The Bird In The Cage

Good heavens Virginia, you look positively ghastly! I almost didn’t recognise you! Haven’t any of the nurses even offered to brush your hair for you? Well I suppose that’s the NHS for you. Oh Gin darling, even just saying N-H-S makes me want to wretch. I couldn’t do it; no I just simply could not do it! You’re so brave darling but for me it’s private health care all the way, whether I can afford it or not. I don’t even like visiting NHS hospitals, so you should be thanking me; this is a huge honour for you. What’s that dear? Oh Ginny, don’t be silly you don’t need to thank me, silly girl; you’re my oldest and dearest friend! Just because you can’t afford to go private doesn’t mean I would abandon you! Gracious Virginia, sometimes I don’t know what goes on in that head of yours. Why thank you dear! I do look nice don’t I? Well you know me, any excuse to get one over on that stuck-up Gloria Grayson. Oh Gin you should have seen her, waltzing around the Day Room showing off her new hair, “Oh I look just like Marilyn Monroe” she said. Please, I’ve seen nicer hair in plugholes! Plugholes have more of it too! Oh but Gin you should have seen her face when my taxi pulled up to bring me here. Oh how I wish I’d had a camera, there she was all dressed up with nowhere to go and then I breeze past her on my way out, looking fabulous I might add! Leaving here stood there, mouth wide open in a cloud of my Chanel perfume, it felt great! Now you know me Gin, I’m what you would call a ‘people person’ and I can get along with anyone and everyone. But there’s just something about that woman I can’t stand. Gloria Grayson is a perfect example of that old saying “In life it’s who you know, not what you know.” That woman is nothing special, yet she gets monthly hair appointments and fortnightly nail treatments, a personal masseur, a yoga instructor, I could go on and on! And why? Because her daughter is stinking rich that’s why! Although one does have to wonder, with all that money surely they could have afforded a better care home for her, but I digress. But the real problem I have is how she is treated better than the rest of us because of her daughter’s wealth! The only chair in the day room that has any padding left in it is permanently reserved for her Royal Highness; she has her own table in the dinner hall! The staff all fuss over her and shower her with compliments! And they let her cheat at Bingo!!! Yes okay I have absolutely no proof of this, but you’ve got to admit Gin she does win an awful lot. Also her eyes are too close together and my mother always told me you could never trust someone whose eyes were too close together!                But enough about Gloria, when are you getting out of this place anyway? I need you back at the home; I hate it there without you! Sitting with you and bitching about the other residents is the highlight of my day. Without you what am I supposed to do, bitch about them to their faces! I couldn’t do that, that would be mean. No Gin it’s no good, you simply must get better quicker than you currently are. Your taking far too long, your milking it some might say, not me though, you’re my dearest friend! I mean you really don’t have a choice in the matter Gin, you either get better and then come home with me or you don’t and you die in this place! Heavens, I can’t think of anywhere worse to die than an NHS hospital! And of course there’s the fact that I don’t want you to die, I’ve grown rather fond of you over the years. I hate goodbyes Ginny and I’m not ready to say goodbye to you just yet. My life’s been full of goodbyes, far too many goodbyes. Besides I could take much better care of you then anyone in this hospital ever could! I’ve been caring for people all my life, in-fact that’s why people called me Birdie. Have I never told you this before? Oh how strange, well my real name is actually Valerie but for as long as I can remember everyone has always called me Birdie. Ever since I was young I’ve been a ‘carer’ of sorts you see. It started at school, I would always befriend the “less fortunate” child, you know the outcast, poor child that nobody wanted to play with. Well I didn’t care how unpopular it made me for befriending them; all I cared about was helping someone less fortunate than me. Growing up I always had a strong desire to help and care for people, my mother always said that’s why God put me here, to help and care for those in need. If it wasn’t for my fear of hospitals I would have loved to have gone into nursing, but it just wasn’t to be. Although in some ways I did actually become a nurse. My mother had worked hard her entire life and as a result became almost completely crippled by arthritis so I became her almost-fulltime carer. Almost as in I also had a part-time job, house to run and husband to care for. But it wasn’t just family that needed me; it was friends, acquaintances and even complete strangers too! People always said that I was a good listener, who gave good advice and never judged and it’s true. If somebody needed my help I would be there quick as a flash, no questions asked. I helped people with their problems, I helped nurse sick people back to health, I helped raised children with overworked mothers, I ran chores for busy people, and sometimes I just listened to someone who really needed to talk. If someone ever needed me I was there, I didn’t care who they were, it didn’t matter how tired or stressed I was I just couldn’t say no to people, I still can’t.                                                                                

The reason people called me Birdie was because they all envied my freedom. They all thought I had no real responsibilities, like children, so I could just please myself and do whatever I wanted and go wherever I wanted; I was as free as a bird. But what they didn’t realise was that I actually felt more like a caged bird then a free bird, I felt trapped. What people also didn’t know, at least I think they didn’t... well... I was the victim of domestic abuse. My ex-husband William had many, many issues, of which I already knew when I first met him, but you see I thought I could help him, fix him and rather selfishly I liked that he needed me... everyone likes to be needed don’t they? I won’t bore you with all the details, but basically I couldn’t help him and I couldn’t stand the violence anymore. So I left him and devoted my time to caring for my mother and anyone else that needed me. Apart from wanting to help William another reason that I stayed with him longer than I should have done was because I desperately wanted children, I longed to be a mother. I spent so much time helping other people raise their children to ease my desire to be a mother, but it just made my desire to have my own children even stronger. But sadly it just wasn’t to be. We tried and tried, but to no avail and in the end the violence got so bad I just had to leave. I wanted a child desperately, but looking back did I really want one with William!? I have never stopped wanting children, my heart still aches to this day... look at me getting all emotional, I’m just being silly, I wanted children but I couldn’t have children, c’est la vie, right? Anyway it didn’t really matter, I was so busy caring for everyone that I didn’t even find time to meet another man and I put the idea of having children to the back of my mind and that’s where it will stay. You know I think that’s one of the reasons I dislike Gloria Grayson so much. She has lived the life that I could only dream about, but the worst part is she doesn’t appreciate any of it. Although even though she had the children and the decent husband, she still ended up in a ghastly care home all alone just like I did and I would be lying if I said I didn’t take some comfort from that. Of course there are also several other reasons why I dislike that woman so much, but it would take all day for me to list what they are!                                                                                                                                                                    Do I have any regrets? No, no Gin I can honestly say that I don’t. This was just how my life was obviously meant to be. So I never landed my dream career, or met Mr Right, or had the children I longed for but I did help others to achieve fulfilling careers and have successful marriages and raise wonderful children. So maybe I didn’t live the life I would have wanted, but I certainly lived the life I was meant to, do you know what I mean? Perhaps I wasn’t meant to be a wife and a mother, maybe I was put on this earth for another reason, to watch over people, care for them, keep them safe and make sure that they lived their lives to the fullest and appreciated every precious moment. Anyway there’s still a chance that one day my time will come, for who really knows what’s waiting for us after this, reincarnation? Heaven? If we get another go at this life thing then it’s entirely possible that my dreams could one day come true, like I said who knows? But one thing I do know for sure and that is my work here still isn’t done. You need me Gin, I can see that now. So for now I will stay a caged bird, or should that be a caged old bird! But don’t you worry Ginny, you’re in safe hands with me, I’ll have you back to normal in no time. See even after all these years’ people still need me! At my age I should be slowing down and having time to myself, not still looking after folk! But seeing as it’s you Ginny, I’ll make an exception. And then one day when my work here is done I will finally leave my cage behind and fly away and be free.