'Ay Channaleh, why so late? We're all waiting for you again!' my grandmother said tersely as my mother arrived that morning. But Channah is just one of the many long-lost ghosts from my grandmother's past who now light her journey home. Channaleh was my grandmother's dearly-loved, youngest sister who died shortly after the German invasion of my grandmother's hometown of Lvov in 1941, kicked to death by a gang of teen-aged Ukrainian militia let lose on the unprotected Jewish population.
'It's not Channaleh mum, it's Carole' my mother replied crossly. But although her voice may have been cross, I know that her heart breaks every time my grandmother fails to recognise her or my auntie Junie. Every time she slips back into the silent world that excludes the two daughters who lovingly and selflessly care for her. The daughters who arrive at the nursing home in which my grandmother lives, four days out of every seven, without complaint and loaded down with anything they think might make my grandmother's life just slightly more comfortable. They scrub and polish her small, self-contained flat over and over again, rearrange my grandmother's dishevelled and mismatched clothing, and change the incontinence pads that she needs in her newly child-like state. And for no other reason than the fact that my grandmother is their flesh and blood, and as essential to them as breathing. Despite the fact that they never receive a thank you, and are seldom recognised, they lavish their time and love on the frail old woman who did the same for them without question.
'Is that you Mags? Are we going to the shops Mags? Is it time for dinner Mags?'
'Mags, Mags, Mags, all we get now is bloody Mags! If I hear Mags one more time, I swear I'll throttle her' snaps my mother on the rare occasion when the only way to disguise her grief is through anger. But only my grandmother knows who Mags is, and she's oblivious to either my mother's anger or her grief.
To lose the people you love so dearly is hard; but to lose them and yet still have them so close is almost too much to bear.
But as my grandmother would say .............................. 'Di velt iz ful mit tsores' ......................... the world is full of sorrows.
