As we walk into the bookstore this morning, I notice the security guards standing around a woman who has collapsed.
I look over at Hubby to see if he has noticed but his mind is on the books we’d promised ourselves as a reward for getting through a strange few weeks.
It really has been this odd mix of the wonderful, the shocking, and the sad…
The wonderful was captured when we went to see a friend perform in Stars on Earth, a program and performance for and by people dealing with a disability. I sat in the theatre enjoying the songs, the dance, and the gentleness of carers as they helped people achieve their dreams.
The shocking happened, as it often does in our lives, through Hubby’s job as a paramedic. He attended a particularly difficult job involving an older woman who had passed a week or so earlier. Hubby was careful to protect her adult children from the trauma of seeing her. There are enough emotions for them to deal with, without adding more.
The sad, as you know, in the death of Josh. His Celebration of Life Service was yesterday, a beautiful time of laughter, tears, and remembering. It really was one of the best services I have been to.
So, it is this morning and we are in the bookstore, looking forward to what we might find and I have seen the job going off. I briefly consider not saying anything to Hubby but it isn’t who we are and I reach out and take his arm. ‘A woman has collapsed’, I say and he nods with compassion and understanding.
Even though he isn’t in uniform, he becomes his paramedic self. It is a girl who has suddenly taken ill. Her mum is worried and managing other children and trying to understand what has happened. Hubby directs mum so that she does the examination and politely asks if he can take the girl’s pulse.
I am standing awkwardly behind the security guards, explaining that I am the paramedic’s wife and not just a sticky beak. I look absently at the nearby shelves and see, as you do in bookstores, a shelf of bits and pieces that includes a stress ball. To give me something to do, I take it and see how well it works. It isn’t long before I realise that I have squeezed it so much I am now obliged to buy it. I tell myself it will come in handy at school and text Daughter to tell her what is going on and that I am buying a stress ball.
Tuning back to the quiet drama unfolding in front of the security guards, I hear Hubby suggesting different actions that can be taken. He is patient and takes his time. Things like this take time. Someone is unwell. Someone else is in shock. Others are feeling frightened.
I am sad.
Hubby is the most generous person I know and has given a lot of himself these past few weeks. He won’t feel like looking at books after this. The fun of the reward is gone.
As I hear him talking to mum about taking the girl home and seeing how things go from there, I take a breath and begin to look at the books. Maybe I will find something he might like.
I choose several, one of which we already have, put two back in the wrong place, and hold onto one. Taking it and the now warm stress ball to the counter, I pay. The shop assistant thanks Hubby for his help and we leave trying to remember how to get out of the shopping center and find the car. We have more errands to run.
The relief of getting home is spoiled by a notice that a delivery was attempted but not made. Our greenhouse, bought at the Garden Show from a salesman that reminded us of Josh, will need to be collected tomorrow.
Hubby went off to night shift, only to message me a little while later that the first job of the shift involves a mix of the deeply unpleasant and sad.
And all the while, in the midst of the unpredictability that seems to be life, I am awkwardly waiting for my PhD results, staring absently at the shelves around me.
Did I mention that the stress ball has a map of Australia on it?
This Writer's Life 