Stairlifts and Shower Rails

This story is by Lydia Fischer Dooley and was part of our 2024 Spring Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

“Do you want the ramps outside taken up too?”

 

Miriam nodded, watching as the screws were drilled out of the brackets that once attached a well-used stairlift to the steps of her two-storey home. Orlagh, Miriam’s grandmother, had died a month earlier due to a bad case of pneumonia. She had watched how her grandmother had floundered, gasping for breath like a fish searching for water, amidst the stark setting of a sterile hospital room.

 

It was not the type of death she would have wished for herself, least of all her grandmother. The indignity of breathing one’s last breath in the presence of strangers, lying equally prone in their hospital beds, was inappropriate as far as Miriam was concerned. The other patients themselves seemed uncomfortable. A number attempted to nonchalantly leaf through tabloid magazines, in a feeble effort to drown out the rising death rattles that filled the air. Miriam, keenly aware of this incongruous backdrop as she kept vigil by her grandmother’s bed, inwardly pledged to invest in private healthcare from that day forward. She could not stomach the idea of her own demise taking place against a tableau of muffled coughs and uncomfortable, communal silences.

 

Orlagh had been, up until her death, a constant figure in Miriam’s life. She attended every school recital, graduation, and parent-teacher meeting, standing in for a father who had disappeared years prior following the birth of Miriam’s youngest sister. She was formidable in her approach to life, with a tenacity that had seemed unstoppable to Miriam. As the backbone of the family, Orlagh had played the crucial role of both second parent to her grandchildren and faithful mentor to her own daughter, Niamh – Miriam’s mother.

 

Yet, realistically, Orlagh’s and Niamh’s relationship had always been strained. Where Orlagh had succeeded in cultivating a deep and forgiving relationship with her grandchildren, there was a consistent volatility with her own daughter. Niamh’s choice of suitors was a particularly fiery source of contention. A slew of men would enter and exit the family’s life, each as equally disappointing as the other. These ‘poor choices’ of suitors, in the words of Miriam’s grandmother, led to a break in communication between the two women. Consequently, Miriam was slowly fashioned into an intermediary for the two matriarchs of the family. In the years that followed, Miriam would become accustomed to passing messages between her mother and grandmother, including minor banalities such as upcoming supermarket discounts. From the age of fifteen, this became Miriam’s permanent reality – the family switchboard operator for a mother and grandmother who refused to speak directly to each other yet remained fervently intertwined in the execution of practical household matters. Without Miriam, this communicatory embargo would have led to severe impacts on the functioning of the family unit and in a way, solidified Miriam as the family’s fixer and primed her for a life of caring for others.

 

It made sense then for Miriam to become her grandmother’s full-time carer. At twenty-two, she effectively signed up for a life of shower chairs, stool softeners, and adult diapers. Initially, her grandmother’s confusion could have been mistaken for subtle forgetfulness and hilarious hijinks, with car keys found in dishwashers and dining plates stacked next to bathroom sinks. However, as time progressed, the person that Orlagh once knew began to fade into a frequency of repeated questions and ‘who are you-s.’ The initial pride that Miriam felt for putting her own youthful aspirations on hold was replaced with a rising sense of fear, as she began to realise the ferocity of the disease and its slow erasure of her grandmother as an individual. What had felt like a short-term plan to care for her grandmother, instead turned into a decade of the twisted heartbreak associated with the cognitive decline of a loved one.

 

These harsh developments in Orlagh’s health also prompted an unexpected and sudden thawing of animosities between Niamh and her mother. By year two, Niamh would begin to visit daily, organising groceries, bills, and the logistical needs of both Miriam and Orlagh. This change in family dynamics brought a sense of comfort to Miriam, who was relieved to find herself demoted from the role of family mediator. Instead, Miriam’s days now consisted of dressing, washing, and cooking for her grandmother. Where possible, she would also try to habitually connect with her grandmother through shared interests including crime TV specials and Maple-Walnut ice cream. These moments, although increasingly rare towards the end of Orlagh’s life, brought solace to Miriam. It softened the ache of grief that stemmed from observing the slow loss of her grandmother, as well as the losses and limitations she felt in her own life when comparing herself with the travels, work, and promotions of her peers.

 

At thirty-two, however, her role as a full-time carer abruptly came to an end. Orlagh had died and now the home they had shared was Miriam’s. In comparison with her demographic, she was suddenly deemed to be ‘lucky.’ Unable to work professionally in the decade prior that it took to care for her grandmother, she had inadvertently climbed the property ladder in a manner that her school friends bemoaned they could not. In various messages and social media interactions, they reminded her of the difficulties of purchasing a home for ‘their generation’ and that Miriam should ‘count herself lucky’ that she did not have to navigate deposits, loans, and high-income taxes the way they did. For Miriam, these sentiments were akin to a sour, sharp taste in her mouth. The years she had watched her peers flourish, she had felt restricted and sometimes suffocated by her caretaking duties. Likewise, the sudden wide and gaping ‘nothingness’ that had appeared in her life following the death of her grandmother was threatening to swallow her in its boundaryless possibilities. Her life was now her own and she did not know what to do with it. The heart that had originally laid at the centre of it – her grandmother’s love – was gone and to proceed forward with a new identity separate from her grandmother felt sacrilegious. She had never ‘just’ been Miriam. She had been a carer, mediator, and provider – not an individual with an identity separate from her family and its responsibilities.

 

“So, the stairlift’s done and we should be done with the bathroom rails by… I’d say the early evening today. And besides the ramp outside, is there anything else you want taken care of?”

 

Miriam stared up at the man as she was jolted out of her thoughts. She had hired him “to make the place her own” as her mother had suggested. “Yes, um… yes that’s fine, thank you” Miriam mechanically responded as Ger, the handyman, shared some further updates about the bill. Miriam smiled, politely, attempting to push past the ruminations that threatened to overwhelm her mind. How could she live a life without her grandmother? Would her grandmother approve or agree with the changes she was making to the house? Who was she when she was not caring for someone else? The subtext that formed the basis of these questions was too frightening to explore; Miriam did not fundamentally know who she was.

 

“Then when you add that all up together it should come to…. About 500? Does that sound alright to you?”

 

Miriam nodded, afraid that if she attempted to speak the lump in her throat would fully and unceremoniously dislodge.

 

“Great, I’ll get cracking them and should be done in an hour or two.”

 

The drilling began again, this time upstairs as Ger got to work on the shower rails. Miriam pulled at her hair, attempting to distract from the fear of having to pursue a life that was thoroughly centred around her and her desires. A life that she was at the helm of, without any direction, path, or ‘family responsibilities’ she had become accustomed to hiding behind. Miriam turned to look at a photo of her grandmother as her stomach tightened with these open-ended questions. She had always been her grandmother’s granddaughter. Orlagh’s granddaughter. It was a role that she could not easily give up and one that left a significant pain in the space where she had built her entire identity. The grief she had initially felt after Orlagh’s death was now mixing with a paralysing fear of the unknown. The question of, who she was and what if anything, she would do with her life. It would be a question she would have to grapple with for the foreseeable future, but until then, at least she could drown out those fears with the practicalities of modernising her grandmother’s home. Emotional repression, as always, continued to be a strength that Miriam could rely on.