mum
Apologies if this post sounds heartless, honestly it isn't. I'm just writing here to process events of the last week.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning my Mum passed away. It wasn't a shock. We had been expecting it for about four or five days after she had taken a bad fall in her care home.
She landed badly on her shoulder, either breaking or dislocating it. The paramedics were called and, after assessing her and talking to their boss, decided that because of her condition she wouldn't be admitted to hospital, but just made comfortable with a ton of drugs. We knew what the ton of drugs meant; the phone call that told us she was on end-of-life care came two days after the syringe pump was attached to her and was not unexpected.
These falls had become more and more regular, the home would call to inform me each time and each time their name appeared on my phone screen I expected it to be THAT phone call, the one to say she wasn't getting up from this one.
She was diagnosed with dementia in 2012, a particularly cruel version where people would only live an average of eight years after diagnosis. That she lived 5 years past that point is testament to her fighting spirit, her fortitude and, some would say, stubbornness.
It was a cruel condition, made her hallucinate, made her believe the house she was living in (the one she had lived in for 30 years) was a replica of her real house and, cruellest of all, the man she was living with was an imposter who happened to look like my dad - the man she had been married to for 60 years. She spent most of her time packing to go back to her real home and husband. It must have been exhausting for my dad.
When he died in 2015 she had to be admitted to a care home, none of us children had the capacity to care for her. The care home was nice, it was 5 minutes from my house and I would visit regularly. Each time she tearfully told me she wanted to go home and then got angry when I couldn't take her with me when I left.
Visiting was fine for a few years until COVID hit and then the home closed its doors to the outside world. She got COVID twice and survived when half of the residents did not. That December was a horrific time.
After COVID she was more confused and was placed in the corridor where the severe dementia residents lived. The shufflers, the shouters, the grabbers and the bed bound skeletons. When I visited it was clear she didn't know me, she would get up and walk off whilst I was talking to her or tell me to sling my hook. Each of those visits was emotionally draining, I'd often choke back tears in the car park.
When the news came of her death I didn't feel anything. I expected waves of grief or even relief to wash over me, but no waves came. I think I grieved in tiny increments each and every time the care home door clicked behind me after a difficult visit.
I was, and still am, sad that she had died, but to be brutally honest she had been dying slowly in front of our eyes in super slow motion spread out over thirteen years. I lost my mum years ago and the grave I would visit sat across from me at the sticky care home table - looking for all the world like a very old and thin version of my mum - and ramble about Mary and ask where her husband or her son was.
It's hard to see past the last 13 years to glimpse the mum she was before her diagnosis. It's like dementia was a devastating, overpoweringly blinding flash - the afterimage of which still obscures the view of her when she was fully with us.
Over time I hope to regain those memories. There are family members planning on coming to her funeral who I haven't seen for 40 years - and who never saw mum in her dementia phase. I really, truly hope they can help me rediscover those memories of mum that I have mislaid.
Maybe then I can properly grieve for that lovely lady.