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Good Reading : February 2014
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GOOD READING FEBRUARY 2014 49 could not. It wasn’t until much later that I knew about the witches and the affairs and the open-shirted dramas. I was only six, and my kaleidoscope heart had over a million colours, a million possibilities. And had he forgiven me for being my wretched self, I would’ve shared each and every one of them with him, and sailed on the deep green sea of his imagination, offering him new mermaids and opera-singing fish. I would have run my finger across the angel and pointed out that it was him. But after my Nana died, he got meaner as he, and we, grew older. He kicked me and my brother out of his house, ripped out my frangipani tree and threw it over the back fence. He had dementia, the mean kind. Not the kind where you wander out with a distant grin wear ing ladies’ undies. The kind where yo u write everyone out of the will. It got worse and worse, until he was hospitalised. I was with the family and we watched him die. I blessed his soul, ’cause I figured it was around somewhere, floating like a Kraft Single in the ocean. He looked like a turtle breathing through his mouth. His expression was still. I held his hand: his skin was dry and crunchy, like old rosemary. Then, just like that, I saw life peel away from his face like Glad Wrap off a plate of scones. I can now, as an adult, look back and say that I loved my Nono. It’s an unconditional love, a despite-everything love, the optimistically kaleidoscopic kind of love that I hope will always be with me, no matter what. That love can remain, even as everything else changes as you move through life. Life isn’t uniform or quality-controlled. It doesn’t sit on the shelf forever, unaltered by time and experience. And that’s the problem with you, processed cheese. I’ve changed over the years, but, horribly, you haven’t. You’re the same as you ever were, preserved, identical to the day you were squirted into the packet. And the way I’ve clung to you is a kind of toxic love, a plastic attraction, a guilty fling, which needs to be faced up to and let go. And so, processed cheese, my spongy industrial secret, I’ll never forget the fun times we had. But for my heart, for my health, even for my love of Italy, I must now bid you ... arrivederci. BOOK BITE 3 Yours Truly: Cathartic confessions, passionate declarations and vivid recollections curated Marieke Hardy & Michaela McGuire is published by Penguin, rrp $29.99 . PHOTOGRAPHBYLEESANDWITH Michaela McGuire & Marieke Hardy He had dementia, the mean kind. Not the kind where you wander out with a distant grin wearing ladies’ undies. The kind where you write everyone out of the will. 46_49_bookbite3_d.indd 49 11/12/13 10:44 PM
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