Monday

“Have you been able to register the death yet?”

“Not yet. The first available appointment was tomorrow morning”

“I bet that wasn’t how you thought you’d be spending Christmas Eve!”

The Funeral Director was brilliant. Didn’t argue with our wish to stay just on the right side of the line between frugal and bleak.

“Have you had any thoughts about the coffin?”

“Yep. The cheapest one you have. No point going for some rare African hardwood. She’ll only be in it a couple of hours and then they’ll set light to it. It doesn’t need to be heavy duty because Mum doesn’t weigh anything. It’s not like a funeral my Dad was at. It was one of his old colleagues, another retired policeman so he was a fairly big bloke. Dad was in the bearer party. As they leant into the hearse to pick the coffin up the undertaker leant in and said

“Careful lads! Don’t trust the handles!”

“Ha! Yeah! You shouldn’t!”

The conversation was easy and there was a lot of laughter.

“We have an option for relatives to come and see the deceased. Is that something that would be of interest?”

“Nope. If they wanted to see her and show respect than they should’ve done it to her face when she was alive. If they didn’t do it for her then then doing it after she’s died is doing it for them and not her. I’m not paying for that. There were some who couldn’t travel and did video calls. That was fine. But she was in a home here for 18 months so it’s not like they didn’t have a chance.”

“OK. Fair enough. And what would you like Mum to be wearing for the cremation?”

“I’ve got a white nightdress here. It’s pretty much the only thing in her wardrobe that I can guarantee is hers after the laundry cock-ups in the home.”

“Ha! Yeah, I hear that a lot. People go to visit Granny in a home and don’t recognise what she’s wearing and a few minutes later they see someone walking past with Granny’s cardigan on!

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, some underwear. Got to try and keep her decent.”

The conversation moved on to the Service.

“Not my area of expertise. I think you’ll have to speak to Mum’s vicar about that…”

With all the details gathered and forms signed he presented the cost.

“Dad always said this was a good business to be in. Literally everybody is a potential customer!”

The base for today’s operation was Lesley’s dad’s.

“Hello! Are you alright?” I asked as I walked in the door.

“Yes! I’m fine!”

“It’s just that the carer phoned us to say that you had to tell him you couldn’t get out of your armchair to go to the toilet this morning when he was here.”

“Oh, yes. That’s right.”

“And are you feeling tired? He said you were late getting up and you were asleep again 15 minutes after he left. And didn’t we just wake you up when we came in?”

The drinks on his table were the ones I’d seen the carer leave for him two hours earlier. All untouched. I’d been getting the feeling that his persistent dehydration wasn’t just down to him not thinking to drink. He sleeps so much that he goes hours without a drink.

“Right. I’m going to the undertaker now. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“OK”

Lesley gave more detail when I got back.

“He asked where you’d gone soon after you left. And asked again about 10 minutes later.”

“Oh.”

“That ham sandwich he made me make him last night? Didn’t eat it. Took the ham out and ate that but put the bread back together and I found it in the bin.”

“Ah.”

“The day centre delivered him his lunch. Have to say it didn’t look very nice but he wouldn’t touch it. The Dog enjoyed it though.”

“Bloody hell.

“Oh, did you work out what he’d done with his meds this morning? Was it obvious where that blue pill the carer was talking about came from?”

“I think so. He’s been taking random pills from random rows.”

The carer had only turned his back on him for a minute.

“How about some soup?” I asked him.

“Yes. I’ve got plenty of soup in.”

Did he want any? No. Did he want to have his tea early because he missed lunch? No.

“He asked what those things under the Christmas tree were again today. I think his presents must be edible because The Dog was interested.”

“Dad? We’re going to take The Dog out for a walk. Are you going to be alright?”

“I was thinking I’d go to bed for a couple of hours.”

“Why not stay there? In your recliner armchair?”

He agreed that was easier but couldn’t remember which button to press and couldn’t see the symbols well enough to work it out. Lesley showed him how again.

He’d managed to put his chair almost upright again by the time we got back.

“Dad? Are you alright? Are you feeling tired?”

“I’ve just got no energy.”

He then wanted to ask a question. We gave him space and time to find the right words. He had enough false starts to leave himself breathless and he abandoned the attempt.

Talk turned gently towards care homes.

“If you go to the one where Iris was it would be just like going to the day centre every day. They’ve got stuff going on all day seven days a week if you want it. It’s like your day centre but with private rooms. There’s tea and home-made cake every day, they have entertainers every week, they show films every night and Nick knows the people you’d get on with.”

He seemed to be coming round to the idea until the 24 hour presence of fully qualified, experienced nurses was mentioned. It triggered something.

“Those people who came round the other day… The nurses…”

“Who? The doctor?”

“Well he didn’t look like one. I’d like to know what their qualifications were. Somebody should ask him who he was.”

“He’s a doctor. A psychiatrist. He works for the professor you saw at the hospital in the summer.”

“Well, I didn’t believe him. Somebody should find out who he is.”

Lesley twigged that the psychiatrist had mentioned a care home. His other crime? He had long hair.

“But you need more help than we can give. You need help all the time. Not just when you get up and at tea-time. We’re frightened that you’re not coping.”

“I know. What a state to be in.”

“Perhaps we could just visit one. No rush. We’ll do it after Christmas.”

He had a rough time coming up. His day centre was closed until after New Year. Without his routine of going to the day centre three days a week he wouldn’t know where he was. He was already struggling a bit. The day centre doesn’t deliver meals at the weekend but he was expecting one yesterday. The meal that was delivered today caught him by surprise.

The lady he knows from the day centre who helps with his evening meal wouldn’t be working  over Christmas either. The lads who come early to bathe and dress him had had their work schedules changed too and their attendance was going to be patchy.

It looked like his resistance to going into a home was going to fade just at the time we’d be able to do nothing about it and he was going to need a lot of help when we couldn’t give it.

Lesley got a message from her sister when we eventually got home.

“Were you at Dad’s today? Can you talk?”

“No. We’ve been there all day, we haven’t eaten yet and I’ve got a ton of stuff to do.”

“Just 5 mins?”

“No. My head’s fried.”

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