning to travel to Robertson where Susan stayed on a thoroughbred stud farm with her husband and children. We had a lot of work to do together and Debbie was happy to hold the fort while I was away. However she needed to go away too and it was agreed that I would return on the day she was leaving. She would leave everything ready for me and get going early with her boyfriend.

I took a short cut back that led me to Mooreesburg on a lesser road that ended on the main artery running South to North on the West Coast. I needed to cross over, go through the town and on to Veldrif and so home. At the junction there was a huge accident with fire engines and ambulances and I crossed without seeing it in detail.

A week later Debbie had not appeared and was not answering her phone. We did not have cell phones then. I was not unduly worried but it was unusual for her not to have let me know if she was going to return late. Then my phone rang and a strange woman asked if she was indeed speaking to me. I confirmed that it was indeed I and she told me that she was Debbie’s mother. Debbie and been in that terrible accident that I had passed and had died. Her boyfriend was badly injured and was doomed to a wheel chair for the rest of his life.

I was very upset but was occupied packing up to go to Botswana for more research on the guide book Susan and I were working on,  Discovering Botswana. My friend Joy who lived outside of Gaborone was expecting me. Tidying up I picked up a little inlaid wooden box that had sat on the bookshelf since I moved into the house and what made me lift the lid I don’t know. Inside was a folded A 4 typing paper.

I opened the folds and saw that the letter for that was what it was, was addressed to me. I glanced at the end and there was Debbie’s signature. I knew her handwriting well. I sat down with a glass of wine and read the letter. Tears dripped down my cheeks as her words told me just what it had meant to her to be able to write for Out & About and my friendship. I was touched to the core.

Debbie must have written it before leaving for her trip with her boyfriend and planned to give it to me on her return. I returned it to the little box that had been on the shelf when I moved in, probably left by the previous owners of the house.

The drive to Gaborone went without incident in the bitter cold of a Kalahari winter and that evening Joy and I went to bed early, both in her bedroom. Our beds were opposite and we were both keen readers. Joy had a whisky beside her and I had a glass of red wine, each with a book. We were good companions with no need to chat.

Something made me look up and there was Debbie sitting on the end of my bed. She was pale grey white but unmistakable. She spoke to me, her words quite clear. “Don’t worry Mols, I’ll show you how!” Then she was gone. I was shaking as I lifted my glass to my lips and Joy dropped her book and asked me what was wrong. I told her and being Joy she accepted what I said unconditionally.

Now I had had a few episodes of seeing things having had a grandmother who was Cornish and another who was Irish. The family believed I was what they used to call ‘fey’.

Throughout my trip I pondered on Debbie’s words thinking that I was probably going to die too. However here I am in my eightieth year still very much alive. Looking at the little box I reflect that she really meant that she would guide me through the rest of my life for I have indeed ended in quiet waters with a life rich in friends and family and am still writing and painting. I will never forget Debbie and her words.