On 29 August 2021 I wrote
Today I am another year older. Hurrah!
I was going to see Mum today, but visiting is cancelled at the home this weekend (yes, Covid related), so we spoke on the phone instead, and she was sad not to be having coffee and cake with me and my brothers. I was sad too, to be honest.
But, as James reminded me, I have long history of not seeing Mum on my birthday. On my 10th birthday Mum was in hospital. I think it was for her back, or possibly pleurisy? Anyway, she remained in hospital and I made my own cake. The following day she discharged herself, so she could hand over a petition to a Government Minister on behalf of the A75 Action Group (which campaigned to improve the road, and therefore the communities along it). I was a petulant child, and never let Mum forget how she discharged herself from hospital the day AFTER my birthday. I haven’t forgotten, but I forgave her many years ago.
I miss her today as much as I did when I was 10.
In other news… LOOK AT THE SWALLOWS ON THE WASHING LINE!
I read this little slice of my life from nearly 2 years ago now and I realise how little things change. And how everything is different.
When I was still at school, I remember being miffed that one of my brothers had a summer holiday birthday, and the other a birthday just before Christmas… but me? My birthday was generally usually in that first week back at school. Oh the injustice! The more I think about it, the more I sense that as a child I thought the world was against me.
Being the youngest of three I was ALWAYS trying to catch up – either physically by toddling after my brothers, or in some other skill, like playing the piano (which I quickly realised was not something I would ever catch up on, so I gave up altogether despite still being forced to go to piano lessons).
One of my refrains was “Wait for me, wait for meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” which I would wail from the back of the pack of Wolffe cubs.
I have an early recollection of then saying to Mum, one day, “Life’s not fair”.
Mum glanced over at this sulky child of hers and concurred, “Yes, Life’s not fair.”. In my memory she also said “get used to it” but perhaps I made that bit up.
These days I shout the loudest when I sense an injustice.
Because as was confirmed to four year old Loïs, “Life’s not fair”
Having said all that, I have thought for years that it was totally fair of Mum to discharge herself the day after my birthday. It was so entirely Mum, to believe that her world should not revolve around her children, and also to know that we would have other birthdays that she would be there for. But Dumfries and Galloway is a different place because of her campaigns for the A75 to bypass the towns it went through. And if she had not discharged herself that day, to meet the Minister for Transport, who knows? Perhaps it wouldn’t have happened.
The last birthday I had with Mum was in 2019, and actually I’m not sure exactly how we celebrated that year… but we weren’t to know what was coming, so I’m so glad that whatever we did, we enjoyed it for what it was, and not because it would be the last. We seem to have got so conscious of ‘lasts’ in recent years, and I don’t think it has enhanced any situation.
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Mostly on this blog I write about trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia, which nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching her old 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.
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.
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.
Shewolfinthevalley 
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