Friday

Two days without seeing Mum. Two days without worrying about Lesley’s dad. Two days without writing. It all felt a bit weird.

I’d started off Wednesday quite confidently. Mum had shown all the signs of slipping into another Sleepy phase on Tuesday evening. I was certain she’d asleep and had decided early on not to visit. But the doubts mounted during the day and I messaged Reggie to check. He said she’d been mostly asleep all day and his assessment was that she’d have her Unresponsive day on Thursday. So that’s what I went with.

Wednesday was a bit of a washout for me. A Not Knowing What To Do With Myself day. Thursday was better and I managed to get some time in the workshop. I started milling the wood that came from a neighbour’s trees that were felled a couple of years ago. The Copper Beech is beautiful. Straight grain, rich colour with subtle and unusual figuring.

Lesley appreciated the downtime that her sister’s visit offered too. At one point her sister apologised for ‘interfering’ when she suspected she was doing something for Dad a different way from usual. Lesley told her not to worry.

“I’m just grateful not to be constantly On Duty!”

Mum was asleep when I got to The Home. Well, she had her eyes closed. She kept them closed as I moved her drinks table and her visitor chairs around and I wasn’t exactly creeping around the room trying not to disturb her. She didn’t open her eyes until I told her I was there. Her first reaction was

“Can I have a drink?”

I kept my news to a minimum. I was wary of letting on that I hadn’t been there for two days. Mum is usually uncommunicative on Day One coming out of a Sleepy phase and today was no exception. She barely said anything other than to ask for more to drink.

Mid-way through the visit we had another visitor and Mum seemed utterly confused by the tall, jolly blonde who was asking her how she was. Perhaps it was because the lady was wearing civvies rather a uniform. She did have a good crack at answering her questions though and it was the most alert she was the entire time I was there. When she left, Mum gave me a “Who on earth was that!?” look.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she. She’s the manager here.”

“IS SHE!?”

The Manager had told me she was pleased to see how alert Mum was. I didn’t say “Well, she is now you’re here!”. I didn’t say “She’s struggling to stay awake and only wants to hold my hand while I read to her” either.

Other things that I didn’t say were that I thought she looked terrible and that I thought she looked like she felt terrible too. Her cheeks were even more sunken than they’d been last Friday.

On a trip to get her some more juice I met Sean. He told me he thought Mum was getting in to the same cycle that she’d been in when she was first transferred from the nursing home in Epping Forest last year – sleeping lots and shouting when she was awake. He was pleased at how much Mum was drinking though.

“But she’s so thin and weak now Sean.”

“Yes, that’s true. She hardly eats anything now. And she’s started refusing her fortified milkshakes too.”

“Is she!? 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