The Last Call

18

NEWS

THURSDAY OCTOBER 8 2009

The Star

The Star

19

NEWS

THURSDAY OCTOBER 8 2009

The inspiring story of a dying man who has his last big wish fulfilled with the help of some indomitable friends He climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld his ship coming with the mist. Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul. – The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

THE LAST CALL Words: Alex Eliseev HE EXCITEMENT tugged Tony out of his sleep at 5am. The day had arrived. For two years it called to him. Summoned him to its endless horizon and its emptiness. He couldn’t explain it, but he yearned to gaze upon it. The taxi was due at 9.45am and the driver had strict orders to be on time. A quick drive to the airport – there shouldn’t be much traffic on a Saturday – an hour’s flight to Durban, a final transfer and then, the sea. He had not seen it in nearly a decade. Now he would look at it again. One last time. His room at the Umhlanga Sands was booked. From his window he would gaze into the mist and the giant cargo ships lurking in it like ghosts. He would have the sliding door open and smell the salt and algae spinning in the coastal wind. He would use the ocean to cleanse his thoughts and escape, just for a short while, his dark companion.

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ONY KATZEW was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease seven years ago. MND is a cruel and terrifying illness for which there is no cure. For the last two years he has lived at the hospice in Houghton, Joburg, the illness slowly killing off his muscles. Frozen in his own flesh, Tony’s world shrunk into a single room with big windows, grand

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GOING UP: Tony Katzew diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease is lifted with the aid of Hospice nurses from his bed into a wheel chair in preparation for his trip.

Pictures: Jennifer Bruce

leather armchairs and a stream of visitors from the world he could no longer inhabit. To survive the stillness, Tony mastered living inside his mind. When nurses come to shut the door to his room, Tony usually listens for the wheels of the undertaker’s trolley. It’s hospice policy to protect patients from witnessing the constant ebbing of life around them, to shield them from the routine of death which comes with the sound of tiny wheels flapping like wings through the corridors. Tony has a deep love for the hospice and its people, but on the morning of September 5 he’s excited about getting out, even if it’s just for a few days. He sees his giant red suitcase lying on the armchair. If he could move, he would leap out of bed to get ready for his adventure. But Tony lies motionless. He cannot turn his head towards the door without the nurses. Somewhere outside a doorbell buzzes. Beneath him, a special mattress inhales and exhales rhythmically to keep his body in motion. An oxygen machine exercises his lungs. Although he can still swallow, a feeding tube is plugged into his stomach. Lately, Tony has started training on a speech machine for the day the disease claims his voice box. He feels the slightest pinch on his skin. One of the tragedies of MND is that it doesn’t disable the nervous system. For this reason, moving Tony into a wheelchair is a long,

uncomfortable and painful procedure. In the last two years he has left his room only a handful of times, travelling several hundred metres and spending one or two hours in his custom-built wheelchair. But for all the things MND took from Tony, it also filled him with a strange magic. The doctors said he would be dead by Christmas, 2004. He proved them wrong. From his bed, he continued to give medical lectures, write and publish his memoirs, watch sports and host cocktail parties. But even an invincible spirit has boundaries – such as a 500km journey to the coast through the chaos of taxis, airports, airplanes, hotels, ramps and elevators. This late in the disease, Tony is risking his life. To see the sea for the last time. Y 9.30AM he is washed, dressed and ready to be lifted from the bed into his wheelchair. A hydraulic arm hovers over him like a construction crane, clenches the canvas sling beneath him and pulls him into the air. Slowly, it slips around the bed and lowers him into the wheelchair. At 9.45am Valerie Rankin, a nurse at the Hospice, arrives to announce that the taxi is waiting. The nurses accompanying Tony to Durban – Benedictor and Linda – are still wrangling with the Velcro straps on the wheelchair, trying to secure his head. His arms and legs are shifted, like dough, into braces and on to cushions. Tony gives instructions as they go. Before he is wheeled out of the room, Rankin kisses Tony on the forehead. “We’ll miss you,” she says. “Have a lovely time … go safely … don’t get too sunburnt.” Watching as Tony is secured into the cab, she adds: “This place is going to be so empty without him.”

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ONY’S FRIENDS Richard and Laura are already at the airport when the cab arrives. They search for Tony in the labyrinth of terminals, eager to start checking in. By the time they find him, he has lost his voice and whispers a greeting. The neck brace is crushing his throat and his head is at an awkward angle. His feet have gone purple, the blood rushing downwards. He is not complaining, instead, he says he is being treated like a king. Richard and Tony have been friends for almost three decades. Laura met Tony while volunteering at the Hospice and took over reading to him from Richard. The three have formed a strong friendship and call themselves “the triumvirate”, the word ancient Romans used to describe a government led by a trio of powerful leaders. It was during a sitting of the triumvirate – fuelled by wine and sweetened by cheese – that Tony revealed his desire to see the ocean.

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DEPARTURE: Tony Katzew is wheeled through the OR Tambo International Airport.

OF THE SEA

CELEBRATING: Tony Katzew is helped by one of his nurses, Benedictor, to drink his wine whilst aboard the airplane headed for Durban.

ABSORBING IT: Tony Katzew looks out at the sea from the promenade in Umhlanga, Durban, where he has travelled to see the sea for the last time. Laura went to work. It took her months to organise the adventure – everything from transport to an oxygen machine at the hotel. She grew so passionate to help Tony realise his wish she cashed in her Voyager Miles for the flight tickets. “Dynamite comes in small packages,” Richard said, describing the petite woman. At the check-in counter at the airport, the excitement grows. Like children on a playground, Laura and Richard jump on to the luggage belt to see how much they weigh. As they make their way through the gates, the madness of the airport swirls around them. Passengers rush to their flights, trolleys sail through the crowds, the intercom booms to life and the colourful billboards stare down at them from the walls. The rush is on to get Tony on to the plane. Richard and Laura are panicking about getting his wheelchair on board – knowing he cannot go without it.

To distract each other from worry, the triumvirate discuss what they are going to do at the coast. Tony wants a hot rock steak from Spur and some chilled white wine. He has a wild idea of going on a boat and jokes about hitting the beach in his Speedo. They talk of visiting the aquarium and listening to the sounds of the sea. UT AS HE is moved from wheelchair to wheelchair and into the narrow plane, Tony’s eyes are like fists. They clench in helpless pain. “The hazards of MND,” he says gritting his teeth. Luckily, the South African Airways pilot – whose name is also Tony – has taken a liking to the travellers and upgrades everyone to business class. “We’d like to welcome Tony … it’s really special to have you on board,” Tony Perreira announces over the intercom. The words melt the pain and the plane soars.

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“Cheers Tony!” Richard says, raising a wine glass from across the aisle. “Cin, Cin,” Laura replies. “It’s just a different venue.” Tony wastes no time to make friends on the short flight. “Enjoy the beach,” a youngster in board shorts says as he flings his guitar over his shoulder and disembarks. The pilot returns to give Tony an update on the rugby score and to wish him well. The coastal smell hits Tony before he is lowered from the plane. A humid, holiday smell that signals that any moment the majestic sea will rise over a hill and spread its watery arms to welcome him. “You can smell we’re in Durban,” Tony says softly. He arrives in room 812 at about 4pm. His reunion with the sea is moments away. The room is compact, but comfortable, with big windows. The blue and white curtains with sea-

shell patterns, the wicker chairs and framed prints of sailboats near dreamy white beaches give it a real tropical feel. There’s a small kitchenette with a granite top, a lounge and two rooms. One of the nurses will sleep in Tony’s room in case he starts to choke in the middle of the night. They turn his bed to face the window. ONY HAS BEEN in his wheelchair for over six hours – the longest he has ever spent in it. His neck is chafed and Benedictor rubs oil on it to sooth the burn. While she does this, he looks out on the ocean. In the plane, he sat in an aisle seat and could not look out of the window. On the way to the hotel he faced backwards as the taxi drove north through a busy city and its grey highways. But all of that is over now. The sea lies in front of him. It called to him and he came. The water is foggy. There’s a

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long container ship anchored out in the distance. Tony chuckles. “This would be a good place for the Somali pirates.” But his eyes stay firmly fixed on the steel blue horizon. He can’t believe it’s real. In his mind a pen ticks off another item on his to-do list. efore the MND, Tony often used to bring his family to Umhlanga. The disease has not been kind to his family, often causing strain among them. Like the floods that tore apart the promenade below, MND had created a distance between them. A distance he is working to close. The pier is not far from the hotel. But the promenade is being repaved and Tony’s wheelchair is too delicate for the sand and loose gravel.

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HE TRIUMVIRATE circles around and are forced to cut through a neighbouring hotel to get on to the main road. Vervet monkeys bounce in the branches above them. The bars are packed for the sunset and a group of friends dressed in bright golf outfits saunters down to one of the resorts. Cars whiz past them as they push Tony’s wheelchair towards the Umhlanga lighthouse. For most of the way, Benedictor or Linda has to hold Tony’s head as it shakes from the uneven concrete. On one smooth stretch of road Richard and Laura break out into a run, sending the wheelchair hurtling forward. They reach the pier. Tony is wheeled to the railing and left to absorb a sight that seemed so impossible a day ago.

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HE WIND has grown colder, but hasn’t broken up a game of beach soccer being played below. It’s late in the day and there are only a few swimmers splashing in the surf. The pier is busy: a man with a dark ponytail and a chequered shirt fumbles a camera trying to photograph his girlfriend; a father leads a giggling girl along a metal grate in the floor and a woman trails behind two small Jack Russell terriers as they sniff their way back to land. The sea is calm; its frothy waves break on the pier and leap up to touch their special guest. Tony’s mind begins to drift. He thinks about the past. He thinks about his family. And he thinks about his late father, who helped him through the early years of MND. It was his father who comforted him and told him: “Every winter leaf must fall”. How much

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ON A ROLL: Tony Katzew is pushed in his wheelchair by his friends Richard and Laura in Umhlanga, Durban.

he wishes he could share this moment with the wise old man. He thinks about the plans he had made to spend his retirement travelling across South Africa, visiting the tiniest, most far-flung towns he could find. And about the fact that life had other plans for him. His body is exhausted and his friends are eager to get him back to the hotel. His reunion with the ocean is brief, but a full week by the coast lies ahead. Later, while eating a burger for dinner, Tony tries to explain his experience. “I just felt a great deal of satisfac-

tion. I fulfilled something I wanted to do for a long time.” Twelve hours after leaving the Hospice, he retires to his room. Richard and Laura stay behind to have an Irish coffee on the terrace. They tear open sugar packets and read the messages. One sachet, with a quote from Emma Goldman, catches their eye: “When we can’t dream any longer, we die”. The moon lights up a jagged path along the dark water. * The Star accompanied Tony and his friends with the assistance of South African Airways.