Epilogue : Why Mano's key means so much to me

This is about my father.

One day, it was about a year before his retirement, my father woke up and couldn't get out of bed.
He called my mother, he could not move his legs.
My mother phoned the doctor, an ambulance brought my dad to the local hospital.
They didn't know what to do and decided it was best to bring  him to the nearest university hospital.
Meantime the paralysis crept slowly towards his pelvis.
They took him to intensive care, the paralysis reached his shoulders.
If it would go up, further to his head he would go into a coma.
He was in great pain, we were desperate, distraught, lost.
The doctors brought him into an artificial sleep.
Lots and lots of medical examinations,tests, questions.

Diagnosis, a very, very rare disease, a virus in the spinal cord.

After weeks and lots of medication they made him wake up and he was moved to a regular hospital room.
My dad could hear,speak,see and think but his body was paralized.
No doctor knew what was comming or how far he would recover but they were far from optimistic.
Months went by, there was no improvement.
We began to understand he would probably never walk again.
We all had feared the worst on intensive care but this thought paralized us too in a way.
My father spent another eight months in a revalidation center, and after a long and hard physiotherapy
he was able to sit in a wheelchair, to use his arms and hands again.

The day he came home was a very strange day.
We were so very happy he was still with us, but what was their life going to be.
We all cried.
I didn't mention my mother through this whole story.
All the time her husband was in hospital, there was not one day she went not to see him and sat at his side.
Being home brought many changes.
In the beginning it was so very,very hard.
I think i cried each time on my home after visiting them.
But they found a way to cope,they managed, they were so strong, and forever they will have my admiration.
My father always had been a quiet,serene man, he was never a great talker.
He loved to be outside, i guess i have my dreamy side from him and my love for birds.
Laying in his bed by the big window he watched the birds, he loved to watch documentaries about nature.
He read the paper , magazines, books. And he began to talk and tell stories about his life.
Stories we never heard before.
He talked with his friends or anyone passing by about politics, economics and sports.
He loved sports, as a young man he practiced cross-country running and he was very good at it.
He looked happy when he was talking, he found pleasure in telling you all kinds of things.
My father made the very best of his life in a wheelchair and my mother was like a rock he could support on.
Without her his life would have been very different, she wheeled him everywhere, took him on holidays to the seaside.
She nurtured him with  love and dedication 'till the end.


When life gets difficult and times are dark i think of my dad's braveness, his struggle to make the best of life
despite the circumstances. He means perseverance and flexibility, he means watching the birds and just be happy doing so,
he means very blue eyes full of stories, he means lots of precious things.
I don't really feel sad thinking of him, those days are left behind. You would understand if you had seen him
smile and laugh and have fun and talk and talk. He is in my heart forever, strong and loving and i love him too,dearly. When i dream of him he is not sitting in a wheelchair, he walks.


I started this blog to share my art with you.
Without Mano's key, that now belongs to me :)i would never had written this story here.
But i guess my dad is there sometimes, in the colours i use or between the birds i paint.