Wednesday

Mum was more awake than I expected this afternoon but that wasn’t saying much. She came to at the second attempt.

She tried to say something to me but seemed to forget that she needed to open her mouth. She didn’t decline a drink of squash and was able to hold the cup for herself.

There were two cups in a queue on her table and neither of them looked as if they’d been touched before this.

She wasn’t very cheerful or chatty and when she did start to try and say something it would start off indistinct before tailing off into a mumble. I was able to make it out when she asked me to read though.

It was all fairly typical for a first day awake.

After a couple of chapters, Al came in with her tea. Mashed up Weetabix in cream, a smoothie and a cup of tea.

“You will try and eat it all, won’t you Iris?” he said.

No response.

I got through about a quarter of the Weetabix before she started to refuse. I gave her a break and tried again. The total score was a third of a bowl of Weetabix, a quarter of a smoothie and a quarter of a cup of tea before she shut her eyes.

Ali returned as I was trying to get her to have another sip of Smoothie.

“How is she doing? Ah, sleepy-sleepy”

“Well, I’m not sure. I don’t think she’s asleep. I think she’s pretending so that she doesn’t have to eat or drink anything.”

And with that she was wide awake. I’ve often seen her do this right from when she was in The Hospital. She just shuts down and looks like she’s asleep if there’s a conversation she just doesn’t want to have or a task she doesn’t want to do.

“Would you like some grapes Iris?”

“Yes please”

I knew what was coming from past experience with grapes. Pop one in her mouth, watch her chew for a bit before pursing her lips so she can spit the skin out into my hand.

 The visit wasn’t all bad. Ann blew me big kiss on my way out.

Bibliography

Tales from the Parish: 31 humorous short stories about community, family and village life, set in the English countryside

Kindle Edition

by Stefania Hartley

Author’s Note

My Mum is in a nursing home in a small village in the Thames Valley. The photo is not of the home. I used an AI image generator to give the reader some idea of the home she’s in.

All, some or maybe even none (you’ll never know!) of the names have been changed to protect privacy and hide real identities. If you think you recognise someone then let me know and I’ll edit the post or remove it entirely