Pay Back Time

Some people travel the World, Mrs. A. moved three houses down the lane when she got married and that was where she stayed, a fixture in the tiny village. She was a dinner lady at the village school and was remembered with affection by generations of local people. She was a stalwart of the village church, "God's little 'ouse" as she called it. She said her faith was a simple thing and once she could no longer get to the church she took her simple pleasure in having communion from the visiting Minister and reading from her Bible the lesson that he told her they were having in the service each week.
She had three boys of her own. The eldest followed a career caring for disabled children and became the Head of a special school. The middle one traveled, seeing a World his parents could only imagine and ended up living on a boat in Greece. I met John, the youngest, when we were contracted to provide care during her terminal illness. He had been his mother's carer for three years, only returning to his own house every other weekend when his eldest brother came to stay to relieve him. He worked in computers and when his mother became increasingly frail he negotiated reduced hours and then a leave of absence without pay. He was a big man but I have never seen anyone more gentle. He only ever lost his temper once that I knew of and that was when his middle brother returned home briefly and suggested that Mrs. A. was "put in a home to die". John broke his nose and threw him out, then apologised profusely to the carers and knelt down to reassure his sobbing parent that she wasn't going anywhere.
He teased her affectionately when she refused to co- operate and he spent hours cooking whatever he thought might tempt her to eat. She became increasingly confused and repeated herself endlessly. Sometimes when the night carers arrived he was wild eyed, his hair standing on end where he had raked his fingers through it. He joked he would lose the plot himself if he didn't get a break from the endless repetition but apart from the last half hour in the village pub when the night staff came in he stayed day and night.
He was an eternal optimist. Long after it was patently obvious that Mrs. A. was near death he kept talking as if she had indefinite time left to her. He never showed a moment of frustration that his life had been on hold for years. When even he could no longer deny the truth and his eldest brother had come to stay until the end he stayed up night and day, holding her hand and talking gentle nonsense to reassure the frightened old lady.
I never saw him in anything but old jeans and band t shirts but when he walked into church at her funeral he was suited and booted, red eyed but smart as paint for his mum's final day in God's little 'ouse. When I hugged him after the funeral he was shaking like a reed but he thanked me for all our help with that gentle grin I had grown so fond of.
All this was back in Spring. Last week I was driving through the village and saw John cutting the grass at his mother's cottage which is now up for sale. I stopped to talk and he was as self deprecating and pleasant as ever. I gave in to my curiosity and asked him what had made him so devoted as to give up his life for three years when his brothers had not. He grinned ruefully and said. "I was the wild one. Too much drink and too many women, I was the only one that brought trouble home, not serious trouble, but I was always the one that caused them worry" I protested that his mother had obviously loved him dearly and he acknowledged that this was the case. "But she was a wonderful Mam and a wonderful woman" he said "And anything I did she had earned a hundred times. She and Dad stood by me no matter what. You know what this was girl? This was pay back time"