Mail at The Guest House in Durnacol

Time to open letters between my parents.

There are a set of letters between Vanderbijlpark and P.O. Durnacol, it seems that Dad, who worked for Iscor in Vanderbijlpark, would spend blocks of time at a coal mine in Natal in the late sixties and early seventies. 

Mom is at home, juggling three young children, her ailing parents and in her letter of Friday the 9 August 1968 she pours out her distress and exhaustion.

I was taken aback when I realised that between the newsy, gentle May '68 letters that Nan sent from Messina to Mom, to this letter that Mom has written to Dad, Nan has had her leg amputated. She must have been underplaying the gravity of her neuritis. 
I wonder how soon afterwards she became a double amputee?

Mom writes about going to her Mom to see how she was doing:
"She was bright and cheerful. Dad then took her for a walk round the garden in the wheelchair and she wanted to try and exercise and walk with the crutches in the courtyard. She got out of the chair and held onto the rails at the flower boxes and pulled herself up and down a couple of times. She turned around and asked Dad for her crutches as she wanted to take a few steps. Chip she stood there counting and took one step and the next thing she fell. I stood paralysed for a split second, which seemed an eternity and when Dad and I tried to lift her we realised she was unconscious. She had fallen like a ton of bricks on her face."


Mom is traumatised throughout the letter, 'I was shaking from head to toe...and Dad has taken this very badly and I also had to treat him for shock this morning."
"I had a very bad night  - had a nightmare about Dad having an attack and Mom being unable to walk, it was all left to me."

As a family we too are feeling the of responsibility for a frail parent and it does not sit lightly on our shoulders either. 

Mom's 'friday 13th' starts with 18 month old Inel who has a dislocated collarbone. 


So between visiting her parents, witnessing her mother fall, she is also running back and forth to the clinic for multiple sets of X-rays, as she is worried whether Inel has a broken bone.

Her life long friend Daphne pops past to bring Mom some old clothes for Inel who is in too much pain to wear her baby clothes.

Its bitterly cold too.

The day continues downhill, Mom has taken liver out of the fridge to defrost and the dog sneaks it into the bedroom for a midnight snack!
"I woke with the sound of rustling plastic and it took me a while to register (my heart was beating 60 to the dozen) what was going on."

Friday the 13th indeed.




One small ray of sunshine: 
"The kids have been wonderful so far and send their love. Clive is really trying to do all the jobs you gave him."


Note:
Durnacol: Durban Navigation Collieries started as a coal mine providing coal for steam ships in the port of Durban but then later mined high quality coking coal for the South Iron and Steel Corp., Iscor. The mine was located in Natal, near Dannhauser, and was closed in the late 1990's.