On 15 September 2021 I wrote:
And we almost have a leaf! I’m enjoying this wild strawberry more than I expected, possibly because I have learnt that the key to satin-like satin stitch is THREE strands of embroidery thread. I suspect I knew this aged 12, but am pleased to have learned it again.
I called Mum again this evening. When the carer gave her the phone and told her it was her daughter, Mum asked which daughter.
I am her only daughter.
She seemed pleased enough that it was me though and remembered that I’d gone swimming at the weekend, so assumed that was what I was going to do when I got off the phone.
She talks more freely about her confusion these days, though yesterday she assured me she isn’t very confused, not yet anyway.
The day after she moved into the home she said to my brother, “It’s good we don’t have to pretend any more”. Although it was never entirely clear what she meant by this, we took it to mean that she felt she could drop the social veneer now, and allow herself to relax and just live with her dementia. Certainly she seemed somehow more liberated at saying whatever was on her mind. And it certainly seemed a confusing place.
She seems quite settled now, and institutionalised, which is not surprising as she lives in an institution. She is treated with care, and knows she is loved. She even laughs when I tell her she is my favourite Mum. Well she is. And evidently I am her favourite daughter.
When I wrote this nearly two years ago, Mum had been living in the care home for just two months. It’s over two years now. Looking back I find it hard to recall exactly what she was like, what I was like… what life was like then.
Mum’s broken wrist was recovering… she hadn’t been able to move about while it was still mending, as she relied on being able to support herself with a wheeled walking frame, which she called her dancing partner. So her first few weeks in the home were spent sitting in her room, mostly entirely alone. And we were still in the grip of the second year of Covid restrictions, so our worlds were still pretty isolated. I say ‘our’ deliberately. The Captain and I live a couple of miles from the nearest village, surrounded by fields and woodland and could go for weeks on end during those Covid months without seeing another soul. It felt blissful if I’m honest. I, who had lived in London for half of my life, who loved being with old friends and making new ones, fully embraced this opportunity to be solo. And Mum? I never knew how the home operated before Covid so have no comparison, but I have a sense that her life was pretty solo too. And that her jumbling brain was finding it increasingly difficult after periods of isolation to remember how to make conversation again. it wasn’t just that she lost words, she seemed to lose the ability to connect sentences, or to respond to something someone else had said.
None of this mattered.
She might not have been able to excel in ‘our’ world any more, but we could usually slip into hers with her. So that is what we did… taking her as she was each time we spoke to her. There were good days and bad days, and there continue to be.
But the constant throughout these last years has been her ability to keep up that social veneer… she had wee phrases she would fall back on, that no doubt had seen her through her life, and had been said so often that the muscle memory brought them out despite the jumble in her brain.
“How lovely to see you”
“Thank you for coming”
“Thank you for calling”
“Oooh, your hands are so cold”
And then, more often, we were greeted with, “How did you get in?”
And quite recently, when Mum was becoming almost non-verbal, she told one of the carers that they looked tired. The carer told me this with tears welling up in her eyes, it meant so much to her to have been noticed by one of her charges.
Yes, despite her ailing health and her failing brain, Mum has remained her charming self.
***
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.
Finally, if it’s not too much to ask (I know, it is, apologies) 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 
That is a lovely story about your mum noticing the carer. It’s so important to make the most of these tiny moments and to take people with dementia as they are.
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