Thursday

When I pulled up in the car park at The Home today I could see a resident assisting one of the maintenance team and a carer with watering the garden.

“You’ll make it rain doing that you know!” I called over the wall.

“Water the garden or wash your car, both guaranteed to make it rain. It’s The Law!”

Mum was as lucid today as she’s been in ages. That’s not to say she was very happy, because she wasn’t. That’s not to say that she spoke clearly throughout or that she was completely free from confusion either. What made me think she was lucid was that we were in a brief window where she truly appreciated how she was and where she was and what was going on.

She looked a lot better than she did yesterday and I told her so. The gunk had been cleaned from her eyes, her hair had been brushed and she was fully awake. Her movement was still slow and her coordination wasn’t brilliant but with help she was able to hold her cup of tea herself.

I started by telling her about my day. How we had been looking after next-door’s dog and had taken her out for walks. How this little dog is the only dog Our Hound will let anywhere near her without there being any danger of a fight.

I showed Mum a photo of the dog in the brook cooling off.

“You know Margo. Lesley brought her in to see you a while back.”

“Oh yes. I remember.”

For once, I was convinced her memory was genuine.

She had a bit of an indistinct moan. The only bit that I could understand was when she said that nobody had been to see her.

 “I’m here every day Mum.”

“Yes. I know. I look forward to it. You haven’t got to go anywhere today have you?”

“No Mum. Plenty of time today.”

“Good”

I explained that her other kids were all still working full time and that she came to a place near me so she could get a visit every day. I ran through all the family and told her when they’d last been to visit her or spoken to her on the phone. I went through all the extended family and friends and told her when I’d last been in touch with them to let them know how she was. She took it all on board.

There was a lot of traffic in the corridor outside her room today. Clean laundry being returned to residents’ rooms, staff going in and out of the lounge opposite and so on. In spite of it being busy, the atmosphere was calm.

“That’s the lounge over there. It’s nice. You get different views. You can see more of the farm and the field where the cows are. You can see right down to the river. You could try it one day.”

“Yeah”

“And the ladies who sit in there are very nice.”

“Oh! No. I don’t want that”

I let the matter drop. She finished her tea.

“Read me a story.”

I got to the end of a chapter and a gust of wind blew the window shut.

“I think this spell of horrible hot weather is coming to an end. We’re going to get a storm.”

“Oh. Good.”

“I can hear thunder now. It’s not far away.”

“Hadn’t you better get yourself home?”

It seemed a shame to cut such a good visit short but you don’t get an offer like that every day and I had been there for an hour.

I made it to the car as the first drops of rain fell. We need a decent amount of rain to clear the air. My hay-fever has been crippling over the past few days. I couldn’t breathe well enough to get to sleep until 3am last night and The Dog wanted to go out into the garden an hour later. I went home and went to bed.

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