Wilting

Something always comes along to jolt you out of the self-pity pit and back to reality. My mum's cousin went to the doctor the other day with a headache and came out with the news he has some sort of inoperable brain tumour and has about six months to live. He's only in his early 40s with young kids. He's coming up from Sydney for the long weekend to see the family, possibly to say goodbye.

Meanwhile, his uncle - my grandfather, who you may remember me writing about before - is still here. And still deteriorating so slowly. He refused to eat for a week, until my grandmother finally told him, "If you're trying to die, starving yourself will take far too long!"

Now his tactic is to hide his pills. He has an army of them that he has to take three times a day, dozens of little shapes that do absolutely nothing but stop his heart from giving out. They don't improve his quality of life - they can't make him move again, they can't help him speak. I don't understand why the doctors keep giving him more and more drugs to keep him in this state of limbo, prolonging the inevitable.

Lately he didn't swallow the pills, he hid them in the cracks of his armchair, until my grandmother discovered the little stockpile. Now she stands there until they're swallowed. Briefly I wondered why does she make him take them?, but then, how could you deal with the guilt if you didn't?

I know it's morbid, but I think about his funeral. I write eulogies in my head. I dream of chosing words so powerful and moving that everyone forgets the past six years of his life and can only think of what went before. I'd remind them how he'd come in from the shearing shed for morning tea, smelling of oil and lanolin, teasing and annoying my grandmother as he ate his Sao's. Always with tomato and Coon cheese. Strong black tea in an old enamel mug. I'd remind them how in the 60s he ranted about politics and wanted to move the family to Canada because he felt that was the only country the Commie Bastards wouldn't take over. I'd remind them of his rude jokes and sarcastic comments and stubborness and sharp mind. Everyone will laugh and cry and noone will think of him in that armchair with empty eyes and wilting body.

I don't understand why my grandfather keeps going on when he's in so much pain, then someone like my cousin in the prime of his life will make such an early exit. Life is strange. Anyone got a better explanation?