Seven weeks inside another human life, and the quiet return to my own.

When the call came, I left home without knowing how long I would be away.

I packed for a couple of weeks, which seemed reasonable at the time. Mostly winter and spring clothes, a few practical things, a blow-up mattress, pillows, a towel, sheets and a doona. Because I am a chef, I also took my knives, a couple of favourite pans, herbs and spices. My other tools of the trade came too: two laptops, an external hard drive, a couple of USBs, headphones and AirPods.

I was evidently prepared for almost anything except seven weeks away from home.

I had packed as though I were going somewhere temporarily, as though there would still be some recognisable shape to the days. Cooking, sleeping, coming and going, perhaps even the luxury of sitting down occasionally without immediately remembering six things that needed doing.

Instead, two weeks became seven.

My adoptive mother is eighty-six. She had fallen and fractured her femur for the second time. The orthopaedic surgery had been brutal this time, and after time in hospital and rehabilitation, she eventually came home still needing to be nursed. Hospitals move people through quickly these days. A discharge date does not necessarily mean that someone is well. Often it simply means that the next stage of care has been relocated. In Mum’s case, it was relocated to a one-bedroom bedsit.

For seven weeks, I slept on a blow-up mattress on the floor of the lounge area and woke every few hours through the night to help her to the commode, manage pain, check that she was all right, or respond to whatever the night had decided to produce. Even going to the loo or having a shower could involve something resembling a short career in furniture removal, with equipment being shifted, repositioned and negotiated around in a space never designed for any of it.

At one point I said to Mum, “When I grow up, I don’t want to be a nurse.” It took her a moment to realise I was joking, but when she did, we both laughed.

Then morning came, as mornings inconveniently tend to do, and the whole business began again.

There were appointments, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, equipment, medications, assessments, cleaning, shower assistance, forms, follow-ups, phone calls, more phone calls, and the sort of bureaucratic conversations that make you briefly question whether civilisation has in fact been a successful experiment.

I had not expected any of it.

But I had chosen to be there.

A couple of years earlier, Mum had chosen me to be her Enduring Guardian. She had decided that if there came a time when she needed someone to stand beside her, advocate for her and help navigate decisions, that person would be me. When the time came, I chose to honour that.

That does not mean I was there to fix her.

At eighty-six, my mother remains entirely herself, which is both one of her greatest strengths and, occasionally, a magnificent test of my nervous system.

I was not there to remake her into someone more compliant, easier to manage, less stubborn, or more convenient. My role was to help create the conditions in which she could remain as safe and independent as possible while recognising that the life being lived was still hers.

There is a considerable difference between responsibility and ownership, especially when the person you are responsible for has very definite views about absolutely everything.

There were things I could organise and things I could not. I could make calls, follow up services, attend appointments, question decisions, chase equipment, arrange support and keep asking until someone answered. I could advocate when something did not make sense and keep things moving when systems stalled.

Things did move remarkably quickly.

Neighbours and other people around Mum spoke about waiting months for things to happen, yet over those seven weeks rehabilitation, home support, equipment, assessments, cleaning, shower assistance, safety measures and respite planning all began to fall into place.

Some family members later remarked on how lucky we had been that everything lined up so quickly and effectively.

I understood what they meant, but “lucky” did not quite describe my experience of it.

There were certainly moments of good timing, and people appeared who were willing to help, but I had not been sitting back waiting for things to happen, nor had I been forcing outcomes. I dealt with what appeared. I made the call when there was a call to make, asked the question when something needed clarification, followed through when something needed attention, and kept things moving.

Again and again, the next piece seemed to become available when it was needed.

I have come to recognise that there is a considerable difference between forcing an outcome and being fully available to what is ready to move.

Perhaps that is where my understanding of Mastery lives most naturally for me now. Not in making things happen through effort, and certainly not in sitting back and calling everything fate, but in remaining present enough to recognise what is opening, acting when action is required, and allowing the next step to reveal itself without trying to control the whole landscape.

Years ago, I would probably have approached much of this through management and sheer competence. Those skills were still there, and they served me well, but something about the way I used them had changed.

I was not trying to command the situation. I was responding to it.

If there was someone to call, I called. If something needed following up, I followed it up. If an answer was vague, I asked another question. If there was an appointment, I was there. And when the decision still belonged to Mum, I had to leave it with her, even when I could see several easier options waving enthusiastically from the sidelines.

That was part of the role too.

Care does not give us ownership of another person.

The seven weeks also pushed me into parts of family life I had not inhabited for decades. I found myself communicating with family members I had not spoken to for thirty years. Later, Mum told me that some of them had changed their opinion of me.

Whatever that opinion had been.

I did not ask.

Whatever that opinion had been, I did not ask. I had not gone there to change anyone’s perception of me, repair old family narratives or embark upon some sentimental reunion tour. I had gone because Mum needed me.

Most of those conversations happened in writing. Partly that suited me perfectly; I am perfectly capable of small talk, I simply find it a rather uninteresting use of my time.

But there was also a far more practical reason. By then I had sinusitis, bronchitis, laryngitis and asthma, and for a period I could barely speak at all. I was extraordinarily unwell, yet the days did not stop. I was still cleaning Mum’s walls, organising what needed organising, dealing with family and services, and doing much of it through written communication because my voice had effectively packed up and left.

Living there meant that almost every part of the day became organised around another person’s needs and rhythms: sleep, pain, meals, appointments, medications, safety, moods, visitors, services and whatever new practical problem had wandered in through the door. Even when nothing was happening, some part of me remained alert.

Even when nothing was happening, some part of me remained alert.

Was she getting up? Was the commode moving? Was she in pain? Did she need help? Was that sound normal? Was she still breathing? Could I make a cup of coffee before the next thing happened?

It is strange how quickly a human being adapts to being constantly available. You keep going because that is what the situation requires, and while you are inside it, you do not always notice how little of your attention is entirely your own.

Years in hospitality and managerial roles had equipped me well for the practical task at hand, even though I had walked away from mainstream work years ago. I knew how to organise, prioritise, problem-solve, communicate clearly and keep things moving when several things needed attention at once. None of that was new to me.

What became more apparent when I came home was something else entirely: how different it felt to no longer be constantly orienting myself around another person’s needs.

The silence was the first thing I noticed.

Not mystical silence. Not the sort that requires incense, sacred music and an expensive retreat.

Just mine.

No television in the background. No listening for movement during the night. No appointments to organise before breakfast. No need to keep one ear tuned to another person’s body while pretending to be doing something else.

I could sit down and remain sitting. I could think a complete thought. I could eat when I was hungry, sleep when I was tired, write when something arrived and do absolutely nothing if nothing did.

The novelty was extraordinary.

And I realised again how deeply I enjoy my own company.

There is sometimes an assumption that enjoying solitude means withdrawing from life. I experience almost the opposite. In my own space, I expand. I do not have to continually translate myself into somebody else’s world. I do not have to explain silence or fill it because another person is present, and I do not have to adjust my natural rhythm around somebody else’s routines, preferences or needs.

For seven weeks, I chose to do exactly that, and I would choose it again.

That matters.

Coming home did not turn those weeks into a mistake. Relief did not cancel what I had given. Wanting my own space did not diminish the responsibility I had accepted, and recognising what those seven weeks had cost me did not make the choice any less real.

I think we sometimes make conscious choice sound far too tidy, as though choosing something knowingly should somehow remove the irritation, exhaustion and resistance that can come with it. It does not. I chose to be there for Mum because I had accepted the responsibility and because, when the time came, it mattered to me that she was not left to navigate it alone.

That choice was real, even when parts of the experience were bloody difficult.

Perhaps the deeper recognition was that I could step fully into another person’s life for a time without surrendering the fact that I also have a life of my own to return to.

By the time I came home, the winter and spring clothes I had packed had been joined by summer things, various odds and ends, and the peculiar accumulation that appears whenever a temporary stay stops being temporary. The knives came home, the pans came home, the herbs and spices came home, the laptops came home, and I unpacked the whole travelling circus back into my own space.

And outside, my own life had continued quietly without me.

The roses are ready to bloom. There is citrus to be picked. I have arranged for the garden beds to be dug over and the compost worked in, ready for the next moon planting.

I rather love that.

While I had been away tending to one life, another had continued in its own rhythm.

The garden had not required me to explain myself. It had not needed appointments, forms or follow-up phone calls. It had simply kept becoming what it was becoming.

And now I am home in time to meet it there.

There was one final piece of family humour waiting for me too. When I mentioned that some people had apparently changed their opinion of me, my heavily expectant daughter-in-law simply said, “And where are they?”

That made me laugh.

After seven weeks of appointments, commodes, forms, family history, nursing, bureaucracy and assorted opinions, there was something wonderfully simple about coming home to roses, citrus, fresh garden beds and my own silence.

My own rhythm. My own company.

And for now, that is more than enough.

— Saint Parousia