You Will Remember

Aunt forwarded some post she found in Mother’s room. One letter is from the dental practice.

“Dear Mrs X,” it begins, “you will remember…”

Somehow I don’t feel too much faith in these people understanding my Mother’s needs.

Saturday in the East

A helicopter has just flown overhead. No kidding. I am wondering if it is too early to have a glass of rum to warm me from the inside out, but for the minute I am sticking with fizzy water, and there’s a new supply of cocoa in the cupboard, or hold.

By chance today I met a woman who also has a boat and who worked for the Alzheimer’s Society. We put the world to rights standing outside a very pretty chapel I had stopped to look at on my way back from being with Mother. Cameraless, having foolishly decided I didn’t need it, I was wandering about with my iPad. The iPad is quite handy at Mother’s as I can look up odd poems or hymns if I can get a connection. For photography, it doesn’t please me. I prefer a camera.

I know another Alzherimer’s Society person as she keeps hens and I buy eggs from her when I am passing. I am starting to wonder if there is some universal law at work where if I start to talk to the only person in an out of the way spot they are bound to have links to dementia care in some way.

May Day

The second card made me cry. The envelope had Aunt’s handwriting, and I was unprepared for the emotional impact of the contents.

Birthday Card

She must have taken it to Mother a couple of weeks ago. The poignancy of the wobbly signature, the way she had obviously struggled to sign her name, made the breath catch in my throat. Fortunately, I caught myself on and opened a third card of a cycling guinea pig and that made me laugh, so back on track for a happy birthday.

Mother

I had to make a detour to reach Mother. There had been an accident and the police closed the road. It must have been nasty as the road was still closed several hours later when I came back. There was a fire engine there too.
The usual smell of air freshener met me as I buzzed to be let in. In some ways reaching Mother is like going into a prison. Without the razor wire. I am not allowed the codes, and can only move into one area before needing help to access the next. Not that anyone ever asks who I am.
Mother clutched me and said she had been worrying. Nothing new there. Mother could win Olympic gold in worrying. I kept calling her Mum, but she didn’t call me Isobel, so I doubt if she knew who I was. She was looking very summery in light weight pink and white check seersucker trousers I got her last year, with a mauve t shirt and mauve fleece. Her feet were in fleecy pink socks.
We went to her room. She needed the loo, so I took the tops off the hangers, folded them up and put them in the chest of drawers.
She wanted a drink and asked for hot chocolate. A good choice as she drained it immediately and did the same with the second cup I requested. I trimmed and cleaned her nails. She worked the lavender hand cream into her skin obediently. I sprayed us both with the new lavender eau de toilette I had bought her for Easter.

A Cat Above the Rest

As those of you know who follow this blog, the cat I write about now, my sweet ginger ninja, is not the cat with whom I first shared this page. A boy of decided opinions, and strong personality, I’m sure had he been literate, the page would be called CatandIsobel. Or possibly, Cat.

He converted this dog person into a cat appreciator, kidnapped my heart and proceeded to conquer my friends and family, as well as making me new friends from his own large circle of admirers.

It sounds like a big claim, but he changed my life. He was a tie, a responsibility, a worry. All those things that people say when they tell you why they don’t want pets. Things I had agreed with. But he gave more than he took, even when he didn’t know it. A visit from Cat brightened Mother’s day. He sliced through her dementia to the animal lover she remains. She was proud that I could let him out of the car and he would walk straight up her garden path to greet her.

When she hovered between life and death last March, he slept on her bed, and she beamed to see him there.

Full of the Joys

If Not Cat does not sleep soundly tonight I shall worry.
He has been on the go since lunchtime. I can see that if I want to enjoy his companion animal services in the warmer months, I may have to put a tent up in the garden. This is his first spring with me.

Playing With the Sensor

Unbelievably, it is nearly a year since Cat died. A year since Mother hovered between life and death, and, as I now know, the beginning of her move into the nursing home.
Not Cat has eased some of the pain of Cat’s death. He, like Cat, has unknowingly provided support through some of the darker days of Mother’s decline. He has given us pleasure, and somehow, hope.

A River of Stones, Day Twenty-Three: There and Back

I drop a kiss on Mother’s head to say goodbye. Today she has not recognised me. I arrived early and walked up the hill from the station. We spent time together. I cleaned, trimmed and filed her nails. She recited The Lord’s My Shepherd with me as I worked. Afterwards, she worked the handcream into her skin, and as the smell of lavender filled the room, lifted her fingers to her nose, inhaling and smiling. After lunch I read to her; the old favourites – Wordsworth’s Daffodils, Masefield’s Sea Fever, Smart’s My Cat Jeoffrey.
I was there for a meeting about her care. At the last minute I called the Alzheimer’s Society, who also help with people like Mother who have vascular dementia. I was lucky; the woman who has been emailing me and speaking to me on the ‘phone since summer was free and happy to attend. I was so glad of her presence and support.

Diminishing Futures

A River of Stones, Day Twelve, The Breadknife

I am in the kitchen making soup. To the left is the bread board with the breadknife lying on the counter beside it. It is an old knife, but new to me, having been my mother’s, now one of the things of which she has no need in the nursing home. I am looking at it and remembering it in her hands, slicing the nut loaf whose recipe we found in a copy of Family Circle one year between Christmas and New Year. We gathered up the remaining nuts to make it. It was delicious. For years my mother baked it weekly, changing and improving the recipe, never writing it down, and we carried it in sandwich boxes to school and work. I can see the breadknife on the dining room table on Sunday evenings; my mother rugged in grey-blue cords and a ribbed rust coloured jumper after an afternoon of gardening.
When we are all gone, as lost and forgotten as that recipe, the knife will be in someone else’s hands, slicing bread and lying unremarked in a kitchen.

The Breadknife

River of Stones Day 5 How is Your Mother?

Three people asked, “How is your mother?” Each time the question was sincere. Three times my eyes filled with tears and I wept for the woman she is now, and the woman she will never be again.

One person asked, “How is your mother?” But she did not really want to know. “About the same,” I answered. My heart cold like a stone.

Christmas Visit

It has been a mild day, but all the same, fifteen minutes sitting on a metal bench at Cambridge ststion was more than enough. I was very happy to board the next train.
I have spent the day East seeing Mother.
She was asleep when I arrived, and when she woke was confused and disorientated. A clergyman came to see her. He seemed to feel I was more in need of blessing than Mother. Maybe he was right.
I took the opportunity to discuss funerals with him. My recent experience when my friend Alison died has made me aware how short a time one has at the crematorium. It turns out there is a chapel we can use very close to the home. This was good news.
This sounds crazy, but I really hope this will be Mother’s last Christmas. I don’t want her to die, yet I do. To see her further diminished would be heart breaking.
I had the end of life meeting with a nurse. The things we do and do not want. I signed. She witnessed. This feels better.
Mother ate a good lunch and nearly licked the pudding dish. She drank quantities of cranberry juice.
When I had finished the talking and signing we want back to poetry.
Brilliant. There is no other word for it. Yeats, Larkin, De La Mare, Masefield, Wordsworth, Roaetti. The old favouritea. And Jenny wotsit’s Warning.
Mother held my hand and tapped the rhythms. We sighed. We laughed. We kissed and rubbed noses.
It was lovely. Precious. Special.
I came home on the train with my heart lighter than it has been for weeks.
Aunt is visiting on Christmas Eve with Morher’s close and loyal friend. Nephew is visiting with a Labrador on Christmas Day.