Michael

Michael was an elderly customer of mine.

He died in December of 2020. In the middle of the Covid 19 pandemic so I hadn't seen him for a while.

When I first visited him it was not long after his wife had passed away in 2014.

Though, as I write this, I feel that maybe it was a couple of years after that.

From my very first visit Michael told me how much he missed his wife and proceeded to take me through a slide show of her life on the computer.

In fact his screen saver was a slide show of her life.

Every time he sat at his computer he was presented by this slide show...and therefore, so was I.

He also told me about how much he loved his cats and how the black one...with one eye...was the best cat ever. I can't remember it's name. They were very engaging and funny that's for sure.

Michael liked me.

For the first few visits he told me how his previous computer person was pushy and not very nice.

I continued to visit him for all sorts of relatively minor issues over the years. Well, minor for me. They sometimes caused Michael great consternation.

Some of these issues came about because Michael was quite set in his ways.

That's fair enough. I can't blame him. He certainly deserved to take life at his own pace at his age.

The problem was that the technology sometimes didn't let this persist.

I remember one time I had to retrieve a database of people's names from an incredibly old and non-functional computer he had piled in the corner of the room.

I was succesful but where this data had to go now and how he had to use it going forward was not easy for him to grasp.

I only ever saw that one room and the corridor to it but the house looked beautiful.

Every time I visited Michael over those years he'd tell me how much he missed his wife and show me pictures of her. He also told me how wonderful his cats were. The screensaver of his wife's pictures was ever present.

I never got the impression this was due to any faculty loss.

It just seemed that this is what was always top of mind for him. He hadn't forgotten he'd told me. He just had to tell me again.

During one of the last few visits I made to Michael he opened up a bit more about how lonely he was and how much he missed her.

He elaborated that he had no interests outside of the house, his wife and his cats.

This sudden addition of information to the routine worried me. I was already worried that he didn't seem to be moving on from the passing of his wife. The new information felt like a scary backward step to me.

I eventually mustered up the courage to suggest to him that maybe he should find some new interests.

I pointed out, very clearly, that I was no expert but thought that getting involved in some community or other outside hobby might be a good idea.

Michael insisted he had no such interests.

This worried me even more so I tried to think of something I knew he was interested in.

It shouldn't have been that hard. The answer was right in front of both of us all the time...the cats.

So I suggested that maybe he talk to some of the cat rescue or fostering organisations. Maybe he could visit them and help them with their foster cats or some such thing?

He didn't immediatly poo-poo that so I was a little relieved.

Quite often Michael didn't follow up on the things we discussed and he decided he needed/wanted so I wasn't surprised to not hear from him for a few weeks.

When I did visit him next something was clearly different.

He did not look as well as normal.

He eventually told me that he'd had a medical issue... I can't remember exactly what...but it left him somewhat less mobile than before.

He told me that he had reserved a place at a retiremnt village / care home but that the wait could be a year or more. He also told me that nearest of his children and other relatives lived in Victoria.

It was not long after this statement that Michael decided he wanted to get up out of his rolling office chair.

Before I could offer help or interccept him he clasped both his hands together and started waving them back and forth over his head.

He then used the forward momentum of his hands and arms to provide some enertia to assist his exit from the chair.

As he rose from the chair it shot out from under him.

The problem was that his attempt at getting upright had not been successful.

As he started coming back down to where the chair used to be it bounced off a bookcase and through some miracle of clutter based pinball ended up back underneath him.

It had happened in a flash. I was powerless to help. I gasped and raced towards him just as it all managed to end without disaster.

I had almost witnessed a disaster.

I asked him if he had help visiting. Apparently cleaners had been visiting for years, but there was no visiting or live-in carer for him perse.

With no family around and no care in place I was (again) worried for Michael.

The only thing I could think of doing at the time was asking my friend Mez (Merryn) at the Cygnet Community Hub if she knew who I should contact or indeed what could be done.

She did. I gave her Michael's details so the right people could get in touch.

I thought I may never see Michael again.

I thought he may go into care. I thought he may have an accident with that bloody chair at any moment. I thought he may get fast-tracked into his retirement village. I thought he may go to Victoria to be closer to family and support.

I checked in with Mez a couple of times to see how things had panned out.

Then the pandemic proper hit.

I hoped, and think, he got to Victoria to be closer to family and support but I didn't know for sure.

Then one day I Googled his obituary...hoping not to find it...but I did.

I don't know what happened to his beloved cats.

Sometimes it's more than just IT support.

Goodbye Michael.