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Novelo Rectangle

It was just a dream. I was in a darkened room. A lady was calling to me. We were alone together, but I wanted other company. There were four people in the room next door. I was with them a few minutes ago. There is no logic to a dream and somehow I find myself alone with this lady.	She wanted to go to the toilet.&nbsp;I wanted to go to the next room to see all the people there. She wouldn’t let me do that.&nbsp;She was insistent. “I need you to take me to the toilet,” she said.&nbsp;&nbsp;I didn’t know who was in the next room. Their faces were blank, but they were all women. It would be more appropriate for one of them to take this lady to the toilet instead of a man.&nbsp;I needed to go back and see who they were. A hand held me back. I couldn’t go to the next room. The lady kept asking for the toilet.&nbsp;I’ve had this dream before. I know that I am the one that takes people to the toilet.&nbsp;I must check if the women in the next room need the toilet? First things first. This lady wants the toilet now.&nbsp;The others will have to wait.Now where’s the lady? In my dream she is walking with me along a forest path. We hold hands. We kiss.&nbsp;“I love you my darling,” I said.“I need you to take me to the toilet. Now!” she replied.Suddenly we are no longer in the forest but back in the darkened room.&nbsp;She is sitting in the chair next to me? Like all dreams, this one is very confusing. Suddenly she is in bed and I am in another bed. I get up.&nbsp;The dream changes.&nbsp;The lady can’t talk. Sounds come from her mouth but they don’t form words. I know she needs the toilet, because I have had the dream before, and I am the toilet taker.The lady couldn’t walk.&nbsp;I&nbsp;get her from her bed onto a wheelchair. She can’t walk the short distance to the toilet, even with me holding her.&nbsp;She has to be in the wheelchair. I took her out of the bedroom.&nbsp;Turning left would take us to the toilet, whilst right would let me see who is in the next room.&nbsp;Why is this lady not with the others in the next room?&nbsp;It’s a strange dream, but … seems very real.&nbsp;She is very wobbly on her feet as I transfer her from wheelchair to toilet. She is standing up, but facing the toilet. To turn her through one hundred and eighty degrees is hard work. If I didn’t concentrate on this maneuver she might fall. I think she has fallen in the past. My mind was full of fog.&nbsp;I must wake up. I must concentrate.&nbsp;It could have been a dream but … this was my wife.She needed my help to get her sitting on the toilet.&nbsp;She needed my help to stop her falling off the toilet. My mind was full of mist.Couldn’t the people in the next room help? What people? The next room was the kitchen - nobody was in there. My mind cleared. The people in the next room were in my dream, but this is reality. *** It could have been a nightmare but … reality was even worse.&nbsp;A couple of months ago, she was still able to walk, and talk.&nbsp;We were walking around the housing estate. I couldn’t keep pace with her and neither could she.“I can’t go this fast,” she said.&nbsp;“Then why don’t you slow down and let me catch up,” I panted. She couldn’t do that.&nbsp;Her legs were in control.&nbsp;Her mind wanted them to slow down, but her legs wouldn’t listen to her mind. At other times her foot was fixed to the floor as if it was glued.&nbsp;Her foot wouldn’t listen to her mind either. As for her arm - that never listened to her.This could be a dream, but … this was the reality of Motor Neurone Disease. *** She’s finished on the toilet, and is back in the wheelchair.&nbsp;I push her to her bed. I tuck her up, kiss her forehead and say,&nbsp;“Goodnight my darling; pleasant dreams. Tomorrow’s another day.”But tomorrow will be like today. Her mind is active and full of thoughts. She knows what her eyes and ears tell her, but the muscles in her vocal chords won’t listen to her, just like muscles in her legs won’t listen to her. Fortunately the muscles in her fingers are still faithful and she is able to type on a keyboard what she wants to tell people.She used to be a touch typist, but as her condition deteriorated she lost her place on the keyboard.&nbsp;Eventually, I had to replace the ‘qwerty’ with an ‘abc’.&nbsp;This was getting serious. Her condition deteriorated further.&nbsp;“We could try a different app on her laptop,” said one of the therapists sent to help her. “It monitors her eyeball movement. All she has to do is concentrate on the next letter, and the app will type it for her.”Good plan, and it works for many people with MND, but not my wife.&nbsp;I think if we had tried it earlier we might have had success, but her eyes were unaccustomed to staring at one place for so long. We resorted to her pointing at cards printed with different messages, like ‘take me to the toilet,’ or ‘I’m hungry.’ We developed a sign language that only the two of us could understand.I became her keyboard; her mouthpiece.&nbsp;When visitors came, I translated her thoughts into words. I was by her side 24/7.&nbsp;I never realized just how many muscles we have. They are not just for lifting heavy weights. When I eat a sandwich muscles help me chew it. Not so for my wife with MND.&nbsp;Even those muscles ignored what her mind wanted them to do. Before speech failed her, she told us that she never wanted to have food pumped into her body.&nbsp;We all respected that. We shared the same meal, but I had to liquidize her portion.&nbsp;What would I do when her muscles prevented me from feeding her liquidized food? *** “Let me out - I’m dying of hunger”, the words were not my wife’s but her nine-times great grandfather, Thomas. Malcom was the Laid. Nobody argues with him. Elizabeth, in the prime of her life, had no choice but to succumb to his sexual desires.&nbsp;“Oh Dad, what can I do?” she asked when her pregnancy was obvious.Robert, her father, after his grandson was born, summoned up the courage to discuss the matter with the Laird.“How can I support my daughter and your son? I’m only a poor miller.” His reasoning was fair and just.&nbsp;He didn’t discuss the morality of the affair, just his desire to safeguard the future of Malcolm’s son.&nbsp;Malcolm, argumentative at the best of times, was not presented with a anything he could counter.&nbsp;His last word on the deal was that if Robert, Elizabeth or any member of the family discussed, or speculated on, Malcolm’s morality, then the deal was off. Otherwise, they could all stay at the mill for a peppercorn rent.Thomas, the illegitimate son, was brought up with knowledge that his father died as a result of an accident in the Mill.&nbsp;They told Tom that he&nbsp;was only two years old at the time so wouldn’t remember his father. His ‘Uncle’ Robert taught him how to be a miller.&nbsp;It was hard work being a miller, but Thomas enjoyed it.&nbsp;Later in life he enjoyed being married to a lovely wife who bore him a son. Life was good.&nbsp;&nbsp;It seemed like just another job but crop of corn wasn’t dry enough when it was brought in. Overnight it spontaneously ignited. The fire gutted the mill.Thomas inherited his birth-father’s argumentative spirit. The Laird accused Thomas of starting the fire deliberately. Thomas argued back. “Why would I do that and destroy my home and livelihood!”Nobody had questioned Malcolm’s authority before. Thomas won the argument, but Malcolm could never admit defeat, especially by a young lad. Consequentially he was thrown into the deep, dark, dungeon with the words, “Don’t you ever question my authority again.”Malcolm was called away to Edinburgh on urgent business. It was so urgent that he could think of nothing else, and during the week-long journey he forgot all about Thomas.“Let me oot - I’m deen o’ hunger” but nobody heard Tom’s plea.When Malcolm arrived in Edinburgh he noticed one of the officers had a set of keys - just like his own.“Oh my God,” Malcom remembered throwing Thomas, his illigitimate son, into the dungeon. He gave his servant his keys with the instruction to spare no time in returning home to release the prisoner.Too late. Thomas had already died of hunger.&nbsp;&nbsp;“Let me oot - I’m deen o’ hunger” Thomas haunted the house constantly with those words.The Chaplin used the Family’s Bible to perform the Rite of Exorcism. The Ghost was restricted to the dungeon and the rest of the building was free from his spiritual moaning.Thomas got his own back though - the Chaplin died in mysterious circumstances soon afterward. “Gotcha!” thought Thomas.The Family Bible had became worn, and needed to be rebound. Thomas, while the Bible was being repaired in Edinburgh, took advantage of the situation, and continued his hauntings. One night he threw the Laird and his wife out of bed.&nbsp;The Bible was quickly returned. “Rats!” thought Thomas, and threw a family member off the roof of a nearby building.Thomas was sorry for what he had done.&nbsp;That family member had not done him any harm.&nbsp;The Laird and his wife - yes they caused him to die of hunger. The Chaplin - yes he stopped him getting his revenge. The family Member - no. So Thomas stopped his hauntings.Several centuries later, his seven-times great granddaughter was ‘deen o’ hunger.’ Thomas arranged for her to be transfered to hospital where she could be protected. She died a week later - the same time that it took Thomas to ‘dee o’ hunger.’ But unlike Thomas, hers was a peaceful week. *** I could have had a dream, but … I don’t remember it.It was the morning before my wife went into hospital. I woke up naturally. Every morning for the past month I had been woken early by my wife crying out in pain; but not today. Like me she woke up naturally.&nbsp;I climbed out of bed, and moved over to hers. We had sold our double bed that we shared for over fifty happy years so that she could have a hospital-type bed in which she was more comfortable with having MND. Initially it was to enable her to sleep more in a sitting position than lying flat. Towards the end of her life it enabled nurses to give her a bed-bath by raising the bed to a comfortable working height.As she looked into my face that morning, she smiled. Then in the hand-signal language that we had developed she said, “I love you.”I kissed her and said that I loved her too, and will always love her.

It Could Have Been a Dream, but …

AstroGeoffrey

Dryfe

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It Could Have Been a Dream, but …

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Geoffrey Hugh Lindop

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