GSCENE 57
GOLDEN HOUR BY BILLIE GOLD
STUFF & THINGS BY JON TAYLOR
AFTER WE’VE GONE
A GAY OLD TIME
) Over lockdown I would wager that if you haven't lost someone, you know somebody that has. For me, my loss came quite unexpectedly, as I just assumed that she would exist forever. My nan died three weeks into lockdown, and that was at a time when it was absolutely a no go to travel to my family to support them, it was simply a case of sitting alone with my thoughts, and Facetime my mum for a couple of hours while the funeral took place.
) I was pondering death the other day. I'd just seen one of those bikes with a box on the front whizz by me. You know the ones. Driven by a parent of a certain type, their children placed in a large wooden box at the front of the bike which looks remarkably like the top end of a coffin. I presume there's straps in the box to hold the kiddiwinks in place as they go hurtling down the avenues of Hove and that they won't just fly out of the front when the parents whack on the brakes. Still. Handy coffin available if something untoward happens.
Losing my nan was a strange one because to put it simply, we weren't very close. Her and I were very much like chalk and cheese, she always wanted me to be the perfect little girl and do little girl things. My most recent memory of her is what got me thinking. She had vehemently expressed that my desire not to have children was unacceptable. This got me thinking in a time of great panic and worry about legacies. I’m not going to be leaving a line of offspring behind me when I shuffle off my mortal coil. No one will say that they have my eyes, and no one will call me mother. I suppose since I’m a woman the pressure to have children by the time I’m 35 or I’m simply not fulfilling my use is a rhetoric which has plagued the childless for as long as the expectation has existed. But my answer to my nan was just this, “I have more to leave behind than what my womb can do”. While I won’t raise a tiny human to carry on my name after I’m gone, I am finding it interesting to look at ways in which I can leave behind a piece of me after I’ve died. Legacies make us, even if it's just a line of text, an important photograph, or an esteemable act. I find it interesting that a lot of people wait to start leaving something to other people until they are older. As a woman I think maybe this is because the timeline has been pre set: you live your fun, carefree life, you have children, they grow up and you've done your part. But for me and many others this is simply not so, and what if you shun that expectation?
“After we die we are simply stories, so after my nan died I started to think about what stories I wanted to be told about me” Each one of us has turned to people and resources that inspire us to guide us through our lives and become little pieces of who we are. After we die we are simply stories, so after my nan died I started to think about what stories I wanted to be told about me, and thus sparked a new way of thinking. I figure that thinking about how you want to be remembered after you've gone, can change who you are right now. In my opinion, it's not the people we can make with our bodies that make us. It's the journeys we help others to take, in whatever way, after we’ve gone.
So then, death. Good topic for a light-hearted column. We shy away from talking about death though, which is understandable. It's not like you've ever had a fabulous evening with your friends, drinking bottles of wine and laughing your head off chatting about death. 'And then, Veronica just keeled over and died! Ha ha ha ha!'. Still. Death and taxes. The two things guaranteed for us all. Unless you're Amazon. Oooh, political. The one thing I am waiting to happen is for old people's homes solely for gays to become a thing. That'd be great. With just the right amount of 'gay community' stuff catered for. You'd be prescribed a certain number of G&Ts a day; the male nurses would cover all the bases for the residents' lusts; all the female nurses would be Hattie Jacques-esque. Miss Marple and Drag Race would be shown on a loop like the porn in a sauna (not that I'd know what goes on in a sauna). The Golden Girls and Miranda would loop on another channel.
“You’d be prescribed a certain number of G&Ts a day; the male nurses would cover all the bases for the residents’ lusts; all the female nurses would be Hattie Jacques-esque” There'd have to be cabaret evenings. Two or three a week. Whoever the current names of the time would go on a rota so you wouldn't get the same acts doing the same songs every week, sometimes twice a week. Because you wouldn't want that. And karaoke would be weekly. Whether you wanted it or not. And perhaps some kind of community/political chap could come in and talk about that kind of thing. I wouldn't go to that one. I'd stay in my room and watch Joan Hickson being excellent on the telly. There'll have to be a pool for lounging by. And an outside bar. Waiter service. Pool would have to be heated so you weren't fishing out old men popsicles every morning from the freezing cold water. Hot and cold running condoms. Whatever that means. I think that should just about cover everything. Oh. Food. Just do Deliveroo. Provide an all day breakfast till the third G&T comes by at 5pm. Doesn't sound that bad. And all on the NHS. Pop a penny in the pound on income tax to pay for it. Can't see anyone complaining. So, if someone could get all that sorted for when I need it, that'd be great. Just needs a catchy name... 'A Gay Old Time Nursing Home'. Marvellous.
