I had just arrived at Barbie's house.
Me: Hi, Barbie, what a nice place you have! I love your garden! Have the others arrived yet?
Barbie: Hello Estera. Thanks. Yes, Petra is in the kitchen. I am just running to the shop on the corner because in all the rush today I forgot to buy the cat's food. Bye! Won't be long!
I found Petra,in the kitchen, standing next to the kettle.
Me: Hi Petra. How's it going? Are you making tea?
Petra (with a smile): Hi, so glad you could come. Yes I'm making tea. Do you want some or do you want to wait for the others?
Me: No, come on; let's open the wine so long. Then the others will have to catch up.
Petra: Good idea. I wonder where Barbie keeps her glasses. Where's your daughter? Is she coming later?
Me: No. My poor child left home once again and is working near Grahamstown.
Petra: Oh very nice! But it must be very quiet for you now. I mean your mom died recently and now Tess is not at home either. What are you doing now?
Me: Trying to keep myself busy. It's hard to explain, but I don't know who I miss most. My mom or my child.
Petra: Did your mom stay with you?
Me: Yes, for about two and a half years.
Petra: Wow! I don't think I could live with my mother in the same house. She is a real dragon.
Me: What difference does it make? Aren't we, women, all dragons?
Petra: Hell no! I would never bring my children up the way my mother did. We worked like slaves in my childhood, and never got any pocket money for it. And even today she is telling me what to do and how to do it.
Me: So did we. My mother worked most of my childhood time, but she also never got any monies. Every time I asked for something she said that there was no money. I could never understand why we had to work and not get paid.
Petra: Why did she stay with you? Is your dad still alive?
Me: She got sick and I decided that she should come and live with us until she recovered. Yes my dad's alive, but they got divorced some time ago.
Petra: Are you the only child? I mean why didn't anyone else look after her?
Me: I'm the only daughter. Can you imagine any of my sister-in-laws looking after a sick mother-in-law, while their own mothers are nearby?
Generally speaking, I've never heard of mothers-in-law getting along with their daughters-in-law - under normal circumstances anyway.
Petra: Why didn't you put her in an old age home?
Me: Believe me, I considered it often but my conscience wouldn't let me. One day I went to speak to the nursing sister in charge at an old age home near us. I arrived when it was lunch time. My heart weakened when I saw all the little old people sitting there waiting for their pills and meals. I decided that the staff were busy enough, and left before I spoke to the sister.
Petra: Was she sick all the time?
Me: She had her days, but most of the time she was just miserable in her longing for her friends at home and the rest of the family. She was originally from the Transvaal.
Petra: When my mother gets to the stage where she can't look after herself any longer, I would definitely put her in an old age home. But I will visit her regularly. Besides, there they have friends of their own age. By the way, how old was your mother?
Me: Sixty eight. Just missed her next birthday by 5 days.
Petra: Good grief, that's not old! My mother is 77 and still drives her car and does her own shopping. What illness did she have?
Me: Well at first I thought that she needed a bladder lift, because she had to wear incontinence pads all the time. That's what she told me any way. I took her to an Urologist and that was the beginning of a long struggle to get her better.
Petra: Why? What happened? I mean bladder ops are common these days.
She should have been better within a week or two.
Me: Pass the wine. No, the Urologist couldn't find anything wrong with her bladder and said an op wasn't necessary. But he showed me how her urine burnt her skin away, because of infection. After treatment she got a little better, but then she stopped eating properly, telling me my food was horrible. She did not have a medical aid, and I took her to a private doctor. He prescribed good medicines that made her better. But every time I thought that she was well enough to go back to her own home she got sick again. This went on for about two months. Eventually another private Urologist suggested that she be hospitalized at the government hospital.
Petra: Oh dear, what did they do to her there? More wine?
Me: Yes thank you. The Urologist there told me that he also did not find anything wrong with her bladder, itself. He kept her in hospital for about three weeks to clear the infection.
Petra: And then? You must have been exhausted from the rush.
Me: I tell you, I nearly died running up those stairs everyday to the tenth floor, because the lifts were always full. No man, they gave her lots of medicines everyday. I think at one stage she took about nine tablets at a time.
Petra: Did she get better?
Me: Yes, but by that time she was very weak. I didn't know what to do because she wanted to go back home. I couldn't send her in that condition knowing she wouldn't get any help. You think I'm thin, you should have seen her! She was just skin and bone.
Petra: But anybody that's sick for a long time loses weight. You should have sent her home.
Me: I couldn't. I was also so desperate for money my brother put her flat up for rent without her knowledge, just so that I could pay for her medication.
Petra: Sounds like you had a tough time?
Me: Wait! The worst is still to come. Pass the wine. When my mother found out about the people in the flat she freaked and was very cross with me. She told me I shouldn't have wasted all the money cause it was all for nothing.
Petra: How could she have been so ungrateful?
Me: Well every time when I decided that she was well enough to go home, she got sick again. This was about a month later. In the meantime we all got tired of being housebound because of her illness.
Petra: How long was she staying with you by then?
Me: Well she came the last week of March, and by this time it was getting to the end of June. What's that? 3 months? It felt like three years! And she started to nag me to send her home. I was getting it from all ends. My daughters had to share a bed and room. I neglected my business, and eventually stopped work, as I did not have a maid either.
Petra: I don't understand! Why didn't you send her home? Go on tell me what happened next.
Me: Pass the wine. I couldn't understand her illness, and I don't think she did either. Although the doctor told me that when you get old the bladder often gets infected, a nursing friend convinced me to take her for a blood test. I went to see a private female doctor and told her everything I knew about my mother. I asked her if I could bring my mother to her so that she could explain to her in Afrikaans that there might be a possibility that she could be infected with the HIV virus.
Petra: You lie! How could you have spoken about your mother like that behind her back? Or even think that!?
Me: Open another bottle of wine. I wonder when the others are going to arrive.
Petra: Don't change the subject! I want to know what made you think such a horrible thing about your own mother!
Me: Well you see it's like this. My mother, after she divorced my father, married two other men. In between these men she also had boyfriends and all these men died. She was very lonely and because all these sickly men died she didn't want another man in her life. As I said my sisters-in-law wouldn't look after her in the Transvaal.
Petra: Ok, well now that you have put it like that what was the outcome?
Me: She was HIV positive. She had known this for about eight years, but carried on living as if nothing was wrong.
Petra: Bloody hell woman! How could she do such a thing!?
Me: I guess it was because she feared rejection. After the blood test things happened quickly. The doctor gave her three to six moths to live. Her CD 4 count was on 12. I panicked my brains out in my struggle to get money together for the anti-viral medication while my brothers and their wives didn't want to know her or my problems. So she had to stay with us until the end.
Petra: I would have put her out on the street myself. How could you have allowed her in your house after you found out?
Me: Remember, she was in my house for a couple of months before the truth came out, and I nursed her without cloves. Any damage that could have been caused would have been done already.
Petra: Was any damage done?
Me: Like I said women are dragons. One of my brothers and his wife knew her status before my mother came to stay with me. My sister-in-law's argument was that it was not her duty to tell me.
Petra: Was any damage done? Come on tell me?
Me: Hi Barbie, you're back. Just in time to open the next bottle of
wine.
Later, on my way home, I wondered why is it so easy to talk about other people and their status. I know mine. Do you know yours? When will you tell someone?
