The Stairlift Ascends E-Book

Helen O'Rahilly

• Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 38

Beschreibung

Aunt: *calling loudly from sitting room* Helen, can you help me? Me: *drops everything, rushes to front room, expecting her to have fallen* Aunt: The cat's on my lap, could you pour me a small Jameson? Cocooning with my ninety-year-old Aunt is not the life I'd imagined when I came back to live in Dublin after 30 years of being a high-flying media executive in London. From the Groucho Club to our North Dublin coastal cocoon, it was back to earth with a bump. Funny and frustrating, living with the Aunt in our Covid bubble has been quite the eye-opener. Bickering, bitching, masking-up for rare outings, The Stairlift Ascends is a Twitter diary of our time trying to live together, of surviving the pandemic ... and each other. Love, lashings of apple tart, laughter and a longing for trips to Arnotts have seen us through, so far ... A hugely popular, funny and compassionate view on 2020 from @HelenORahilly

Leseprobe

Tweets from a Covid Cocoon

Helen O’Rahilly

Illustrations by Jennie O’Connell

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Dedication

Dedicated to those who care; those who are cared for and those who have endured so much during this pandemic.

Contents

Title PageDedication The #StairliftAscendsAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovember About the AuthorCopyright

5

The #StairliftAscends

The #StairliftAscends started as a hashtag on Twitter back in April 2020, just a month into the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. I was then living with my ninety-year-old Aunt in North County Dublin, having returned (with my five cats) from living in London for 30 years. My life had gone from being a television executive at the BBC to being a carer for this feisty, funny woman. My mother, her sister, had died in 2019 and the Aunt was left alone in the family house. I was selling up in London and house-hunting in Dublin so we were thrown together, sharing the same home. Then Covid-19 hit in March. Due to the Aunt’s advanced age and my own high-risk status (I’d survived double pneumonia in 2016), we went into our cocoon by the coast.

Already a prolific Twitter user, I put up little snippets of the daily interactions between myself and the Aunt. Some were comic, some poignant, some frustrating. Many of her finest words came as her faithful stairlift took her upstairs to bed at night: she’d send me off with her instructions for the next day or there’d be a withering comment about the day’s events, or rather non-events, as nothing much 6was happening in lockdown. All the more reason that small interactions, a few words, a turn of phrase began to take on bigger meanings. Our chats, banter, arguments, misunderstandings show the generational differences, display the cadences and candour of her era and the impatience and frustration of mine.

The reactions I got on Twitter were instant: “She’s just like my grandmother”; “God, that’s my Aunt to a T’; “That’s how I’m told off and I’m 55!”. I’d hit a nerve with those who care for older family members: those who love them but are often frustrated by the exhausting process of daily caring. The #StairliftAscends became a favourite hashtag with a growing fan club beyond the shores of Ireland.

I would never have posted our chats to Twitter without the blessing of the Aunt Who Shall Not Be Named. “I’m 90. What do I care?” she said when asked could I publish our grumbles, gripes and giggles. “Don’t put up any photos of me” was her only demand. Let me say she is the most feisty, fashion-conscious, svelte 90 year old I’ve ever met. Browsing the fashion rails at Arnotts or Brown Thomas, followed by a café au lait and a raisin Danish pastry, is her idea of heaven. She was an independent, house-owning, jet-setting woman from the 1960s onwards. A brilliant cook, she is also a gardener with 7an encyclopaedic knowledge of plants. I’ve loved her for 55 years and though she drives me mad occasionally (as I do, her), she’s been a tonic during this strange, dystopian year.

We’ve sparred with each other, laughed, cried and survived so far. We did what we had to do in our cocoon. Even though I’ve moved out to live in my own home, the stairlift still ascends every night. Long may it continue to do so.

Helen O’Rahilly, Dublin

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9

April

A month into the national lockdown. Surreal. Garda checkpoints everywhere. Rising figures of infections and deaths. Schools are shut. There’s no normal Easter. “51551 - Wash Yer Hands”, Joe’s Liveline chant, is ringing in our ears. I was supposed to move into my new house but I’d given it to a couple of Irish medics returning from Australia who’d come back to help the national effort. Our own coastal Covid cocoon is a month old and nerves are already fraying.

Helen O’Rahilly@HelenORahilly · April 17

Aunt: Don’t let that cat into my bedroom tonight.

Me: But you love her. She’s been on your bed for months now.

Aunt: She looked at me funny earlier on.

*Cat is asleep, oblivious, in front of fire*

#StairliftAscends

Helen O’Rahilly@HelenORahilly · April 20

Me: So, tomorrow I might take you for a little spin locally so you can see the sea? Just to get you out?

Aunt: No thank you. The Gardai might stop us.

*Silence* 10

Helen O’Rahilly@HelenORahilly · April 21