On 11 October 2021 I wrote:
Each day is another day forward.
Mostly I did some knitting today, but I fit a few minutes of good stabbing too.
And already I’m thinking of the next design. It will be quite different.
And still, it will be quite different. Life I mean.
Two years ago when I first wrote those words, they probably were only about the design for the smock. And yet we all knew that all our lives would be quite different. I think there was already talk of the new normal, whatever that was going to be.
We had come through almost a year of being painfully aware that our lives were changing dramatically … Mum, who had always been the centre of our worlds, was no longer able to hold that centre. And each week, she changed – the essence of her was still at her heart, and it still is, but more bits around the edges seemed missing with each visit.
We knew the future would be different, without Mum in it. But at this stage, despite how much of her we felt we had already lost, we could not conceive of a world in which she wasn’t breathing life into it.
And now… I still can’t conceive of that world. Mum still breathes life into my world whenever I visit her, but also at random moments, as I recall things about her. And yet it feels like she has so little breath left.
In so many ways our lives are going to be different.
***
Thank you for reading this.
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 
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