4.12.12

DEC/04/12 - Life Measured In Moments







Last night my Mum woke me up at 2.45am and asked me to help her look for her keys. As she woke me abruptly, she explained paramedics had just done the same to her. They called her mobile explaining that my Gran had pushed her alarm and they'd been trying to gain access to her house for nearly an hour with no answer. I don't think I've been that struck with that much panic in years. We both searched frantically for the keys, thoughts like a pinball. Mum headed over in the car and for some reason I waiting a minute and then ran round. As I was running there I remembered a conversation I'd once had with an old lady at a bus stop...

We were both sat waiting for a bus. Pigeons were pecking at the crisp-crumbs around our feet and after a few minutes of sitting in silence a conversation ensued. She told me about how she liked the pigeons, she told me about how cheap things were in Aldi, we spoke about the buses, the weather, my shoes, Oswestry, St Martin's, Sunday's and then an ambulance broke through the melody of our mundane conversation. The high-pitched, irritating, screeching of the sirens made me shudder. Struggling for lines of conversation I turned to the old lady and said "What a horrible noise. I hate that sound, it just makes me think of someone lying there dying." The old woman smiled, and before I had time to think about how weird that was, she said "That's not a horrible sound to the person lying there on the floor waiting for it. To them it's the best sound in the World." To be honest it blew me away. I don't think I've ever been hit with such a dramatic counter point-of-view in as fewer seconds that altered my perceptions of something so drastically, ever before. I thought about that moment whilst running round to my Gran's house last night.

To put your mind at rest, my Gran is fine. It was a false alarm. By the time I got round there I could hear her cackle from outside and by the time I'd gotten inside I could see all was well. She'd hit the alarm by mistake in the night and didn't think that anyone was coming out to her. The sense of relief that came over me was immense. A million times more than that moment you pat your pocket and realise you're phone is missing, only to pat the other pocket and find it hiding in there. A million times more than the split-second between dropping the glass and seeing it land miraculously safe on the floor. Far, far more than any moment of relief I've ever registered. Life measured in moments.

Mum's been telling Gran to get here hearing tested for weeks, I think the paramedics may have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

Justin



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