I am glad you're back home, AND I know it's a whole other transition to experience, to come to terms with- for you, but also Isabella. Perhaps even more so for her than for you. I wish you both extreme patience and self-compassion. Go gently into 2024.
wishing you and Isabella compassionate patient entry into 2024, as noted below. For Isabella, may there be the support she needs - someone to talk through her feelings and frustrations - as you both navigate this changed landscape. And deep gratitude to you, Hanif, for sharing these words, thoughts, exquisitely composed in your beautiful mind. And thank you to Carlo for listening, receiving, transcribing and getting them out into the world. Deep bow.
Why, I wonder, is this situation so easy for us readers to identify with? Have our minds become joined with yours ,somehow, over the last year? Maybe I should speak only for myself, but this is what I read from others too. Does one ever speak only for oneself? The other day, I was working out my will, and so I have an official will now, and when I die, if there is any money left, it will get to my descendants and some to my partner. I've begun stupidly thinking, and even said it once, that the sooner I die, the better for them- less bother, more inheritance. But that's wrong. Of course its wrong because my life matters to them, and it matters a lot to me! Life is good because we have it- it's all we have. We don't have to earn the right to it, or maintain any level of contribution. How do I know this? Because I see others and I don't measure their value by their output, though at times I wish some of them would try not to be as actively harmful. I can imagine you identifying with Isabella and wishing you could lighten her burden so she could do her work. This will happen- she will find a way to manage your care and the housework so that she has the time she needs- she sounds very capable. What won't help is you balling yourself up into a knot of dismay over it- you know what you are worth, which is lots and lots. Not just because you are a father, and a partner, and a lover and a good writer, and a friend and a comfort to others in distress, and a mirror of the minds of many of us- even in facing your enemy on the way to Tesco- who could not sympathize with that? but because you live. Isn't the glory of it the being in it, the experience and recognition of one of the things common to us all- suffering. Suffering that is created by mind, and suffering that is more shared experience. Is any suffering not created by the mind, come to think of it? We hate suffering, and try to avoid it at all costs. But we all have it. The reflections you have shared on it are useful to you, and useful to others. So, on top of just being alive, you are doing something really good.
Hanif you will slowly get your mobility trust me mate it takes time my dad went through a similar situation and i totally understand your frustration just definitely keep the mind active also stay positive as its a slow process but you will be back soon. 🙏🙏✨️💪 i am talking from experience also everything you are writing is so familiar. Stay strong brother the mind is more powerful than you think. It will help you heal and get your mobility back. It just takes little time
As ever it is generous of you to share your experiences and reflections. I think that when you publish your collected blogs from this year they will be a hugely valuable resource for people working in health and social care. It is searing to read about what you have been and are continuing to go through. Living through the unbearable but having no option but to bear it. Reading it feels sometimes voyeuristic but knowing that you find it in some way helpful to share your experiences makes it feel OK. You write so lucidly to tell it like it is but there is no sense that you are asking for sympathy or indlulging in self pity. I enjoyed your Today programme. I liked the way you are able to reflect on and be curious and enquiring about the effect of becoming suddenly so damaged. And the programme gave a heart warming picture of how you and your family and your friends have come together to find ways to get on with life in thes very different circumstances. Your empathy and appreciation of them shines through in a situation where other people can become self absorbed.
Dear Hanif, Home, and yet, not home. How exactly you convey that this is your world now. And your locution, “the dog view of the world,” such a brilliant observation -- so often with my paralyzed beloved mother I was aware of her “lower” view in the wheelchair, the dog view, and wanted to get in a wheelchair of my own so I could chat with her as we wheeled about, instead of my station behind her pushing. I can tell you Hanif that I loved my mother just as intensely when she was incapacitated as when she was able-bodied, if not more. I’m thinking that Isabella feels much the same. Your essence as a man has been “concentrated” by your accident, and it shines forth in these writings you give to us. Happy New Year, dear writer!
Hanif, as a physio and manual handling advisor, I’m curious as to why you have to have set times to move back to bed. Is your carer not able/allowed to hoist you without a second person? There is equipment available which might enable you to be moved by one carer working alone. Do let me know if you’d like any more advice on this. Elizabeth
It’s a good question - what is the point of me? Your post today has made me want to ask it - more of others than of myself. Do I add something to your life - maybe just being in the world is enough for some people who love us - even if we’re pissing them off! Or maybe not.
Dear Hanif first of all I wish you a year full of joy - I do hope you will continue as you did the whole of 2023 to share with us your thoughts, introspections and humorous reflections on your being as well as those around you! Loved your description of the eyes at dog-level-often at some gathering I sit at a below the belly of people standing and cannot look up- it feels awkward like disconnected!
I wish for you a good progress in regaining autonomy- celebrate when you feel such progress-
Every time i read your blog find it amazing how you have made yourself a speaking writer- and with the editorial help of Carlo send us your newest blog! Be proud of this achievement through which you keep your creativity and writer skills so fully alive! Bravo!
Ti auguro un felice Anno nuovo con Isabel e tuoi figli. Un abbraccio
Thank you so much for your guest editing on Today. It was great to hear your voice - so strong and robust despite your situation. Was impressed with your chairmanship of the family discussion, and your lovely interview with gardener Ashley. You could make a career as a radio presenter (as well as your writing). I look forward to reading your book.
I am happy that you are home, Hanif, and that you have the level of care that you need. You probably don't want advice, but I'm going to proffer it anyway. Please don't underestimate the net positive that caring for somebody that you love brings to the carer. Isabella, your sons, the others who know and love you, they have had to step out of their previous lives and are finding themselves loving you in ways that would have been unimaginable and not open to them if you hadn't been struck down so cruelly. This is both painful and liberating, in my experience. Yes, one regrets what has been, and what has been lost, but it is possible to accept, even welcome, what has been given to you and those you love. Turn this shit on its head, is what I'm saying. Love is an infinite dimension.
All the things that so many take for granted that you, and others, have to navigate. The logistics of getting through a front door to see family, uncomfortable and unaccommodating footpaths. Your instinctive writer's curiosity and observations enable you to shift your focus from what must be huge frustration on to something that entertains, educates, and creates connection. A gift.
I wonder about "a long-bearded enemy of mine from the seventies". Is there a story in that? How interesting your physical positions have now changed. Who is he?
Wishing you a new year filled with strength, self compassion, and an outpouring of creativity, connection, and purpose. Thank you for what you have created and continue to create. So in awe.
Dec 30, 2023·edited Dec 30, 2023Liked by Hanif Kureishi
Enjoyed your stint on the Today programme. Perhaps a blog with a literary partner as a double act would be an idea for the future? It seems to be the trend of the moment.
Dear Hanif, I am very happy to think of you at home with Isabella. It must be hard though, to adjust to your new way of living. Wishing you and your family all the very best for the year ahead. Thank you so much for sharing your writing with us. With love x
I was a carer by default for my grandmother. As in your case, there were people who would get her out-of/into bed and see to her personal needs. In between those visits, there was always plenty that needed doing, though it was hard to predict what that would be exactly. At the beginning I would spontaneously insert my own activities into any lulls that developed. I could never get too comfortable as I never knew when I would be required to step in and attend to some issue. I was always anticipating the call to action. Eventually life settled into a compromised routine. I wish that I could paint a rosier picture. The reality is that you ever-so-slowly adjust to the new normal. It was sometimes annoying and/or distracting. I found that the best way to get around those feelings was to remind myself that I was doing this out of love. Viewed in that context it became easier. The road of love is as fissured and as cluttered with human detritus as a West London pavement that (in common with all roads in the UK) invariably leads to a branch of Tesco.
I feel that the opening to this entry carried with it an air of a darkly-humorous nativity, with people from different nations converging on the same spot in late December to contemplate, in this case, the bare arse of a man, and to discuss the likely impact of the spectacle laid out before them upon a small corner of the metropolis. Occasionally at Christmas, one of the TV channels will attempt a modern-day reworking of the birth of Christ, pandering to whatever progressive notions are fashionable at the time among a slither of the intelligentsia. I think that I prefer your more grounded version – the two wise Africans, the Spanish woman, the Brazilian and the Italian. There has got to be something in a novel or a screenplay about a man in your circumstances who returns to old haunts but experiences them differently – from a dog's-eye view, only in colour and without the pleasure of being able to piss wherever you want with impunity. You have experienced and will continue to experience life from a perspective that people in my position will never fully appreciate. I would like know more about the small details, those things that might not be obvious – the disquieting encounter with an old enemy who now towers over you physically, though I suspect that in other regards this disparity of stature is reversed. I would not dare to describe as weak anyone who has survived what you have been through while retaining a measure of dry humour and a generally positive outlook.
One problem my grandmother experienced that does not appear to have been resolved satisfactorily in the intervening decades is the discomfort that arises from having to either sit or lie in the same position for long periods of time.
Another issue not greatly appreciated is the amount of space that is taken up by the equipment that is required to address fundamental needs. The hoist that was loaned to my grandmother by the local health authority resembled something that might have harboured artistic youthful ambitions as a crooked piece of futurist sculpture, before the hard realities of adulthood set in and it was left with no option other than to earn a living hauling shoals of mackerel from the turbid North Atlantic onto the storm-tossed deck of a fishing trawler. When the fishing industry went into decline it retrained and went into healthcare. I could have easily lifted my grandmother's balsa wood frame and carried her wherever she wanted to go, though I think that would have frightened her more than the harnesses and levers. No house in the history of architecture has been designed that will accommodate such an awkwardly-shaped behemoth.
I am glad you're back home, AND I know it's a whole other transition to experience, to come to terms with- for you, but also Isabella. Perhaps even more so for her than for you. I wish you both extreme patience and self-compassion. Go gently into 2024.
wishing you and Isabella compassionate patient entry into 2024, as noted below. For Isabella, may there be the support she needs - someone to talk through her feelings and frustrations - as you both navigate this changed landscape. And deep gratitude to you, Hanif, for sharing these words, thoughts, exquisitely composed in your beautiful mind. And thank you to Carlo for listening, receiving, transcribing and getting them out into the world. Deep bow.
Why, I wonder, is this situation so easy for us readers to identify with? Have our minds become joined with yours ,somehow, over the last year? Maybe I should speak only for myself, but this is what I read from others too. Does one ever speak only for oneself? The other day, I was working out my will, and so I have an official will now, and when I die, if there is any money left, it will get to my descendants and some to my partner. I've begun stupidly thinking, and even said it once, that the sooner I die, the better for them- less bother, more inheritance. But that's wrong. Of course its wrong because my life matters to them, and it matters a lot to me! Life is good because we have it- it's all we have. We don't have to earn the right to it, or maintain any level of contribution. How do I know this? Because I see others and I don't measure their value by their output, though at times I wish some of them would try not to be as actively harmful. I can imagine you identifying with Isabella and wishing you could lighten her burden so she could do her work. This will happen- she will find a way to manage your care and the housework so that she has the time she needs- she sounds very capable. What won't help is you balling yourself up into a knot of dismay over it- you know what you are worth, which is lots and lots. Not just because you are a father, and a partner, and a lover and a good writer, and a friend and a comfort to others in distress, and a mirror of the minds of many of us- even in facing your enemy on the way to Tesco- who could not sympathize with that? but because you live. Isn't the glory of it the being in it, the experience and recognition of one of the things common to us all- suffering. Suffering that is created by mind, and suffering that is more shared experience. Is any suffering not created by the mind, come to think of it? We hate suffering, and try to avoid it at all costs. But we all have it. The reflections you have shared on it are useful to you, and useful to others. So, on top of just being alive, you are doing something really good.
Hanif you will slowly get your mobility trust me mate it takes time my dad went through a similar situation and i totally understand your frustration just definitely keep the mind active also stay positive as its a slow process but you will be back soon. 🙏🙏✨️💪 i am talking from experience also everything you are writing is so familiar. Stay strong brother the mind is more powerful than you think. It will help you heal and get your mobility back. It just takes little time
As ever it is generous of you to share your experiences and reflections. I think that when you publish your collected blogs from this year they will be a hugely valuable resource for people working in health and social care. It is searing to read about what you have been and are continuing to go through. Living through the unbearable but having no option but to bear it. Reading it feels sometimes voyeuristic but knowing that you find it in some way helpful to share your experiences makes it feel OK. You write so lucidly to tell it like it is but there is no sense that you are asking for sympathy or indlulging in self pity. I enjoyed your Today programme. I liked the way you are able to reflect on and be curious and enquiring about the effect of becoming suddenly so damaged. And the programme gave a heart warming picture of how you and your family and your friends have come together to find ways to get on with life in thes very different circumstances. Your empathy and appreciation of them shines through in a situation where other people can become self absorbed.
Dear Hanif, Home, and yet, not home. How exactly you convey that this is your world now. And your locution, “the dog view of the world,” such a brilliant observation -- so often with my paralyzed beloved mother I was aware of her “lower” view in the wheelchair, the dog view, and wanted to get in a wheelchair of my own so I could chat with her as we wheeled about, instead of my station behind her pushing. I can tell you Hanif that I loved my mother just as intensely when she was incapacitated as when she was able-bodied, if not more. I’m thinking that Isabella feels much the same. Your essence as a man has been “concentrated” by your accident, and it shines forth in these writings you give to us. Happy New Year, dear writer!
Hanif, as a physio and manual handling advisor, I’m curious as to why you have to have set times to move back to bed. Is your carer not able/allowed to hoist you without a second person? There is equipment available which might enable you to be moved by one carer working alone. Do let me know if you’d like any more advice on this. Elizabeth
It’s a good question - what is the point of me? Your post today has made me want to ask it - more of others than of myself. Do I add something to your life - maybe just being in the world is enough for some people who love us - even if we’re pissing them off! Or maybe not.
Dear Hanif first of all I wish you a year full of joy - I do hope you will continue as you did the whole of 2023 to share with us your thoughts, introspections and humorous reflections on your being as well as those around you! Loved your description of the eyes at dog-level-often at some gathering I sit at a below the belly of people standing and cannot look up- it feels awkward like disconnected!
I wish for you a good progress in regaining autonomy- celebrate when you feel such progress-
Every time i read your blog find it amazing how you have made yourself a speaking writer- and with the editorial help of Carlo send us your newest blog! Be proud of this achievement through which you keep your creativity and writer skills so fully alive! Bravo!
Ti auguro un felice Anno nuovo con Isabel e tuoi figli. Un abbraccio
Thank you so much for your guest editing on Today. It was great to hear your voice - so strong and robust despite your situation. Was impressed with your chairmanship of the family discussion, and your lovely interview with gardener Ashley. You could make a career as a radio presenter (as well as your writing). I look forward to reading your book.
I am happy that you are home, Hanif, and that you have the level of care that you need. You probably don't want advice, but I'm going to proffer it anyway. Please don't underestimate the net positive that caring for somebody that you love brings to the carer. Isabella, your sons, the others who know and love you, they have had to step out of their previous lives and are finding themselves loving you in ways that would have been unimaginable and not open to them if you hadn't been struck down so cruelly. This is both painful and liberating, in my experience. Yes, one regrets what has been, and what has been lost, but it is possible to accept, even welcome, what has been given to you and those you love. Turn this shit on its head, is what I'm saying. Love is an infinite dimension.
All the things that so many take for granted that you, and others, have to navigate. The logistics of getting through a front door to see family, uncomfortable and unaccommodating footpaths. Your instinctive writer's curiosity and observations enable you to shift your focus from what must be huge frustration on to something that entertains, educates, and creates connection. A gift.
I wonder about "a long-bearded enemy of mine from the seventies". Is there a story in that? How interesting your physical positions have now changed. Who is he?
Wishing you a new year filled with strength, self compassion, and an outpouring of creativity, connection, and purpose. Thank you for what you have created and continue to create. So in awe.
Enjoyed your stint on the Today programme. Perhaps a blog with a literary partner as a double act would be an idea for the future? It seems to be the trend of the moment.
Wishing you all the best Hanif. Happy New Year.
We get pleasure in knowing you through your thoughts. Thank you for writing.
Dear Hanif, I am very happy to think of you at home with Isabella. It must be hard though, to adjust to your new way of living. Wishing you and your family all the very best for the year ahead. Thank you so much for sharing your writing with us. With love x
I was a carer by default for my grandmother. As in your case, there were people who would get her out-of/into bed and see to her personal needs. In between those visits, there was always plenty that needed doing, though it was hard to predict what that would be exactly. At the beginning I would spontaneously insert my own activities into any lulls that developed. I could never get too comfortable as I never knew when I would be required to step in and attend to some issue. I was always anticipating the call to action. Eventually life settled into a compromised routine. I wish that I could paint a rosier picture. The reality is that you ever-so-slowly adjust to the new normal. It was sometimes annoying and/or distracting. I found that the best way to get around those feelings was to remind myself that I was doing this out of love. Viewed in that context it became easier. The road of love is as fissured and as cluttered with human detritus as a West London pavement that (in common with all roads in the UK) invariably leads to a branch of Tesco.
I feel that the opening to this entry carried with it an air of a darkly-humorous nativity, with people from different nations converging on the same spot in late December to contemplate, in this case, the bare arse of a man, and to discuss the likely impact of the spectacle laid out before them upon a small corner of the metropolis. Occasionally at Christmas, one of the TV channels will attempt a modern-day reworking of the birth of Christ, pandering to whatever progressive notions are fashionable at the time among a slither of the intelligentsia. I think that I prefer your more grounded version – the two wise Africans, the Spanish woman, the Brazilian and the Italian. There has got to be something in a novel or a screenplay about a man in your circumstances who returns to old haunts but experiences them differently – from a dog's-eye view, only in colour and without the pleasure of being able to piss wherever you want with impunity. You have experienced and will continue to experience life from a perspective that people in my position will never fully appreciate. I would like know more about the small details, those things that might not be obvious – the disquieting encounter with an old enemy who now towers over you physically, though I suspect that in other regards this disparity of stature is reversed. I would not dare to describe as weak anyone who has survived what you have been through while retaining a measure of dry humour and a generally positive outlook.
One problem my grandmother experienced that does not appear to have been resolved satisfactorily in the intervening decades is the discomfort that arises from having to either sit or lie in the same position for long periods of time.
Another issue not greatly appreciated is the amount of space that is taken up by the equipment that is required to address fundamental needs. The hoist that was loaned to my grandmother by the local health authority resembled something that might have harboured artistic youthful ambitions as a crooked piece of futurist sculpture, before the hard realities of adulthood set in and it was left with no option other than to earn a living hauling shoals of mackerel from the turbid North Atlantic onto the storm-tossed deck of a fishing trawler. When the fishing industry went into decline it retrained and went into healthcare. I could have easily lifted my grandmother's balsa wood frame and carried her wherever she wanted to go, though I think that would have frightened her more than the harnesses and levers. No house in the history of architecture has been designed that will accommodate such an awkwardly-shaped behemoth.