Fern

Opening the door I made my way carefully down my front pathway towards the mailbox.

Something that used to come easily for me now felt as terrifying as balancing step by step on a plank.

I paused, closed my eyes and felt for my sensor alert pendant on a lancet around my neck. A new accessory since coming home from hospital a week ago. I opened my eyes took a deep breath and continued.

On my return from hospital I had reduced my daily walk to the mailbox and back but I was determined to try starting up my old long walks to the local park, cafe or my friend’s place across the street. Just not today, fear still consumed me. Everyday I would tell myself I’d venture further but my confidence would waiver and defeated I’d make my way back inside and tell myself maybe tomorrow.

As I reached my mailbox I was greeted by a visitor. We made eye contact her eyes a bright shimmering fern and my eyes a plain dull brown.

She helped herself into my yard and she wove around my legs like silk unravelling from a frail cloth, her purrs vibrating through her sleek grey build. Wanting to pull my attention even more she began her song.

“Meow, meooww, meooow,” she started forward and looked back.

A movement entwining an invisible lead between the two of us giving me no choice but to follow her. My heart raced and I touched my pendant again. I always felt fit for my age and I was proud of that but I couldn’t shake the negative self talk and my experience that made me doubt my own capacity.

“Why didn’t you press your call bell! You shouldn’t be walking on your own! ” 

The cat fell into a steady pace slightly ahead of me, glancing back every so often to see if I was still following her. She seemed to intuitively know I couldn’t move very fast and found herself a gait that I could comfortably follow. A strange pair walking down my quiet rural street if anyone was to see us, a young feline leading and a small elderly lady carefully walking behind her.

We had been walking for sometime and I had felt a sweat start to build and the muscles in my legs started to ache in a protest. I saw a park bench ahead that was my target just needed to make the bench and I could rest. As a marathon runner in my younger years I had the mental capacity for endurance chose a checkpoint, drop your pace and rest then keep going. I made it to the bench and melted into the seat. I closed my eyes intentionally slowed my breathing to help catch my breath. She butted her head against my leg. 

“Meow,” she urged encouraging me to get up. 

I considered pressing the pendant. It was only intended for an emergency it had a GPS tracker and it would alert emergency services to my location and notify them I was in danger. But if emergency services were called they would take me back to hospital. Another stay in hospital might mean I would not get to go back to my home. 

I’d go on, this cat needed me and I wasn’t going to give up now. I got up and we continued our walk. 

We had reached the entrance to the local boardwalk through the wetlands. My mind wondered if Archer’s spirit was with us as this once was out favourite morning walk. This cat was taking me for a walk down memory lane.

Just before we entered the boardwalk she went into the scrub my heart raced when I noticed the rough surface, potentially slippery scrub across the ground, rocks scattered about.

The cat paused, she looked at me with such desperation and she meowed again.

She needed me I would take it steady and slow I would follow her. I stood on a jagged stone and felt myself wobble. Fear ran through my body.

“Please no, not another fall.”

#

I’d never fallen over and I never worried about falling. Five years ago Archer had a fall and he never came home from hospital he passed away the same week. Even after the shock of what happened to him I wasn’t concerned for myself.

One day I was out pegging washing, I reached up and out of nowhere I’d lost my balance there was nothing I could do to steady myself. The pain was horrific I felt like I had broken every bone in my body and the hardest thing was I could not get myself off the ground. I shouted and shouted. My throat ached and my voice was hoarse. I curled up and wept and then I took a steadying breath and shouted again.

I spent a week in hospital I had not broken any bones but I was small, frail and the slightest knock to my paper thin skin left behind a pallet of purple, blue and green. 

My week in hospital was another battle. I had to fight to stay at my home they wanted to ship me off to the local nursing home. 

“God’s waiting room,” Archer called those places.

I might have been 85 but I wasn’t ready to leave my home. If it hadn’t have been for my son David advocating for me I wouldn’t have been able to return home. 

My home encapsulated so many memories, the spirits of what was. From my bed I could look down the hallway and still hear the pittar patter of my son’s small feet. I would stare down the hallway or lay my arm across the indentation of where Archer used to lay in the bed before settling to sleep each night soaking in the warmth of the memories gaining a small glimmer of a feeling of company that no longer existed. 

I wasn’t able to go walking without first paging a nurse so I spent a lot of time on bed rest. Ironically the place that was supposed to heal me wasted away some of my strength and left me emotionally drained arguing why I was capable of being in my own home. I was so grateful that I had David, my determined son backing me the whole way. He got so frustrated that they didn’t agree I should be at home with additional support and he didn’t like that no one was listening to me. But eventually he was able to convince the staff and got me back to my home. 

#

I steadied myself being able to recover my balance so well in that moment gave me surge of confidence I had not felt in a long time.

“Ok! I’ve got this!” I said out loud continuing to follow her.

I felt 31 again charging through the last km on race day.

There under a large gum tree in a soft part of the grass nestled in together were six kittens. They looked poorly perhaps some form of virus had struck them. 

“Oh Fern,” her name came to me without much thought. A mother to a mother I affectionately tickled under her chin a gesture to tell her I would help her. 

I made my way cautiously out of the scrub only to be met by a policeman standing on the path. 

“I thought it was her!” he called over to a female officer leaning against their vehicle.

“Come quickly!” I puffed from the exertion of the walk. “Fern needs our help!”

“She has dementia,” he explained to his co worker. Not bothering to acknowledge me first I could see what I had said didn’t make any impact at all. 

“Come on dear,” coaxed the female “lets get you home.”

I frantically looked around for Fern as a form of evidence but she had chosen to stay with her kittens.

“There are sick kittens in the woods,” I argued tears welling up in my eyes at the frustration.

I was not being heard I had no choice but to go with them. 

We got out of the car my son David ran towards me gently taking me in his arms.

“Mum! You weren’t home, I was so worried.” David explained as I gazed at him confused.

“They wander off all the time once dementia sets in, have you considered a home?” The male officer clapped David’s shoulder as he spoke. 

“I was following a stray, she took me to her kittens. They’re sick David and they need our help,” 

I saw it in David’s face his heart breaking as he didn’t believe me. Believing instead that I was confused from my recent diagnosis of dementia. I flushed warm and I felt as helpless as I did when I lay under the clothes line unable to get up. Relying heavily on someone else to find me and rescue me. Just as Fern was relying on me right now to rescue her kittens. 

“She wouldn’t stop going on about that in the car,” smiled the female officer. Talking around me and not to me. 

I flushed hot and was now angry. I was an adult and I was being spoken about like I wasn’t even standing there. I did not believe the Dementia diagnosis, I was quirky and sometimes I jumped straight to the point without giving much of a back story but there was nothing wrong with my brain. 

“David, you need to listen to your mother,” I got his attention just as I had done many times throughout his childhood and adolescence. 

He looked surprised but he was paying attention. 

“Come and see for yourself. It’s at the entrance to the boardwalk. If there are no cats there. Then yes, your mum’s going loopy and off to a home I’ll go “ I couldn’t resist and did a loopy gesture with my hand for added emphasis. 

“Look we need to head off,” said the officer’s and they made their exit. 

David and I looked at each other. Curiosity was now ignited on his face and determination on mine. 

“Ok mum, but this time we are driving. That was a 3km walk you know.”

We pulled up to the pathway and this time David supported me as I made my way to the tree. 

To my surprise nothing was there. 

“I am sure they were here earlier David, I swear it is true.”

Tears started to fall and a panic set in. Was it true? Did I have dementia?

David looked at me softly, tears falling quietly down his face.

“Come on mum, best we go home.”

“Meow,” Fern stepped out from behind a tree a bit further away then what we were. 

I looked at David to make sure he too heard and saw the cat.

We locked eyes and he raced towards Fern. 

“Oh mum! You were right! They’re here.” He collapsed to his knees to get a closer look at the kittens and Fern butted her head against him.

I slowly made my way over to them and rested a hand on my shoulder. 

“So son, there’s no shipping me off to a nursing home now is there?” I smiled and Fern purred knowing her litter was now in good hands.