Saturday

Another long day for Lesley with her dad. Another long, muddy walk for me and The Dog.

Dad was OK today. He seemed to be over the latest stomach upset and was well enough to be taken out for lunch. The new expanded checklist for morning and afternoon carer visits was working well and everyone can now see who did what when and tell what needs doing next.

By the time Lesley got back it was getting late and my willingness to head off to The Home was ebbing. I messaged Reggie to see if Mum was awake. There was a fair chance she wouldn’t be given how active she’d been and the way that she’d talked herself to a standstill yesterday.

“She’s awake and has been in a good mood again all day.” he replied.

It was worth going to see her then. When I walked into her room she was still talking. She was barely audible now and I didn’t think I’d be able to understand what she was saying even if I could hear.

“Hello Mum! It’s Nick.”

I couldn’t understand what she said but it sounded like she was pleased to see me.

“How are you feeling Mum? Are you alright?”

“Why!? What do you mean!?”

“Nothing. It’s just that you look alright. That’s all.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still around…”

The only other thing I could understand was when she asked where Uncle Tony was.

“It’s Saturday Mum. I expect he’s been at the football.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

After that, everything was inaudible and unintelligible. But then she wasn’t talking to me anyway. Her attention was all on her Other People.

Reggie joined us. We chatted and watched Mum fighting to stay awake. It was a fight she eventually gave up on. Her carer came in when Reggie left. She told me that while Mum had been drinking well it was even more difficult that normal to get her to eat anything while she’s like this.

“Will you be here tomorrow Nick?”

“No, she’ll definitely be asleep all day tomorrow so I won’t come in. We’ll see about Monday.”

For the past few days, well, weeks actually, I’d been feeling guilty about not having been to talk to Audrey. I’d been consciously avoiding going into the lounge for fear of getting a telling off for not having been to see her. But the visit to Mum had been short and I wanted to make the drive to The Home worthwhile.

“Audrey!! How the devil are you!? Please accept my most humble apologies for not having seen you for so long.”

“What!? Since yesterday?”

She had no idea how long it had been. She’d been sitting staring into space with Strictly blaring on the telly. In an instant she came alive and she told me an animated story about the trials and tribulations she was going through with her move back from Africa. I knew from the family photos outside her room that she’d lived there but the photo was black & white so this wasn’t recent.

Half her stuff was still there and half was somewhere else. She was having to rely on family to send her belongings on and she expressed her lack of confidence in their competence. Even though she was having more of a struggle than normal to find the right words and was making words up so not to delay the telling of the tale I was able to keep up enough to make the right comments to sympathise with her predicament and complement her on her ingenuity.

Equally nice was how the staff react to seeing her that happy. They love it and it makes them laugh.

But while Audrey was having a good time, Eleanor very much wasn’t. Her anxiety levels go up the later it gets. She’d already been roaming around shouting at people while I’d been talking to Reggie in Mum’s room.

“COME OUT!! COME OUT OF THERE!!”

“Which one of us do you want? Me or Nick?”

“BOTH OF YOU!!”

Then she was looking for her son and later on it was her father who was missing.

“My Daddy! Where’s my Daddy!?”

I couldn’t hear what the carers in the lounge had said in response but she told them to shut up because they were all liars. She finished off by yelling at me to stop talking to Audrey.

“STOP IT! GET OUT! GET OUT!!”

I know she’ll be alright again in the morning but she was as angry, lost and frightened as I’d ever seen her today.

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