An aquaintance of ours suffered a stroke last year. He is an intelligent man with two professional engineering degrees. His mind was largely unaffected, but he is now physically impaired and requiring ongoing rest home care. He is in a horrible situation, unable to relate easily to his fellow residents who are elderly and largely demented whereas he is not, dependent on nurses, no longer able to get out and about by himself, and with regards much of what the rest of us commonly take for granted, has suffered a great many losses. Strokes are so cruel when they suddenly steal so much of one’s lifestyle and leave such cause for grief in their wake.

Today we paid a visit, having to drive for some distance to get there. We had called beforehand but there was no answer. Of course, it would have been lunch time and everyone taken to the dining room for their meal. But we went anyway as he is usually “at home” that time of day. As things had come about, we were one of the few who now bothered to visit at all since he could no longer join in as before. Life moves on often leaving the incapacitated behind. We had just arrived and barely said “hello” when his partner (now living on her own) arrived too and immediately hurried him up to get ready for a gym appointment that she had made. He would need to get a move on and there was no time for talking. He would have to miss our visit. This woman was in charge now, the decisions being all hers, and she called the shots. We left.

The stroke had robbed him of much of his lifestyle, his independence, mobility and freedom of choice. The rest home, despite all their best efforts, was assisting him to become institutionalized. His partner, possibly quite well intentioned, was robbing him of much that was left. He was often telling us by phone that he was “going mad” in this situation. We hoped the frustration would help energize his rehabilitation, but it seems that he has reached the “plateau” and progress has now slowed to a stop. He had got as far as he could go, and the frustration was driving like lasers through his brain, together with its causes burning up what was left of any self determination, integrity and (for want of a better word) personhood.

So much of this is about control. He had lost a great deal of that, thanks to the stroke, and what was left was being usurped from him some more. It was a relief to hear of a belligerent episode he had with a very managing nurse, but unfortunately the nurse ruled regardless. A little rebellion does not go amiss and it is a shame that his carers did not read the message in the language it occurred.

I remember failing a job interview once when, given the scenario of an elderly and almost blind gentleman insisting on having his bedroom light left on at night, I did not come down on the authoritarian “you must behave yourself and switch it off” side of the management options. Since the light would have disturbed no-one, it was one interview I was very glad to have “failed” as working in such an environment would have surely been dreadful. Likewise, a nurse once looking after my mother during a brief stay in hospital, called me to request that I bring in some “day clothes” so that her patient could be dressed “properly” despite the fact she was so ill that she threw up each time she sat up. My mother, resisting the increasing dependency and wanting to determine for herself what she wore, did not want to be dressed thus. I was often put in these tricky situations, and so asked the nurse for her reasons. To prevent bedsores, I was told. Sure! Of course, there is considerably less risk of bedsores when wearing a petticoat and dress compared to a nightgown and robe, all else being equal. Those day clothes stayed at home and recovery occurred smoothly without any sign of a bedsore. Taking control away from others is often a bad move when there is no good cause for doing so.

Losing control creates a cabbage. That is the horrible description one hears for those who are near a vegetative state of being through whatever cause. Take away control without good reason and that has much the same result. People are not cabbages, not even in a vegetative state, but their “personhood” can so easily be overlooked to render them such in the eyes of some - including those who are otherwise very well meaning.

We are now nine weeks beyond the shortest day Down Here, but still into Winter with snow on the mountains and an icy chill in the air. This river is snow-fed and extremely cold. But not far from here, as fearless teenagers, we swam in the irrigation channels fed by these mid-Canterbury rivers. The sissies smeared their bodies with petroleum jelly first, but I doubt it really made a lot of difference and would have been a mess to remove. The secret was just to keep moving, swimming fast to the end of the mile, the annual challenge for the hardy types that we were back then. Would I do that again today? No, I doubt it. The mid-winter dips in the sea with the carnival fanfare of community participation have not enticed me yet. Better to stay snuggled up cosy in my possum/merino layers of woollies and watch as the others shiver instead.

In the background are the foothills of my favourite Southern Alps. When visitors to a Maori marae (meeting place) are given the opportunity to speak, they introduce themselves by naming their tribe (or giving their whakapapa - genealogy) and their mountain and river. I have only once ever done that, and liked the idea especially of naming my mountain and river, as though they are mine. They are indeed the land to which I relate, my home turf, that with which I will identify when away from home or needing to feel grounded in my being. This is not my river, but the mountains are mine - greedily the whole chain of them, the rugged backbone of the South Island of New Zealand. These mountains are a view to gaze upon and be still, to drink in their might, majesty and grandeur. They were there well before me, and will be there long after I am gone. I am nothing to them, but they are a symbol of stability and permanence to me, and they whisper the words that describe the character of the Creator… I am here, I am mighty, I am majesty. I will look to them and beyond to the Source of my being, He who is my sustainer and stronghold.