This was published 1 year ago
‘There was a conversation he wanted to have, but no way to have it’
Amid ongoing debate about the Voice, my father is losing his.
By Pip WIlliams
“He is full of ballads still but song hums silently within him ... He cannot say what he wants or needs.”Credit: Bea Crespo
We are now considering an Indigenous voice to Parliament and my father has lost his voice. It feels like a time to reflect.
He was never one to talk too much, too lightly. He neither feared nor filled a silence. So, when he spoke, people listened. There was wisdom in what he said, and if not wisdom, a story well told; an excellent joke; commentary so dry it crackled.
His words were worth waiting for, but now he is almost silent. He sometimes has something to say, but no easy way to say it. The apparatus required no longer works.
And he chokes: on the thickened drinks, the mashed potato, the custard. His head is forced forward by a curving spine and his chin almost rests on his chest. His eyelids refuse to open. Though he wills it, the small muscles required for the movement rarely receive the message.
I sit with him, in his room, in an aged care facility. On the TV in the background, federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton drones on. A Voice, he says, will create racial division.
A voice can do that, I say. His voice is doing that, I say.
My father responds, a sound that should be a word, a phrase, a joke. They are there: the jokes, the wry humour. I sometimes recognise the tone, catch and decipher a word or two. Sometimes, but less and less often. His vocal cords, like his eyelids, no longer co-operate with his thoughts.
He tries again, but he can’t make it clear, and I can’t make it out.
He is not a child, and I should know better, but this action of feeding is familiar.
I spoon custard into my father’s mouth. I watch and wait for a sign it has not passed smoothly down his throat. A sign it has gone down the wrong way (such a benign phrase when I was a child, loaded with anxiety now). “Nice?” I say, slightly sing-song. He is not a child, and I should know better, but this action of feeding is familiar. My father’s lips part for the next mouthful, as my son’s lips once did. I ready the serviette to wipe any spills.
I assume he likes it, and I spoon more in.
My father has lost his voice. His hands cannot hold. His feet cannot step. A bag collects his waste. As a boy he liked fishing, and he sang like an angel. As a man he liked surfing, and he sang like a bard.
He is full of ballads still, but song hums silently within him because my father has lost his voice. He cannot tell his story. He cannot say what he wants or needs. He cannot make a complaint or articulate a compliment. He cannot direct those employed to care for him or implore those who love him.
And so, we get it wrong: his wife, his daughters, his doctors and nurses and personal carers, the tea lady (always a lady, even now), the podiatrist, the stoma nurse, the lifestyle team. We fail to understand his discomfort, his alienation, his humour, him.
More sound. A whisper. Breath pushed against rusted cord.
Try again, I say, leaning in. Again? But the sounds don’t change, don’t form, and in the effort, they are forgotten.
I have failed, again, to make them out. It would enrage me, I think, but he is calm. He is stoic. Defeated, perhaps.
My father has lost his voice and I cannot be with him the way he would like me to be. I cannot help him the way he would like to be helped. I guess at his conversations, I imagine his needs. I fumble with cushions and thickened drinks and knitted rugs; the things we do when we don’t know what to do.
My father has lost his voice and I fail, over and over, to understand what would make his life better.
I dip the spoon back in the custard, hold it gently against his bottom lip until his mouth opens. There was a conversation he wanted to have, but no way to have it. He takes the custard, though it is not what he asked for.
It is sweet, and when he opens his mouth for more, I am glad for it.
But it is not enough. And it should not be enough.
My father has lost his voice. I turn to the TV, constantly on whatever channel the carers prefer, and there is Peter Dutton, standing in Parliament. He has the floor – a voice, I realise – but I hear no wisdom in what he says.
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