It’s been a challenging few months. I’ve been taking care of my elderly father, with whom I had a terrible relationship in the past. I’ve been visiting him every day so he can get out of bed; cooking his breakfast to his specifications, then spending the afternoon trying to write. At the end of the day, after dinner, we watch old TV series. The Onedin Line is a particular favourite because our ancestors were shipowners in Waterford in the mid-1880’s and he inherited a love of sailing. Or it’s Mrs Brown’s Boys, because Mrs Brown reminds him of the woman who looked after him when he was a child, and he finds her hilarious. After that, it’s time for bed again, and he comments, with a smidgeon of resentment, about having to go to bed when it is still light outside. Just like he did when he was a child.
Once he is in bed, and has taken his medicine, I drive the ten miles home to my own bed keeping my eyes peeled for deer crossing the road.
I do readings or work on my book in the morning, as soon as I get up, and try to do some work in his house when he is on his phone or working on the computer. So far, I have managed to battle through all his intentional interruptions. He will ask a question when he sees me typing on my laptop. ‘Are you being productive?’ he’ll ask.
If I say ‘yes’, within seconds he has begun to talk, usually, a one-sided conversation where I am supposed to listen, like a dutiful daughter, and not contribute anything to the conversation, his opinion being the only one he wants to hear. Or, he will watch YouTube videos. All I will then hear are shrieking, terrified females or the chaotic destruction of a natural disaster, or insane political dramas. And all at full volume.
He invented procrastination.
But I can see he is struggling. His mind is not what it used to be, and as a lawyer trying to finish up his last cases, he is struggling with holes in his memory, bad eyesight and terrible hearing. His interruptions are really about his fear. Fear of getting it wrong, of misspelt words, of forgetting what that button did, the button he has used for over twenty years. This man, who in a previous incarnation back in the eighties designed and sold computers, cannot now find where he put an extremely important file.
I feel sad for him, watching him peer intently at the huge screen he has connected to his laptop so he can see the words he writes. With one hand on the mouse, his other plays anxiously with his lower lip, while his eyes search for the file he knows he put the last document into; the document he cannot complete if he cannot find it. Someone else depends on this work, and that adds to the pressure. It really isn’t something he can do anymore, but he can’t let people down either.
I send him healing support when I feel the urge to. He doesn’t know I’m doing it, because it happens spontaneously. I look at him and see his Hara line running through his body, or I lighten up his thinking. He thinks I’m nuts because I believe in life after death. But, the more I am there, talking about my work, the more curious he becomes. Especially when one of his clients, the one he is trying to complete the work for, goes to a spiritualist church and whose mother is a medium. My father is surrounded by people who believe that death is most definitely not the end and he’s really not sure what to make of it.
But, even the tiniest chinks of doubt, those little slivers of light that break through the mental darkness of old Catholic beliefs, are good enough for me. Of course, he claims to no longer have old Catholic beliefs, yet when he imagines his death, it is followed by NOTHING. He claims to have eschewed his old religion’s belief about the afterlife, especially those that were used by the Church to control people, the beliefs that said only judgement and potential damnation followed. But that stuff stays hidden, exerting its influence in horrible, terrifying ways. He watched his parents, back in Catholic Ireland, trying to remain alive as long as possible because they were so afraid of what came next. Had they done enough pilgrimages? Was going to mass every day, fasting for Lent, and going to Benediction enough to save their eternal souls? Or had there been some minuscule transgression that would ensure a long stay in hell instead?
My grandfather did a yearly pilgrimage to Lough Derg, in Co. Donegal, every summer. It was a pilgrimage that involved walking barefoot around the lake for three days. No food, no sleep, nothing but walking and praying. Nowadays, the pilgrims wear hiking boots and have haversacks on their backs, and hats to shield their heads from the sun, and they pay 80 euros for the privilege of purging their Souls. In my grandfather’s time, it was free, because it was a sacred yearly ritual, but if he was alive today he would still do it, because it would ensure his getting into heaven. Back then that was the fervent, desperate hope. My father still thinks he was crazy.
But at least he believed in something!