Monthly Archives: November 2015

Mum turns 95

This week was Mum’s 95 birthday. Two days before, she met her great-granddaughter for the first time. This has lifted her spirits no end.

She’s been saying recently that she just wants to see The Baby and then she wants to ‘go’. Indeed, one morning she was so blue, she said she didn’t even care about  seeing baby! She asked me several times if dad died at Xmas. He died just after New Year, but this is the first time she’s brought the subject up in the five years since his death. She wondered if she would die at the same time of year as he had?

My grandmother had a stroke on the anniversary of my grandfather’s death and died shortly afterwards. So I began to be a bit concerned. But since mum’s seen The Baby, there’s been no more of such talk.

The birthday celebrations went on for several days, starting with a visit from my cousins bearing gifts from their side of the family. Since then, there’s been a steady stream of visitors: my brother, his kids and their partners – and The Baby of course; neighbours etc. At the last count, mum had received 19 birthday cards. She even got greetings via Face Book. All this has improved her mood immensely.

Mum has always been a gregarious person who enjoys chatting and laughing. I can’t really provide that sort of companionship. I could do, if there were two of me: one to do all the work and one to sit and chat and watch tv. The carers, who are here for an hour, the cleaners, the hair dresser, all cheer her up briefly, but mainly, she misses my father.

She told me, ‘I just want to see my Frank. Do you think he will find me when I die?’ I don’t know the answer to that one. I imagined the afterlife like a very crowded wartime railway station with refugees pouring off packed trains. I said ‘Well, thousands and thousands of people die every day. It might not be so easy for him to find you.’ She smiled and shook her head. ‘You don’t know my Frank. If there’s a way, he’ll find it.’

Well, of course, I hope she’s right. But for now, The Baby seems to have provided some sort of compensation for being forced to stay in this boring world. She has the child’s photo by her chair and speaks to it a lot. And she does seem to be much happier. I guess she really was, quite simply, depressed.

 

mum&alana

A year has gone by.

A year has gone by since I started this blog. First I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who reads it, and who have left comments. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. There are times when I feel very cut off and isolated. During those times it’s great to know that what I’m writing is being read. I’m like a character marooned in outer space who suddenly gets a response to the signals she’s been sending off into the cosmos in the hope that someone somewhere might pick them up.

Having said that, I don’t think I made a mistake by moving in with mum. I miss my life in London, of course I do. But it’s also clear that her condition has deteriorated in the last twelve months – which is good because, if she’d stayed the same, I’d be wondering why I had bothered to give up my freedom! Whereas these days it’s obvious she can no longer manage on her own.

It’s been much harder work than I expected. I expected I’d help her with things she was struggling with, owing to her arthritis. I didn’t anticipate she would just put her feet up and expect to be waited on hand and foot! Also, I did not realise how confused she was mentally. I thought she had difficulties with the modern world, but I really had no idea of the true extent of it. Nor did I know anything about dementia. I know quite a bit more now!

I thought I’d be bored, but I battle to have time to myself. I never have a lie-in or an early night. Even when I was sick, I never got that luxury. It’s also annoying that I can’t control the use of my time. Last night, I thought – ‘I’ve got an hour, I’ll get the blog post finished’ – at which point there was a cry of distress from the bathroom. Mum was having one of her incidents. To sort it out and clear it up, took an hour. And by then, I just wanted to go to bed.

But the hardest thing is that I’m never alone in the house. I used to live by myself and I just wish I could have a day, even a few hours, when I didn’t have to worry about someone else’s presence! At night, if I can’t sleep, I’m always aware that I could wake mum up and indeed, when I go to sleep, I’m aware she could call me in the middle of the night, and I’d be duty bound to get up and tend to her! Of course, I’m by myself when I go out, but that’s not like staying at home and relaxing on the couch. And when I leave the house it’s normally because I have chores. A few friends have nobly made their way down to Chichester. We’ve generally met up for lunch which has been a wonderful chance to have some decent conversation – and also for me to get to know the city because of course, I’ve no prior connection to the place at all.

And now winter is coming – a time when we in the northern hemisphere spend a lot of time inside, on top of one another. I’ll admit the idea of spending a second winter here, does make me feel pretty gloomy. But I have strategies in place now to protect my boundaries. I have this blog, and most days I try to spend a couple of hours doing ‘creativity’ for my mental health – that’s to say, I’m writing a fantasy novel which is marvellous escapism. And I enjoyed the spinning workshop I did on my birthday. I even produced a small amount of wool – let’s see if that will lead me somewhere new and unknown during the next twelve months.