everything will be okay

My great aunt is 83. She taught my father to read when he was a child using for his first book, ambitiously, Jock of the Bushveld. She has lived for decades on the side of the steepest possible mountain overlooking False Bay, first with her husband of 57 years and now alone. She is my godmother. We clash because, I suspect, we're alike in some ways. She is very willful.

So a fortnight in Cape Town. Quiet daily rounds, no news consumption and a strong focus on digestive systems and whether or not they worked and, if so, when and how and with what outcome? In between, I had some enlightening moments that arrived quite delicately and without fanfare.

Every day began with a pre-dawn walk with Phoebe, the small fluffy white and black dog. Off I'd go up the lane with Phoebe in pitch darkness, turn up the high road to our viewpoint. I would give her innards time to produce (a report would be expected later) then we'd wait for sunrise over the mountains; Hangklip and Gordon's Bay and Sir Lowry's Pass spreading towards Muizenburg and Kalk Bay, eventually us, then on to Simonstown and the last rock in Africa. Then back down for breakfast.

One morning there was a naval exercise in the bay. Seven gray battle ships, three submarines, a helicopter and a naval plane.
“Maybe we're being invaded,” said my aunt. “More toast?”

Upon a day I saw a perfect double rainbow and got showered in a monkey's wedding while on my afternoon run up and down Fish Hoek's seriously challenging hillsides. Quite often they were long runs because I was lost because the streets are laid out as a maze. My hams ached from all the hill work. Over the years, whenever I've been there, my overriding impression is that of a retirement community. A handful of people are under 107 years old. Also, there are almost no level streets. Instead there are countless lanes consisting of steep stairways, so goodness knows how the population survives to such advanced ages.

I met my aunt's old neighbours and some new ones and caught up on the goss about the street where she has lived for so many years. There's a story about everyone. One neighbour, 40-ish, always kisses her hand when they meet.
“He's Dutch,” she said.
Another neighbour took her for a drive to Simonstown and back in his sports car because, he told her, “The bible says we must be kind to widows and orphans”,
“Well, I'm a widow and an orphan,” she said.
A Coloured woman arrived one night in the dark.
“Oh mizzsparks I just hed to come see you since you were inhospital,” I heard.
“Christine,” breathed my aunt. “How truly lovely to see you”.
They vanished inside and there was a long murmuring conversation. Later I heard from my aunt about Christine's many troubles including an unemployed, drunken husband and a teen daughter on tik.
All kinds of people and small moments.

The ancient torties in the bottom of her garden produced an egg a few years back and the only child of Torty and Tortyboy now makes a third in their little family. It's like Abraham and Sarah. There was a mild panic when we didn't find the young one for a few days and touching relief when we located her.

So I toddled around with Phoebe twice a day and did a few little odds and ends around the house and went to bed early with a DVD on my laptop. (I finally watched As It Is In Heaven (utter beauty), The Tiger and the Snow (whimsical Tom Waits cameo and song)). Somewhere along the way, a shift happened and I knew everything really is going to be okay at last. Not perfect or necessarily easy, or even what I want or wish or strive for, but right for me and whatever lessons I have to learn. And then my time will come and, like everything, I'll die. And, until then, it'll be okay. So, for now at least, I've stopped hurling myself against the bars.

On my last evening, after supper, she casually showed me a narrow tin box the size of a slim pencil case. A feeling, or a presence or something, flew through me like a malachite bird. Her father, my great grandfather, was a young man and a newly qualified doctor when the Anglo Boer War broke out. He traveled from home in Devon to stitch up and salvage the broken and sick Boer and Brit. Among his field equipment was this narrow box painted matte black.
“What do you think this is?” she asks.
The split lid creaks open. A stub of yellowish candle stands in a small base. There's a small section for storing matches. On one side there's a raspy patch for striking a light. On top, a round eyelet for hanging on a nail or twig or threading a bit of twine through and stringing to your belt. When it's open, the door acts as a windbreak. The black paint is camouflage, the unpainted silvery interior reflects light. The whole thing is simple yet ingenious. A mini lantern for seeing your way around the aftermath of a battlefield in the dark. Holding it I have a curious flash of where it's been, what it's seen, and the man whose it was and the work he did then and later in France and afterwards back in his practice in Johannesburg.
“I think he would have liked you,” said his daughter. “I wish you could have met him.”