I arrive at my Wednesday morning client as usual, mop bucket in my right hand and crate of cleaning equipment propped on my left hip. The screen door is shut, but not locked and the main door is ajar, ready for me as expected. This is normally a good sign. When the doors are locked then that's usually a sign that everything might not be well in the household. While my client is officially the husband, who needs to use a wheelchair since his stroke at 35, the wife has bipolar disorder and some back and hip issues. She's usually the one up to let me in and the husband and adult son often don't get out of bed before I leave around midday, unless the wife has a bipolar episode, then the door will be locked and one of the men will let me in instead.
Today the door is not locked and I greet wife/mum in the living room as usual. I only notice a slight difference initially when there's a chair in the spot where I usually put my crate in the kitchen/diner. Mum has followed me in a bit sooner than usual and after a quick exchange of pleasantries begins to explain me that the son had a mental health episode and broke all of her plates and dishes. She is saying she cleaned up as much as she could but points out that there is still a lot of debris where she struggled to reach, joking that I'd have my work cut out this week. While she is light hearted about it I know that this will have been hard on her on top of everything else they've been dealing with. She reassures me that I will be safe, because he's in hospital now in the mental health ward, which is the best place he can be currently. She thinks he'll be there for some time. She then heads back to bed for a bit, which is her usual routine now since her own big bipolar episode and change of medication. She used to be an early riser before that.
I decide to wash the dishes first before tackling the aftermath clean up, but a quick inspection of the cupboards reveals glass and ceramic shards in them which will need cleaning out before clean dishes can go back in. I clear things out shelf at a time, just plastics and melamine for the most part; the unbreakables, one would think, but even some of these are cracked and split. I put them aside to let mum know when she gets up again. A dirty plastic bowl has been put away among the chaos of the clean up, but the rest of the survivors will need rewashing anyway as I don't want to risk shards being left on things they'll eat from. I find a lone drinking glass at the back of the cupboard that escaped the rampage and they have a handful of mugs that must be new arrivals.
After all the dishes are washed, dried and stacked in the freshly cleaned cupboards I start on the counter tops. A box of cereals is open at the top with the bag folded down. Chunks of glass sit on top of the bag. I don't want them to risk eating the cereal, so I check it's okay for me to dispose of it. Apparently it's old anyway, no-one was eating it any more so I'm cleared to bin it.
Thinking of that tower of plates and bowls they used to have I can only imagine the sheer ammount of debris that must have been strewn across the kitchen/diner and into the laundry. I will later hear how much her hips hurt from the clean up which took her two hours with breaks to ease the pain. I pick up a shard with pink on it and recognise it as the 'Mum in a Million' mug her youngest daughter gave her one Mother's Day. One of her favourites. In the laundry I find the remains of another favourite under the sink. It's a glass mug with an ornate, metal frame and handle, a gift from her husband when she returned after walking out on him during a bipolar episode. I always saw it as an expression of his love and understanding that her hurtful words and actions in that state aren't her true self.
Back in the kitchen a thick, white layer of glittering powder at the base of the skirting is another indicator of the scale of crockery destruction. There are glass and pottery pieces in the clutter of bags on and next to the table which store items that couldn't find space in cupboards. They each need emptying out in order to remove those sharp invaders then restocking in their now disarmed state. As I move items on the table, which is situated up against the wall in the corner of the room, I hear clinking, clattering sounds as more pieces of crockery fall down the back corner to the floor. I won't have time to move out the clutter of items out from under there this week to retrieve them. I realise I'm going to be running over my usual time and message my next client to let them know. Luckily this current client doesn't have too much restriction on their cleaning budget from the disability assistance scheme.
I pass the son's room on the way to cleaning the bathroom and the door seems to be pushed completely back 180 degrees against the wall. There is broken crockery in there too. I ask mum if she wants me to sweep that up, but she says to leave it, he can sort it himself when he gets home.
This week there is an extra car in the driveway with plates from one of the eastern states. I recall her telling me her daughter's 'other half' is from that way and wonder if they are over. The house is as quiet as usual, though, and mum heads back to bed as normal. A bit later the 'other half' briefly appears in the kitchen with a mildly confused, but cheerful "Oh, good morning". I don't see the daughter or grandchildren, though.
When mum wakes again I let her know I'd like to try and get under the table to clean out the last bits of debris if she's okay with that. She is and instructs me on how to reverse the mobility scooter out of the way. I've never been down there to clean before and among the glass and pottery shards I find fur from her ragdoll cat which left and never came home one day in the lead up to her more major bipolar episide.
This time when I pass the son's room the floor has been cleaned and I can see the door now, or what is left of it, various chunks hanging off the hinges. I see other bits of damage to the house now that I missed before while I was focusing more on removing all the dangerous shards. The toilet door has a hole in it, a wall has a hole the shape of the edge of a plate. The wooden floor has dents and some new gouges.
It's always sobering when you spend months or years coming in week after week to help care for and clean people's homes and important items only for that to all get upended in one day, or even just one moment. What's left are only memories and sometimes mental scars, scars that no-one ever really sees, so the only option is to move on with life as best they can.
