Weekday Blog - Thursday August 23, 2012

The young lady with the clipboard asked if I wanted a glass of water - I learned later she had thought I was having a heart attack. I said thank you, no, I’m fine. Which I most certainly wasn’t. I was dying in there, like a comedian on stage for the first time. I tried again. The slash I produced this time was only marginally shorter than the first one. I said I was sorry, but I couldn’t do this.

It was a Friday afternoon and she suggested we meet again at ten on the Monday morning.

As we walked down the ramp, Liz asked me what was wrong. I said I didn’t want to talk about it. When we got close to the car, something snapped and I smashed the key ring and the remote that disabled the car alarm and unlocked the doors, on the concrete floor. The remote shattered, and the two little batteries rolled under the car. The key, which was attached to what was left of the remote, skidded under the car with them.

Since we couldn’t get into the car to move it we had to spend the next few minutes on our hands and knees grovelling under the car as we tried to recover everything. We did manage to recover it all, and, by dint of some marvel of engineering on my part, I managed to cobble everything together sufficiently well to allow us to get into the car and drive home.

I spent the weekend practising my signature and worrying whether I would be able to produce legible signatures on the Monday morning. Liz said there were six documents to sign. I did sign the papers on the Monday morning, although what I produced bore no relation to my actual signature. It didn’t matter, because the lady with the clipboard took pity on me and very kindly witnessed my scrawl.

This incident left such an impression on me that for a year I was unable to sign my name on anything legal: cheques, credit card vouchers, etc. Even signing a letter caused my heart to flutter. I existed on cash from Automatic Teller Machines, which only required me to key in my PIN number.


Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom