Your Best Company

You are your best company.

That’s what my grandmother told me growing up.

No matter how many friends you have, or how close you are with your family, or if your hubby or wifey are the greatest person in the world to talk to, the best person to spend time with was you.

Grandmother Beatrice was now sitting in a home with Alzheimer’s disease, constantly talking to the air or her reflection, and reintroducing herself to her favourite mangy stray cat, Shakespeare. It was easy to not question her logic and agree that even right now, her company was all she really had.

She was right none the less.

Strolling down the twisted gravel lanes of the local park that rested in the middle of my hometown, the sky bleeding orange as the golden sun set behind the distant hills and the stars began to show their twinkling eyes in the purple and blue, I only had me for company. The park was beginning to hush as it grew too late to stay out. Parents with little tots and babes in strolls were making one last visit to the ducks, teens were lounging on the green trimmed hills doing homework with the assisted sugar rush, elderly men and woman just…did whatever.

Sit. Think. Talk to themselves.

Their best company.

‘Like me’, I would think. ‘Only, I feel like I should include a duck into this self-conversation. It might make things a little interesting.’

I had just left the nursing home, a visit I made every Sunday to visit the loveable old goof who had her room filled to the brim with vibrant patchwork quilts and cushions that did not outshine her collection of ceramic elephants. The woman loved elephants, what’s there to say?

Whenever I was walking from the nursing home, taking the trip through the park that was always so familiar to me that I could have done it blindfolded, I either stared at the other wanderers and imagined what their life was like, or I thought on the life of my old woman. Sure, the game with other people was interesting. Sometimes a little invasive if you really go too far.

Yes, you can go too far. Trust me when you say to don’t want to mentally enter a door you don’t want to open.

The old woman sitting on the bench was listening to something on her phone. Not talking, just listening. I would think ‘She has some best friend who was a total chatterbox, and this woman had the strength to not say anything or even pull a face.’

The two teen girls lounging against a tree, I would say one of them was texting her boyfriend and completely unaware that her best friend was staring at her in complete and utter devotion. ‘Ouch, one sided love. That’s going to end well.’

The group of young boys kicking around a soccer ball, I could come up with multiple scenarios as to their lives individually. Whose life was hard at home and refused to show it. Or who was having the time of their life and would rather spend the rest of the day here with their friends instead of a hot meal at home. Or who just would rather play soccer on a virtual video game instead of worrying about the grass stains on their white socks. ‘I rarely see kids these days going outside, I mean, actually leave their room and put their phones down to kick a physical ball on the ground with others and have a good time. The future is looking a little bleak with that harsh reality.’

This walk, however, I thought about Grandmother Beatrice.

Grandmother Beatrice was my father’s mum, a strong woman who raised five boys and two girls – like woah – after her loser husband decided to leave for better things. Apparently, that was quitting his well-paid train driving job and leaving for the city to work as a car sales assistant with this stripper girlfriend. A stripper girlfriend who was twenty years to his forty-seven. Hey, age is a number. I don’t judge for young girls and older guys dating, or even older women and younger men. What I do judge is the fact is that she had two kids of her own and ditched them with her parents because she thought she was destined for greater and better things than working as a stripper at a dingy small-town club. Apparently, it was to be a stripper in a dingy club thirty-minute drive from the heart of the city. Yep, that was a step up.

Grandmother Beatrice didn’t let that man get her down. She made something of herself. Saved up money and opened up a small sewing and quilting shop which boomed the year it opened when a cold snap hit our little town and several other farms up and down the coast. Day and night that woman worked. Store owner and full-time mother.

Every Sunday, she would shut the shop at three in the arvo and take all seven of her kids to this very park to have a large picnic. It would be an early dinner with a fun game thrown in to keep things lively. They would be full and tired when they got home at dark, only eating dessert before going to bed with full tummies and smiles on their faces.

We used to do that every Sunday.

The entire family together at the park.

It was fun.

My father and his brothers and sisters never left for university. They studied at a small TAFE a town over and got certificates, building up their skills and knowledge to work here in their hometown and always be there for their mother as she had been for them.

Soon enough, they got houses of their own. Married. Had kids.

There would be me and my dad and mom, Dad with his brothers Tom, Tony, Tristan and Trevor managing the grill and avoiding the gossip of their wives. My younger siblings, devil twins Kim and Kane, would be running around with long sticks and duelling each other to a battle of bravery. My cousins would also be playing around or sitting with their mothers because there was no better place that to be in your mother’s lap and have her stroke your hair.

Spring time, like this, was the best time to have the picnics. The flowers would be in full bloom and animals and insects have a spring in their step. The evening light didn’t disappear sooner than it did in the winter, giving us an additional few minutes to enjoy each other’s loving playful banter before going home and facing another six days of work and responsibilities.

Before Grandmother Beatrice’s disease kicked in, and she could remember to bring the serviettes instead of roll of toilet paper, I would walk with her down this very gravel path and play the people game. Or chat about my struggles entering the terror that is high school. Or get the dirt on her son, because she was wicked awesome and naughty like that. Or annoy the ducks.

‘God, I miss her paranoia towards those fat billed quacking weirdos. It’s not the same without her here.’ Walking by a duck was just like, well, walking by a duck. She used to think they were God’s most terrifying and odd spies.

Coming up to the usual hill, a tall blossoming eucalyptus tree that usually provided shade from the midday sun, I saw my family. My parents, my siblings, my uncles and aunts and cousins. They had set up the picnic.

This was the first spring without Grandmother Beatrice in the picnics.

She wasn’t allowed to leave the nursing home.

Not even for the picnics.

I loved my family.

I loved their company.

I liked my own company, sure.

But without a doubt, or hesitation in thought…

‘Your company will forever always be the best, Grandmother Beatrice.’