Smudger Snippets: Alone
Created | Updated Nov 15, 2009
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Alone
I have just got back from visiting Mk2 who was admitted into hospital earlier today, and I have never felt as alone in my life as I am now. No matter where I go in our small flat, she is there, her stuff is lying around all over the place—not that I am totally innocent of leaving stuff lying around either. I can still see and hear her, no matter where I go. It doesn't seem that long since she came home after her last admission into hospital, must have been a few weeks ago now, but that was really serious that time, as we almost lost her! That was when they discovered that because they lost control of her blood thickness, she had a cerebral haemorrhage and had to be rushed into hospital, where she then had a slight stroke.
Today the doctor just popped in while he was passing, to see if there was any progress on his treatment of her chest infection, which she picked up last week while attending her brother's wedding. He was not in with her for long before he asked me if I would be able to drive her to hospital, as he said her chest infection was not reacting to the pills he had earlier prescribed for her.
That seems to be so long ago now, yet it has only been a few hours since I got back from taking her into the hospital. I have been walking around our small flat all day, just thinking what life will be like without her, and after giving this a lot of thought, I honestly don't think I could face that, especially after the last scare. That lonely feeling that has been haunting me all day is worse than when I was living and working in Turkey, back in the eighties, where no one spoke English. I had no western communication whatsoever, no English speaking TV, radio or even newspapers. That was back in the days before the internet, in fact my only contact with the UK was when I sent my work progress sheet at the end of every week, and that was by telex.
To make things worse I was put into a flat all on my own, whereas the three Philippine piping engineers who I worked with, all shared a flat in the same block as me. I think it was because I was the quality control manager, that my Japanese bosses thought it would be better that way. We used to communicate with sign language and sketches, the same way I did with the local welders on the site. Yet, at the end of each day, I was alone in that flat with no-one to speak to, all I could do was throw myself into my work. But there were times when after finishing all that off, I still had a lot of time on my hands, time that passed very slowly, to the point where I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn't even venture far away from the small shops that were near my flat, as my bosses had told me that being a western expatriate worker I was at risk of being kidnapped by some of the small groups of anti government rebels.
Yet the feeling of loneliness I feel just now is even worse than those days. Even though I am sitting here at home, in my own country, safe and well, it still doesn't feel right somehow. You always had the feeling that you knew she was there, even while I would be sitting here on my lap-top and she would be sitting on the other settee doing her crossword puzzles, a whole hour would pass sometimes before we actually spoke to each other, yet there was still that content feeling just knowing that she is there. But she is not there just now.
