Seasons were now irrelevant. His saucepans were too heavy. His coats impossible for him to put on. He would hold out his arms like a child when he wanted to go out and I would lift the material gently around him, buttoning him up against the cold and patting down awkward creases that would frustrate him.
I became aware of the weight of everything. I would pick things up even by myself at night, balancing this against that, trying out handles on doors, testing locks… Until you are ill you take the weight of your world completely for granted. And then suddenly you are surrounded by hostile, foreign things: coats; keys; shirt buttons; letters.
Each day for him was impassable without help, without others’ awkwardness, his pain; his familiar environment suddenly his arch-enemy. I went around detached from ordinary objects, angry that illness makes us know our separateness even before we leave.
Or we beg to leave.