My Friends Only Son Died
Without Prejudice
I found out only yesterday. It was strange as I was just thinking about her the night before. A great song came on the radio by Elvis.
"Separate Lives "
And then,
" Always On My Mind "
Say what you like about Elvis, he can certainly sing.
I had the phone on silent yesterday as I have to when I write, and I saw it flashing just by chance. My younger daughter, Alena loves to call at least five times a week so I hesitated to answer figuring whatever it was I could call her back.
But I picked it up.
Her voice was low and sad.
"Jackie's son died."
My good friend Jackie, Pommy Jackie I call her and she calls me Jan.
We knew her son had lung cancer, we learned about it six months ago. We knew how much she adored her son and daughter. A bad marriage, two children, a girl first and then a boy. A treasured pigeon pair.
I didn't know how to reach her, I wanted to call her straight away, but she had my number and I didn't have hers. I looked up names on the Internet but knew she would have a private number. I found the beautiful notice of his Sister in the paper in tribute to her much loved Brother. I found the daughters number and dithered about as whether to call.
Would I be intruding on their grief..?
Alena rang back, Jackie and Samantha are here...at my house.
"I'm coming " I replied and was out the door in two seconds. I just flew there in my stately trusted steed, Lola, the Skyline.
As soon as I pulled up I started running for the door and from the house came a wolf whistle. Jackie, the joker. I just pulled her to me, wanting to hug out her pain. Tell her so many things. Gone was the elegant made up, tightly put together Jackie. A woman crushed.
She looked devastated, tired, not well. But we talked, she, her daughter Alena and I. It was such a personal conversation I will not put it here. One old friend to another, together in our children's deaths. Mine with twenty four years passed reaching out to my friend with scars so fresh her pain was palpable.
I wanted to say, it will be alright. You will laugh again, live again, dance again, feel beauty. You will see him again, your love, your Son. I cried when she said how she had kissed him and kissed him, knowing that he was dying. No pain till the last half hour. Cancer.
To see your child last breath. The agony of that, such a young man with a grown daughter. Still string, he looked so well, Jackie said. So very well but dying.
The History Of Jackie and I
She loved her kids.
Like a lot of women devoting time and attention to the kids when the relationship is bad between the two parents. An endless battle of wills. Him darkly jealous of the outgoing, happy Jackie. She A Brum from BirminGham. That's how they pronounce it, the Brummues, With the hard G..
He an Aussie, a whippet thin man that I didn't like. He followed her with his eyes, watching her, never saying a lot.
We met at KFC, she and I, both of us full time Mums and part time workers.
It was the seventies and we were both young wives, very young. 21 then and she had 2 kids and So did I. We were so constrained at our homes that by the time we were at work we were both hell on wheels.
We decided the big fat American Boss was a sleaze ball. He chomped on his cigar as he "talked " to us in his inner sanctum. All the time his small piggy eyes running up and down our bodies. We couldn't stand him, Larry. But we sucked up to him if we wanted time off.
The rest of the staff were young teenage boys and girls. I called them teens and yet Jackie and I were only three years older than them.we bounced off each other, singing, chatting in the back kitchen. The boys doing the " Cook " of the chicken, pressure cookers with heavy lids that were known to blow off from time to time splattering the ceilings and floors with boiling hot fat.
Then late at night the boys would be scouring the pots with caustic soda, soap and boiling hot water , the sloppy water cascading on to the slippery tiles, sending us skating, flying in our platform shoes. We could wear whatever shoes we wanted. So it was the seventies and we wore cork platforms of course.
Mine had big holes in the cork from the acid on the floors.
One boy cut his thumb off cutting up the chicken with the band saw.
And my Sister in Law contracted Tetanus from cutting up cole slaw with a knife that unbeknownst to her had earlier been used to dissect raw chicken. A tiny nick that didn't even need a bandaid, she
thought. By the next day she was feeling nauseated and her Dad noticed a red line running up her arm from the cut. Heading for her heart, he rushed her to Hospital.
To be continued.......
I found out only yesterday. It was strange as I was just thinking about her the night before. A great song came on the radio by Elvis.
"Separate Lives "
And then,
" Always On My Mind "
Say what you like about Elvis, he can certainly sing.
I had the phone on silent yesterday as I have to when I write, and I saw it flashing just by chance. My younger daughter, Alena loves to call at least five times a week so I hesitated to answer figuring whatever it was I could call her back.
But I picked it up.
Her voice was low and sad.
"Jackie's son died."
My good friend Jackie, Pommy Jackie I call her and she calls me Jan.
We knew her son had lung cancer, we learned about it six months ago. We knew how much she adored her son and daughter. A bad marriage, two children, a girl first and then a boy. A treasured pigeon pair.
I didn't know how to reach her, I wanted to call her straight away, but she had my number and I didn't have hers. I looked up names on the Internet but knew she would have a private number. I found the beautiful notice of his Sister in the paper in tribute to her much loved Brother. I found the daughters number and dithered about as whether to call.
Would I be intruding on their grief..?
Alena rang back, Jackie and Samantha are here...at my house.
"I'm coming " I replied and was out the door in two seconds. I just flew there in my stately trusted steed, Lola, the Skyline.
As soon as I pulled up I started running for the door and from the house came a wolf whistle. Jackie, the joker. I just pulled her to me, wanting to hug out her pain. Tell her so many things. Gone was the elegant made up, tightly put together Jackie. A woman crushed.
She looked devastated, tired, not well. But we talked, she, her daughter Alena and I. It was such a personal conversation I will not put it here. One old friend to another, together in our children's deaths. Mine with twenty four years passed reaching out to my friend with scars so fresh her pain was palpable.
I wanted to say, it will be alright. You will laugh again, live again, dance again, feel beauty. You will see him again, your love, your Son. I cried when she said how she had kissed him and kissed him, knowing that he was dying. No pain till the last half hour. Cancer.
To see your child last breath. The agony of that, such a young man with a grown daughter. Still string, he looked so well, Jackie said. So very well but dying.
The History Of Jackie and I
She loved her kids.
Like a lot of women devoting time and attention to the kids when the relationship is bad between the two parents. An endless battle of wills. Him darkly jealous of the outgoing, happy Jackie. She A Brum from BirminGham. That's how they pronounce it, the Brummues, With the hard G..
He an Aussie, a whippet thin man that I didn't like. He followed her with his eyes, watching her, never saying a lot.
We met at KFC, she and I, both of us full time Mums and part time workers.
It was the seventies and we were both young wives, very young. 21 then and she had 2 kids and So did I. We were so constrained at our homes that by the time we were at work we were both hell on wheels.
We decided the big fat American Boss was a sleaze ball. He chomped on his cigar as he "talked " to us in his inner sanctum. All the time his small piggy eyes running up and down our bodies. We couldn't stand him, Larry. But we sucked up to him if we wanted time off.
The rest of the staff were young teenage boys and girls. I called them teens and yet Jackie and I were only three years older than them.we bounced off each other, singing, chatting in the back kitchen. The boys doing the " Cook " of the chicken, pressure cookers with heavy lids that were known to blow off from time to time splattering the ceilings and floors with boiling hot fat.
Then late at night the boys would be scouring the pots with caustic soda, soap and boiling hot water , the sloppy water cascading on to the slippery tiles, sending us skating, flying in our platform shoes. We could wear whatever shoes we wanted. So it was the seventies and we wore cork platforms of course.
Mine had big holes in the cork from the acid on the floors.
One boy cut his thumb off cutting up the chicken with the band saw.
And my Sister in Law contracted Tetanus from cutting up cole slaw with a knife that unbeknownst to her had earlier been used to dissect raw chicken. A tiny nick that didn't even need a bandaid, she
thought. By the next day she was feeling nauseated and her Dad noticed a red line running up her arm from the cut. Heading for her heart, he rushed her to Hospital.
To be continued.......
