Saturday

Well, we definitely picked the right day for the video call yesterday. That’s not to say Mum was asleep today. She very much wasn’t.

Mum was very calm, very chatty and spoke clearly enough for me to at least be able to keep up with what she was saying. She was cheerful and content. She was cooperative too and had plenty to drink. She seemed much more comfortable and was more physically mobile than yesterday.

She did seem to remember seeing the photo of Brother’s dog but the memory of speaking to Brother himself was vague at best. But that’s all normal for Day 3 of her Sleepy/Active cycle. I was pretty confident she knew who I was because Mum talked about Eldest Sister.

“How’s her baby?”

“He’s fine Mum.”

Eldest Sister’s ‘Baby’ is now well over 6 feet tall, bearded and married.

What would have made a video call tricky today was how surreal the conversation was. She could see people in the lounge and thought that they were the little boy and girl that had been there earlier. Then there were more children with us and a story about a lady she’d seen this morning at the end of the street who had told Mum off. I told Mum again that I’d been speaking to the nurses yesterday evening.

“I told them that they must have made a mistake” I said, “because they said you were a lovely lady. I told them that that didn’t sound like my Mum at all!”

“Bloomin’ cheek! she said, laughing. “Did you hear what he said about me!?” she said to the Other People who had just appeared on the other side of the bed.

The strangest bit was when she thought she’d lost one of her fingers and had to count them to make sure they were all there.

The fussing and fidgeting with the bedclothes started.

And then she fell asleep.

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