The next 3 posts are guest posts from Gemma Tammas, a continuous narrative in three parts.

Enjoy!

by Gemma Tamas          2011 October ©

I am a wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.

My career started when I was only eighteen years old looking after my husband, and soon, taking care of my two boys. All of that without having to take a course and study for; it was simply ‘learning on the job.’ But, if I would have given a test, ‘an aptitude test’ called nowadays, I would have passed, because all you needed was love and I had plenty of that. Through the years while ‘training on the job,’ I made many mistakes, too many to count, but my love never suffered by it, my passion to give unscathed.

Now, in my twilight years, I am still taking care of Tom, my husband close to sixty years, as he fights his many sicknesses, with great determination, as he fought his way through many obstacles and hardships during his lifetime. Our marriage was not a perfect one but we are together with a strong bond, called love, forever.

It started four years ago when one morning Tom woke up with high temperature, shaking feverishly, talking nonsense, but still he had enough strength or stubbornness to insist to drive himself to the Vancouver General Hospital. It would have been futile to argue with him to go to a much closer one. Swaying on his feet, jingling his car keys in his hand he dropped them and fell into my arms. With my brother’s help we lifted him into the car, where he slumped down. By the time we arrived at the hospital thirty-five kilometers away, he was unconscious and stayed that way for three days. During that time he was in isolation as the doctors didn’t know if he was infectious until they put him through rigorous testing, while battering me repeatedly with their questions. Was Tom drinking? Was he an alcoholic? I was shocked, offended by their interrogations as Tom never drank, maybe a glass of wine with his meal.

When his fever was under control and his tests showed no infectious disease, he was shifted to the geriatric ward. I spent my time by his bedside from morning till night. Every morning he greeted me with stories about the happenings on the ward the previous night. “Do you know,” he mumbled, “that old Chinese woman in the next bed is a drug dealer conducting her business on her cell phone at night, and another was murdered. Last night.” He whispered in my ears. “Two men, dressed in black, came and killed her.” His eyes filled with horror. “You have to get me out of here,” he begged. “I’ll be the next one, you’ll see.”