`Stately Bones` is about C.P.* and its frustrating consequences. My fight to overcome this condition has not been easy.
My mother had great difficulty in giving birth to my brother and I. Thankfully, our mother was a strong woman and a very dedicated nurse. Also, our father was a marvellous family man who supported us in all we wanted to do. Mine and Steve’s web sites are a tribute to our parents wonderful care and dedication. I often conveyed my concern for our mother by saying. “Mum, you worry me terribly! Please let me help you in some way?” Every time, she would reply: “If you worry about me, then I shall worry more!” I wish she could have allowed my to show my concern for her welfare, because people only see of a situation `what they want to see!` Mum was always happy for me to `appear happy`. She could never stand me being miserable.
Our parents also saved my ex-husband's life when he suffered from pericarditis at the end of the 1960s. A teacher who taught in my ex-husband’s school died of pericarditis - they were the same hospital ward at the same time.
*Cerebral Palsy
In the morning I get out of bed,
As stiff as a board, as if I
need ironing out,
What you have to think of
is: ‘ having a mind that can do everything’
but a body that ‘hardly does anything.’
So the mind invents ways of doing things.
It undoes the tangles as painful
as a knitting project gone wrong.
This was so as a baby trying to speak,
Trying to do one’s hair. trying to get
oneself dressed. trying to eat.
Trying to hear what is said.
All this amongst trying to play.
Trying to make friends,
Oh yes, trying to go to school.
Trying to learn.
Trying to please man and God.
Oh please, will this stiffness
ever go away!
Trying to learn music, dress
making a go of music college,
having a social life.
Family life is great; but have you noticed?
Will this stiffness ever go AWAY?
Trying to shake this stately stiffness
from off my bones ~ but this
only makes me feel like an old crone.
As the day goes along,
the brain., as bright as the sun
and as fresh as the sea breeze,
sees daylight: but at the end
of a long tunnel. Prayer helps,
and sheer grit gains.
When older, pain bites,
LESS OUTINGS OCCUR!
Thrown headfirst down the stairs,
By a schizophrenic. That is to
be expected? After all
life’s been an absolute ball:
being bullied, spat upon -
is that all?…
So please read my book
‘Riding Life’s Storm’,
through the
Song of the Sea’!
Life can be pleasing after all!
by Janet Cattier-Swann
Lazarus Mp3 composed by Janet Cattier
Copyright©Janet Cattier 2005. All rights reserved.