despair
I love my granddad. He is original, kind, and energetic, but is growing more irresponsible at 79 years old. My parents moved to France, so granddad and I ended up living together.
All his life, granddad was an avid bushwalker. One day two years ago, he gathered his bushwalking gear: a backpack with a tiny tent, his boots and hat and drove off without saying goodbye. I arrived home from work to find him gone. He was gone for two days. Eventually, the police found his car and discovered him disoriented, camped beside a creek up at Mt Glorious. He was hungry and relieved at being found and promised not to do it again.
Last year, he took off again without warning. This time he was missing for four days. He was located almost unconscious near a clifftop at Lamington National Park. He had left the track to savour a view from the top of the enormous cliffs and sprained his ankle near the edge of the cliff. He was scared to walk, or even move, for fear of toppling over the edge. When the police brought him home he spent a week in bed. The poor man lay there contrite as I lectured him to tell me where he was going and to always take his mobile.
Six months ago he vanished again. This time he was missing for five days. I was beside myself with worry: something serious had happened. The search team finally found him on Fraser Island in a very bad way. It seems that as he was tramping along beside a lonely creek bed leading down to the beach, he had suffered a mild stroke. It laid him low; his thinking became muddled and confused. He had water and a scant supply of nut bars. One evening, as he lay gasping beside the creek, he suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his leg. A pack of dingoes were besieging him. The leading dog bit again at his leg. Granddad swung his backpack at it, but in his weakness his grip on the strap failed, and the bag fell beyond his reach. He now had nothing to fend off the dogs, and they smelled blood. Fortunately a search party rescued him just in time.
When he got home in the ambulance, I was really angry and yelled at him. He looked at me from his bed with doleful eyes, repentant and apologising profusely. I locked his walking gear in my cupboard and hid the key in the drawer.
That was six months ago, and he had not been away since then. But as I got home tonight, I noticed his car was gone. I raced inside straight to my bedroom. The cupboard door was open with the key in it. His gear was gone. He had taken off again. I slumped down on the bed and dropped my head in my hands in utter despair.
Comments