Wednesday

There’s an occupational hazard that sometimes has to be faced when visiting a nursing home  and I had my closest brush with it so far today. I arrived at The Home just as the undertaker’s van was being loaded up. The staff who were available were assembled on the front steps to pay their respects as the van left. They were all in bits and were trying to at least look unruffled before going back in to the other residents. It was the manager who seemed to be struggling the worst. I spent a few moments with them before doing as they did – carrying on as normally as possible.

After yesterday’s performance I expected to find Mum asleep.

She wasn’t.

“Your Mum’s very talkative today” warned Sean

“Yeah. I’ve already worked that out thanks!”

I had feared that Mum was racing through her Sleepy/Active cycle and that the bit where she was awake and able to eat and drink was going to be cut short. But it looked like she was just doing the normal phases out of sequence.

There were two family birthdays today. I suggested that I should take a photo of her to WhatsApp to the family chat with a message. She didn’t appear to object to the idea.

“Smile for the camera Mum!”

“NO!”

Her priority was getting ready to leave and having a cup of tea.

Mum wasn’t at all perturbed by her Other People today. She was telling them what to do and  even arguing with them.

One of them (Uncle Eric possibly) had told her that he was popping out for 5 minutes and would be back to pick her up apparently.

“But that doesn’t give me time to get ready!” she complained.

She was quite indignant about a lot of what was being said back to her.

She kept listing who was there and counting them. Sometimes she would break off mid-sentence or mid-drink as they came and went. Half of them were kids. She finally settled on 15 people but there had been as many as 22 at one point.

Sean came in to join us. Mum carried on talking to her Other People. I asked him if he’d seen her talking to people only she could see before as not everyone has. I don’t think he had been aware that she wasn’t talking to him when he came in to her room.

“There’s fifteen Other People in the room with us now aren’t there Mum?”

“Yeah”

“I’m going to have to go home and get a bigger van so we can all go home together!”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

Sean just smiled and left us to it. Mum kept talking.

When I saw that the other residents were being moved into the lounge I realised a meal was about to be served.

“Looks like your tea is on its way Mum so I’m going to go and have mine”

She said “Alright” and carried on talking so I stood and waited for her to finish.

After a couple of minutes she looked at me and said “Oh!” as in “Oh! You’re still here!”.

She hadn’t been talking to me at all.

And then, as I turned to leave…

“You are coming back aren’t you? Don’t be long!”

Bloody hell.

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