On 26 August 2021 I wrote
I did some different sewing today, if only so I could dress MaDolly. MaDolly is my early birthday present from The Captain and I absolutely love her!
My sewing project is a bathrobe which I’ll finish tomorrow, and I’ll give you all the details then.
The next picture shows you The Captain’s project – a barrel converted into a table with a fridge! It’s off to a new home though so I’d better not get too fond of it.
Weren’t we productive in those balmy late summer days of 2021?
Occasionally as I write this blog I go back and look at WhatsApp (other platforms are available) messages from the time to remind me what I was talking about, as well as what I was taking pictures of. Those pictures are the curated version of my life. The WhatsApp is more the real me.
I was going to go down to Gatehouse that coming weekend to see Mum, but a member of staff at the home got Covid so the place was in lockdown again and no visitors were allowed. I told my friend, J (who has a difficult relationship with her own mother).
Me: I’m not going to Gatehouse now, as no visiting due to Covid
J: Oh that’s pants
J: I wish I could gift you my Mama time (J had plans to spend time with her mother that week, though was considering cancelling it)
Me: It’s ok. I have mixed emotions about seeing her these days so I’m partly relieved.
Me: I wish I could gift you my relationship with my Mum
J: I wish this too
Me: there’s been enough goodness there to share around
So, there we were – J was going to cancel seeing her mother with whom she had a difficult (and that’s me being generous) relationship. And I wasn’t able to visit my mother with whom I’d had a very close relationship. If only we had been able to share the good bits of each of those situations. I so wish this was possible.
I’d forgotten about the time when I had such mixed feelings about seeing Mum. My brain has chosen to forget that bit, for which I am grateful. But as I think back, I can recall how it felt that each time I left Mum I knew I would come back to a ‘lesser’ version of her next time. I often cried after seeing her. Sometimes only momentarily, sometimes great big oxygen-sucking sobs and gulps. I guess it was good to let it out. And then that anticipation gnawed away at me, like some hungry tapeworm inside of me. And during this period Mum was not only random, which I found remarkably easy to cope with, but also frequently upset and sad. Sometimes this was caused by a UTI, but there also seemed to be times when part of Mum was genuinely struggling with her situation. It was difficult to know, as conversation was already somewhat limited.
To this day Mum has always recognised me, for which I am endlessly grateful (see the wee crumbs that we are thankful for!). But there were certainly times in those first months when Mum didn’t always immediately trust me, in that she seemed not to trust anyone any more. There was a lot of talk of certain people being ‘on the other side’ which may have referred to the war, but not necessarily. We tried not to analyse the content of Mum’s conversations too much – it was more important to get a sense of the essence of her when we visited. And there were, as ever, good days and bad days.
Let’s hope that today is a good day – I find the criteria for good and bad have changed dramatically in the intervening months… I have grown to appreciate a couple of hours of quiet sleeping, with perhaps 5 seconds of waking up and smiling that it is me, her favourite daughter (as I tell her).
***
Trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching the Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches. I would really appreciate it if you could make a donation towards Alzheimer Scotland. They’re doing stuff that makes living with this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.
And if you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.
Shewolfinthevalley 
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