ABC Wednesday B is for Bee

My sister's name was Beryl but her husband always called her Bee. She was a very busy person, full of energy and enthusiasm. She met her husband at a dance and three weeks later they were married, rather to my parents' consternation. They need not have worried for the marriage was long, happy and fruitful and they were well matched though she was sometimes driven to distraction by his refusal to engage in arguments. They lived in a small caravan for a few years while he was still in the Royal Navy – no naval married quarters then! – and one day he so infuriated her that she threw a bag of tomatoes at him, one by one. Every one of them missed and she had to clean up the mess afterwards. Mick sat and laughed which made her even more furious.

Beryl was a beautiful child with dark curly hair and big brown eyes and grew into a striking woman but she was rather accident-prone. There are few photographs of her without a bandage in evidence. As she grew up she fell prey to various illnesses and mishaps. She had a tubercular gland in her neck which was removed, leaving a noticeable scar. When she broke her back, falling off a stool (!) she was encased in a plaster cast from chest to thighs for several months but this didn't prevent her dancing. She and Mick were very graceful dancers and were often complimented on their style. Beryl found the cast quite useful on the dance floor. If another couple carelessly barged into them she would make a point of crashing back, making sure the cast was felt, all the more surprising when it was not visible!

Beryl was fifteen years older than me and enjoyed taking me out at the weekends when I was little. Indeed, she would often ask her boyfriends, of whom she had a long succession, if she could bring her sister along on their dates. She would describe me, quite accurately, as a brown-eyed blonde, and enjoy the look of amazement on their faces at the rendezvous when a little girl appeared, holding her hand. Needless to say, I loved her boyfriends! I also loved watching her getting ready to go out – it all looked very exciting and grown-up and I couldn't wait until my turn came. Even now, I often enjoy the preparations for a formal evening out more than the event itself.

Despite her illnesses and accidents Beryl never complained, carrying stoicism to sometimes ridiculous levels. In her sixties she fell down the stairs and broke her wrist. Rather than call an ambulance or even sit down and wait for Mick to return home and help her, she carried on 'as usual', preparing their evening meal. When Mick arrived home some hours after the accident it was obvious she was in great pain and he took her to hospital where the surgeons had a difficult job setting her badly broken wrist. It was never the same thereafter, for it didn't heal straight.

Beryl was always a very slim woman. She was an excellent cook and enjoyed food, for her appetite was good, but she had so much energy that she burnt calories at a terrific rate. During her stays in hospitals she would be prescribed milk stout, rather like Guinness, to 'build her up' which she never drank but poured into the plant pots when backs were turned. The plants thrived!

Mick always bought her clothes and he had excellent taste, knowing exactly the style and colour and cut to emphasise her good looks. As a couple they were extremely good company, readily and frequently turning acquaintances into friends and living life to the hilt on a modest income.

For the last twenty-five years of her life she had cancer though none of us, apart from Mick, knew until the last three years when it became impossible to disguise or wave away. After several serious operations she finally underwent palliative surgery twelve years ago and spent her last months at home, being cared for by Marie Curie nurses, amazing her doctors by living longer than their expectations, and dying peacefully and as she had lived, with a smile on her lips. She was sixty-nine. She was Mick's soul mate and in the ensuing years he has taken great comfort from their three children and seven grandchildren. Their two daughters have her distinctive voice. His cheerful personality and natural optimism have ensured that he has never slipped into a slough of despair but there is no doubt that Beryl was his shining star as he was hers. It was a true love match.

 Thank you to Denise Nesbitt and her wonderful team who organise and host this weekly meme. To see more Bs please click here.

From a different perspective . . . Today

Today is the last day of my life. I expected to be bitter, resentful, angry even, that my efforts have been overcome and I have been vanquished, but I am too exhausted to feel anything other than resignation and perhaps a sense of relief that I can relinquish the fight for existence.
I have recognised the advent of my death for some months now, though I have not cared to acknowledge it. I have never allowed myself to become despondent or to admit that the outcome was inescapable. I continued to make my plans, almost defiantly, as though to do so would guarantee my survival - but everyone knew the actuality of the situation. In sombre moments, in quiet corners, it was discussed, repetitively and in detail, as if the repetition made reality less certain, gentler, more familiar. In public, though, everyone retained an obstinate air of determined cheerfulness, planning . . . for a future they feared was too short. I feel no regrets, just a dull sense of inevitability. The pulse is slower, the breathing lighter, shallower. The morphine is working its ineffable magic, slowing, calming . . . deadening. I hear voices, but they are muffled and indistinct and soon I shall not hear them anymore. That will be a relief, for they have said things I would rather not have heard, comments that upset my equilibrium and allowed doubts to surface, though of course, they can have had no idea that I could hear them, still less understand them.
I have a short time left, then, to reflect on my life. It hasn't been disagreeable, though, naturally, I should have liked to survive long enough to see my descendants grow and prosper. I've had my trials and tribulations – a few spells in hospital, some rather unpleasant treatment, but I've always come through, even when everyone was convinced I was beaten. I've invariably returned to life, quietly at first, then with gathering strength . . . until now.
I haven't had a long life, by most standards, but, in my small vanity, I would like to think I've left my mark, made an impression on those who have known me. I think, in all modesty, that I will be remembered after my passing, albeit with sadness and incomprehension.
I was conceived twenty-eight years ago and remember little of my early existence, except that it was quiet, pleasant, unremarkable and spent in congenial surroundings. I was nurtured and protected against all possible ills, yet still I was quite young when I had my first notable encounter with the medical profession. After a less than routine visit to the doctor, there was a referral, fairly urgently, to a specialist – such dread is engendered by that title! - and thereafter to the Oncology Unit. My treatment was harsh and hard to bear – the chemotherapy made me very sick. I felt weak and almost defeated but I rallied, and little by little, my strength returned and with it a resurgence of energy and optimism. I had an inner confidence that I would survive and so I did, living quietly, reserving my strength, never losing hope.
Circumstances forced a move to a new location and within the decade I was receiving treatment once more. I underwent a serious and dangerous major operation, and those dear, close relatives prayed and wept and feared the worst, but I survived, recovered and planned for the next few years. Life seemed sweet, for I had gambled with death and won.
However, three years later, I was once more fighting for my very existence, subjected to surgery, a merciless barrage of chemotherapy and finally more radiotherapy. The treatment almost destroyed me but I confounded everyone. Once again, I proved too strong and demonstrated my determination to triumph over every coercion, all intimidation. I truly believed I was indomitable - and I won!
Against all the odds, I won, and yet, in winning, I discovered, too late, that I had lost everything! In the heat of battle I had forgotten that, without my host, I could not survive. My malign influence will die with the last breath of the woman I have destroyed and I will exist no more.
Today is the last day of my life.
(The idea of writing from another perspective is not new. People have written about 'the gun that shot the bullet' or 'the journey of the letter' – that last a favourite at one time with teachers! I wrote this piece a few years ago shortly after my sister died following a long relationship with cancer.)

The art of photography - again!

This photograph of my maternal grandmother was taken around 1904 in Southsea, Hampshire. I believe she worked as a cook in a 'big house' before her marriage. After marriage women were not expected to work outside the home. I never met her for she died in hospital in great pain of stomach cancer when relatively young. The doctors told my mother that they could not increase the morphine dosage as it would kill her! In those days, the late twenties/early thirties, doctors adhered strictly and not always humanely to the Hippocratic oath. After her death my maternal grandfather, a policeman, went to live with my parents and their young daughter, my sister Beryl.
Here are my mother and her parentsin 1904. She had two older brothers and I wonder why it was not a family portrait? Perhaps they were more expensive. My mother and the younger of her brothers were very close. Indeed, when my father sailed away on a three-year commission in the Royal Navy when Beryl was three weeks old, many people assumed Charlie was my mother's husband as they were so often together with the little girl. It must have been confusing for my father's name was Charles too, though my mother always called him Charles or Char.
My mother said that her parents were strict but never unkind; it was not quite a case of being seen but not heard but they were certainly expected not to talk at meal-times.