MSWA Bulletin Magazine Summer 2018

THAT’S LIFE
WITH NARELLE
NARELLE TAYLOR, MSWA MEMBER
HEARTACHE
ROS HARMAN, MSWA MEMBER
Every year, my one and only sister comes to Perth from her
home in Sydney, to celebrate my birthday during the NSW
school holidays. We are very good company for each other
and because we both have so many decades of experience,
we know how to celebrate!
This year, Janine stayed in the home of our mutual friend
Kate, and I stayed in my Aged Care facility. All the while,
the staff here did my washing and any housework that may
have needed doing. Janine may well have been doing that at
Kate’s place. I didn’t even ask, for fear of having to help! She’d
come here each morning, by train with Kate, who travelled
on to work, then Janine and I would have all day to do as
we pleased.
One particularly lovely morning that week, my support worker
Melissa, took us to a gorgeous venue on the Swan River.
The view turned out to be the only thing all three of us liked.
We each ordered and that’s where the trouble began. The
cash register operator was, shall we say, unobliging. She told
us abruptly that as hard as it would be for me to hold and put
the burger in my sweet little disabled mouth, the chef would
not cut the bacon or press the two layers of the bun together.
Janine was very charming and we were all so shocked that
the iron maiden taking our orders could not be cajoled into
meeting our needs. We paid and exited stage right, to sit
at a table where the view of Crawley Bay was just lovely.
C’est la vie!
The jolly bun was brought to us at the table. Because the
bacon hadn’t been cut and the layers of the jolly thing weren’t
pressed together, I would have had to be a hippo to eat it.
Janine, like a surgeon, removed the bacon from the bun, cut
it, replaced it whilst muttering about the toaster press, then
walked aggressively toward the girl on the cash register. We
sat, admiring the view, and growing less and less hungry until
the pressed bun was brought back to the table. For Janine’s
sake, I wanted to be hungry but the coffee had been very
nice. I enjoyed it and the next time I go there, it’s all I’ll order.
Janine and I had much more satisfaction in a large shopping
centre near where I live and we actually went back there a
second time. I wondered if the counter staff remembered us,
but we hadn’t had to assert ourselves, so they had no reason
to. Janine was able to relax.
My support worker, when we get around, can be charming
or assertive as is necessary. When there is only her and
me, I have never felt that she negotiates without me. That
really pleases me because if the support worker speaks
on my behalf, it can be that they speak ‘over’ me, and I find
it demeaning.
If you are old enough, you may remember Bonnie Tyler singing
“It’s A Heartache” in her characteristic gravelly voice in 1978.
Those words have been in my head a lot lately.
I’ve had my own heartache this year. Kris, my beloved partner
of the last 13 years, ended his own life in May. He was unwell,
having fought a battle with cancer over the last couple of
years, and then his MS began to progressively worsen after
years of relative stability. I believe he thought he was destined
for a future that would see him rapidly lose his independence
and become unable to do all the things he has enjoyed over
the last few years. I think he could not face that.
The force of life is strong in most people, indeed in most living
beings. On the whole we are biologically driven by a desire to
preserve and extend our own lives as much as possible. This
drive is an innate necessity for the survival of all species. It
is therefore always a shock when someone overrides that life
force and chooses death instead.
I am not going to debate the rights and wrongs of suicide.
There was a time when it was illegal in Australia, which is
somewhat perverse. How do you punish someone who is
dead? While the government does not punish people for
suicide any more, there is an inevitable sense of punishment
for the loved ones left behind in the pain and sorrow they
experience after such an act.
One of the saddest parts of this story is that Kris did not seek
help when he was despairing about his future. He didn’t go
to see his neurologist to see if there was anything he could
do about his symptoms. He didn’t talk to the counsellors at
MSWA about his feelings. He didn’t even talk to me about
them. If he had done so, things could have been different.
A journalist called Henk Blanken, writing in August this year
for The Guardian stated, “my death is not my own. My death
will only ever mean something to those I leave behind.” Kris’s
death has meant that I have to reinvent myself. I am no longer
a woman in a relationship, sharing a reasonably large part
of my life with my partner. Now I am a single, middle-aged
person who lives alone, a person looking for things to occupy
myself, so I am not lonely, seeking companionship where I can
find it. My priorities have changed radically. My expectations
for the future have changed completely.
The impact of Kris’s death on my life will never leave me.
There will always be a dark well of sadness in my soul as I
remember Kris. I know I will be okay though. I am a resilient
person, and I have my family and many friends around me.
I am hoping to be a grandmother soon, which will bring a
completely new joy and purpose to my life.
If you are feeling despair or fear for your future, I urge
you to reach out to others. MSWA have a team of well
trained professional counsellors who will listen to you
and help you find a brighter future.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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