Archive by Author

Newlands and Norwegians

10 Apr

On 19 August 2021, I wrote a second post, below:

More clothes pegs on a line. They maybe don’t look much like clothes pegs but they are, and I kinda like them. They might make more sense once the swallows are there too.

The bonus picture today is of the Duncan siblings, taken on the steps of Newlands during WW2. They all feature in Mum’s memoirs in different ways, but the biggest character is Newlands itself.. it was given to Norwegians during the war, to use as a hospital, while Gran lived in the Garden Cottage with her daughters, Jen and Mum. But more on that another day.

The Duncan siblings: Arthur, Loïs (my Grandmother), Walter, Lorna and John

Mum was proud of her connections to Norway, first developed on her long journey back to Scotland at the start of WW11. On the ship were only a few passengers, and it seems that they were mostly Norwegian whalers, heading back to Europe to fight. Our Grandmother had a particular and long-lasting friendship with one, Kris Thoresen also known as Big Dog.

And Mum remembered with great fondness the young recuperating Norwegian soldiers who climbed trees with her on the Newlands Estate during the war. When she jumped into a large water tank and cut her foot (almost in half by all accounts!) on a broken jam jar at the bottom of the tank, she was carried up to the Big House which the Norwegians had turned into a hospital during the War, and there the kind Norwegian surgeons sewed her foot back together and the nurses bandaged it up.

In 2017 Mum contributed to a local project, gathering information about the connections between Dumfries and Norway from WW11 and beyond. The project is now all compiled here: Our Norwegian Story. There is oodles of information on the site about the many and varied ways that the Norwegians and the Doonhamers engaged with one another, including a section on Newlands (click through on the locations, and then on Newlands).

There were Royal visits to Newlands, by King Haakon in the 1940s and then King Olav in the 60s. As Mum’s mind started unravelling she became slightly obsessed with King Haakon, and with the plaque he unveiled at Newlands – she would suggest that we went for a visit to see the plaque, because no-one else would know about it any more, only her. There were days I would visit and she would tell me that he was coming to tea the next day, or that he had been there earlier, and now had thrown all his rubbish into that pile ‘there’ (pointing at the corner of the bed, where she regularly claimed there was a rubbish dump).

One of Mum’s other obsessions (for a while) was biscuits. She LOVED to have biscuits in her tin. And as fast as I could bake, and fill up that tin, they would all be eaten again.

And then I found a recipe for King Haakon biscuits! The joy! Of course I made a batch and took them to Mum, who declared that they had probably been made specially by the cook at Newlands, and that cook got the recipe from the King. I took that as praise indeed for my biscuits.

The biscuit recipe actually came from the WI Biscuit book, which is an absolute must for anyone who vaguely likes making biscuits.

And now I have a batch of the biscuit dough in the fridge, ready to be cut into slices and baked, so soon the kitchen will smell deliciously of sweet baking.

Do let me know if you make King Haakon biscuits. Or if you want the recipe for the Cardamom Cookies, which are sensationally good. One of these days I’ll get back to writing up more recipes again.

***

I started writing this series of posts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

Before that I blogged about whatever I was cooking and you can find my recipes here.

Letter to Mum

5 Apr

Back in early December I was lucky enough to spend 3 days at Melville Castle on a writing retreat, with fellow Bold Scribes. Bold is a remarkable organisation, which has helped me not only survive the last couple of years, but to begin to flourish in new ways.

Without Bold there might not be regular(ish) blog posts; and there certainly wouldn’t have been such a positive attitude to Mum’s ability to continue to live her best life, when by most measures her life was diminishing.

Our final assignment on this retreat was to write a letter to someone, about dementia. My initial thought was to write to my nephew, telling him that I want him to read my memoirs to me when I have dementia. But it just wasn’t working for me. The words just faltered and stuck in the pen, refusing to go down on to the page.

So instead I wrote to Mum.

I wrote to her as she was when she was my age. You can read the letter below.

Dear Mum

This is me, your daughter Loïs, but I am now 57 years old… and I have travelled back in time to talk to 57 year old you.

Don’t ask how, or why, just bear with me.

I know at this stage this seems almost impossible to believe, but shortly after your 90th birthday you will be diagnosed with mixed dementia (Alzheimers and vascular, if you’re interested). And I am writing to tell you that it is going to be ok. You will be alright.

As James and I have said to you so many times this last year – you don’t need to worry, we are here to do your worrying for you these days. I know, I know, 57 year old you doesn’t do much worrying.. but 90 year old you found lots to worry about. I think it was that you could no longer always make sense of what was going on in the world.

I don’t know how much you know about dementia, perhaps not much more than I did last year before your diagnosis.

So what are the key things to tell you? There is so much to say, but actually I wonder how much of it really matters? What I have learned through your dementia is that all that really matters in the end is love. And you know, Mum, that although we haven’t always voiced it, that you are so very loved by all of us.

I’m going to assume that my two big fears about you having ‘a touch of Alzheimers’ as you put it the day after your diagnosis are the same as your two fears. Because I know how much we think alike.

My greatest fear was that you would no longer recognise me. Me! Your favourite daughter! And yes, I know that I am your only daughter, but it’s become one of our wee jokes – I call you my favourite Mum, and you call me your favourite daughter. Yup, I know, it’s not really that funny, but when you’re 90 it will become more amusing, trust me on this. And let’s put that fear to one side – you continue to know me, and if you don’t know who I am, I now know that you will always at least understand that I am someone who loves you and keeps you safe.

And my other fear is that you will change temperament, that you will no longer maintain your composure, that you will lose that ability you have to be firm but kind, so very kind, and always always fair. What if your dementia alters your personality, such that you are constantly angry, that you shout and swear and hit out at people, either physically or verbally? I don’t know how I would cope with that.

Perhaps you are worrying about what you will lose… what bits of you will be lost to all of us (your easy conversation, your stories, your memories, your ability to draw with such ease, how you can make a feast for a table full of family from what appears to be frugal scraps in the fridge). And yes, all of that will go. But none of that is really you. It’s just stuff you do. You are still there.

And I can confirm that 91 year old you with relatively advanced dementia is the concentrated essence of who you are.

Never have you been more loved.

But one thing – look after your teeth.

All my love

Loïs, your favourite daughter

***

You can read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia starting here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

Slow and steady

3 Apr

On 19 August 2021, I wrote:

Slow but steady progress.

A washing line of swallows. And clothes pegs.

This morning I awoke wondering about the timeline of this writing. It feels as though I am writing in several different timezones all at once:

  • the time when I originally posted the picture (currently August 2021)
  • sometimes decades earlier, reflecting on aspects of Mum’s life
  • and now.

Though really, I haven’t been saying much about now have I?

And I wonder if that is what is going on? Am I writing about what was happening 19 months ago, in order to hold back time? Or too avoid looking too closely at what is going on right now? Because A Lot is going on. And has been (in various forms) for quite some time now. Perhaps for all those 19 months.

More recently, over Christmas it became clear that we were getting rapidly to the point when we would need to sell her house to release the equity to cover the eye-watering weekly fees for her ongoing care. On another occasion I will write more about this, for now all you need to know is that we made the decision to put our home on the market, so we could buy Mum’s house (if the figures added up and we would be able to do so).

The figures do and so we’ve been making progress. But rather like the washing line of swallows 19 months ago, it has been slow and steady.

And then in early March things changed. Mum’s health deteriorated significantly, and she stopped eating. A few days later she started to eat tiny amounts again, but most of her time is spent sleeping and it feels like she won’t be with us for much longer. If she had not started taking in some food again, we were told she may only have 2 or 3 weeks left with us.

So the anticipatory grief rollercoaster throws us around another loop. After spending several days sitting with her each afternoon as she slept, and I worked, or wrote, or knitted … and several evenings talking with my brother, we both felt that it was time for us to come back to our homes again. Mum is calm and peaceful; she is serene and when she wakes and sees that we are there she gives us the biggest smile. Her hair has been stroked more than ever before in her life, her hands smell sweetly of the lavender hand cream we rub into them. She smiles with delight when the carers come and care for her.

The first few days of this new normal were unbearable. Life without Mum has always felt impossible. But we know it’s not impossible. We just haven’t experienced it yet. We will learn how to live with it, like we learned so many other things, And in a strange way, it feels as though Mum is, yet again, showing us how to get through this transition – with grace and love.

***

You can read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia starting here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started when I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

Sisters

31 Mar

On 18 August 2021, I posted the following:

See these lovely wee girls with their whole amazing lives ahead of them?

They are my mum and her big sister, Jennifer.

Most of their lives are behind them now, but they are still full of so much love.

Jennifer has chosen to move into a care home this week and I send all my love to her and her family as she settles in to this new environment.

In recent months Mum has talked a lot about her early childhood when it was just her and Jennifer. They were a wee team, never apart. And although they are physically very much part these days, with Jen in Ireland and Mum in Scotland… somehow it isn’t surprising that they both go into homes within weeks of one another. Still doing things together, as they always did.

And here we are 19 months later and they are both still in care homes, being cared for with utmost professionalism and kindness.

But they are so very different. Mum has advanced dementia, and even communication is becoming more difficult for her these days. When I visit her she will generally sleep for most of the time, so I always remember to take my knitting or some writing so I can sit quietly beside her as she sleeps.

My brother and I visited Jen at the end of last month and she continues to be sharp and challenging, and bright, and interested in everyone and everything. It was an absolute joy to spend some time with her.

As a bonus, I share some more pictures of Jan and Alix from the early 1930s, coloured using palette.fm

***

You can read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia starting here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

I can see!

23 Mar

On 17 August 2021, I posted:

I got better lighting! I can see what I’m doing!

This is the beginning of a washing line with a bright plastic clothes peg. After the big pink cosmos flower this feels so small and delicate. And fun.

You have two other bits of embroidery in your bonus pics today… the first is some embroidery I did when I was about 12 years old (when my eyesight was considerably better) for my grandmother who I was named after. It’s the corner of a wee cotton hankie… one of around 100 hankies I found in mum’s chest of drawers. The 2nd is a monogrammed towel, which must have been a wedding present for my grandparents, making it over 100 years old.

The gift of sight is a thing you don’t appreciate until it starts diminishing.

When we were young, one of the closest of our aged relatives was our Uncle Walter. And he was blind. But I never quite understood the impact of him losing his sight because he seemed to manage to get about ok, and was a much-loved uncle who told the best stories and was the life and soul of any room he was in.

Though there was the fabled story of when he had walked through the plate glass door from the kitchen to the wash house, without opening the door. He hadn’t seen that it was shut. And glass. And he had just kept walking. If he had stopped on impact, it was believed a shard of glass might have come down on the back of his neck and killed him. Hurrah for keeping going when things go wrong!

I realise I don’t know why he was blind, what had happened to his sight? In my childlike way, I just assumed it was something that happened to some old people so I never enquired.

Mum’s eyes have been a trouble to her for years. Some 20 or 30 years ago she suffered from Bell’s Palsy, where one side of the face is weakened, apparently paralysed. Her mouth drooped on that side, and she was unable to close her eye. Mum was given some drugs, and eyedrops and lubricants, and a patch to put over her eye. I think it was taped up at night for a wee while too. Then the doctors took the decision to sew her eyelid shut until the palsy disappeared, to protect the eye.

When they cut her eyelid open again, they cut in just the wrong place – and forever more Mum’s eyelashes on her right eye grew inwards, scratching her eyeball, instead of outwards, protecting it. She would attend the eye clinic a the hospital in Dumfries every 6 weeks for what she called her ‘eye torture’.

Having escorted Mum to the eye clinic at hospital on many occasions, I appreciate having my eyesight, and also not having scratchy painful eyeballs. Poor Mum, she never ever complained about it, but it must have been horrid.

***

You can read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia starting here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

We can all fly

16 Mar

On 16 August 2021, I posted:

First stabs at the new design and I have already stitched and ripped it out twice. I didn’t like how the stitches were sitting, which might be because I really need to get new glasses and better lighting so I can see more clearly what I’m doing.

I was at Mum’s at the weekend and noticed that the second brood of swallow babies had fledged.. they were sitting resting on the washing line… and are today’s bonus pic.

I’d harvested mum’s potatoes the weekend before and when I told her, she’d looked all wistful and regretted that she wouldn’t get to eat them. So I decided she could, which meant I was scrubbing new potatoes and boiling them while I had breakfast on Sunday morning. Then I stuffed them in a wide mouthed thermos flask and smothered them with butter and salt and pepper.

And after our coffee mum had a potato course, before her lunch arrived. She loved them. It was so good to see her enjoying the moment.

It’s all about the moments these days.

Did I ever mention that mum taught me how to fly? She honestly did. As a child I believed I could fly, if I really wanted to. Mum gave me that belief in myself.

I told mum about the fledgling swallows and she was wistful about them flying off to South Africa. I reminded her that we can fly and she smiled, remembering that yes we can fly. If we want to.

The swallows have fledged. Soon they will fly all the way to South Africa

Reading those words some 18 months after I first wrote them I am struck by two things:

  • It continues to be all about the moments
  • Mum, despite her own apparent incapacity, still gives us the confidence to fly in whatever way we need to

Mum spends more and more time sleeping these days. She seems so calm and serene and at peace with her world. Again, I am astonished at how she continues to demonstrate her superpower of adapting to whatever circumstances she finds herself in.

When I visited her on Friday I sat beside her as she snoozed. As she woke up, I stood up and opened my arms as if to hug her, and said “hello Mama”… I was about to follow it with “It’s me, Loïs!” when she smiled a big smile and started to say ‘hello….’ and then she paused as though thinking what came next, but instead of worrying about it or thinking any further, she just repeated what I had said, “hello …. Mama!” There was such joy in that moment.

It’s all about the moments.

In some ways we are getting ready for her to fly, to fly away forever. I’m not sure I will ever be ready for that moment… though I do feel confident that she will when it comes.

***

You can read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia starting here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

Living your best life

13 Mar

On 15 August 2021, this is what I posted:

Puck enjoying his best life

I hope you’re living your best life? And if not, why not? Are there things you could do to change it, to make it better?

In January 2022 I was lucky enough to join the Bold Social Leadership Programme. Bold’s vision is for a life where everyone can flourish throughout their lives, where having dementia doesn’t matter for who you are or how you live your life. The Bold Programme combines creativity with social leadership, and it unleashed a desire in me to focus on living our best lives, whoever we are.

I could learn a lot from Puck. Puck knows his boundaries, but often pushes at them, and whenever he’s naughty he comes and says sorry, generally before we’ve even noticed he did anything wrong. He is thrilled to wake up each morning, but likes to start the day with cuddles (followed by a little something to eat), and he adores going to bed at night, curling up in his wee nest once he has got it ‘just right’ again. Puck is always, always up for a new adventure, but loves coming home. Each day Puck lives his best life.

Be more Puck.

***

You can read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia starting here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

Swallows on a line

10 Mar

On 9 August 2021 I wrote:

New design!

Way back in January when I found the smock and decided to embroider it Mum came up with the idea of swallows swooping over the back yoke; and across the front I embroider them sitting on the washing line.

The parent swallows do this under the car port as they take a breath before feeding their babies. And when the wee ones fledge, they first sit on the washing line before taking their first flight.

Mum never drafted the design for me, she’d given up drawing. We now realise that she was already coping with dementia and I guess her brain could no longer put the images on paper in a way that would satisfy her. The design was created by my nephew, Max, when he was last visiting and the swallows were feeding their babies.

Your bonuses today are the Graham sisters. Mum is one of four sisters. We don’t have many pictures of them all together either as children or adults, so it was lovely to find these two.

I’ve struggled writing much recently, in fact I’ve struggled doing much of anything of any real value recently, which I think is ok. Though only ok for a short while – but it’s been a long winter, and perhaps Spring will do its magic and perk me up a bit?

I know that I’ve been experiencing anticipatory grief for more than two years now, and while most of the time it is now cope-able with, there are times when it is overwhelming. But that is the nature of grief. And grief is a response to love. And I will always be grateful for that fierce (though mostly unspoken) love.

When Dad died, it was relatively sudden – he had a serious stroke and a week later died in hospital. So we’d had a bit of time to prepare ourselves for his death, and when it came it really did feel like a relief, as the alternative (him making a slow and partial recovery) felt considerably worse. And although his death broke me for a while, I knew that the worst had happened, that in time I would find a way to sit more comfortably with his loss, and also with his life.

Over the last two years, as Mum’s health has deteriorated with dementia, I have come and gone in her life. We live 100 miles apart, and once she was settled in a care home I returned home, visiting her initially for a week each month and then every couple of weeks, for a couple of days at a time. And each time I saw her it felt like a bit more of her had gone while I was away.

And still I knew that there was more to lose. That’s the thing about anticipatory grief – however bereft you feel each time, however much that grief weighs you down, you know that there’s The Big One coming, that dreaded day when you won’t be able to see her smile, won’t hear her say your name (or any name) again. So you focus on the relationship you have, on who Mum is each day, and you celebrate the rare giggles, the random responses to questions, the delight she seems to have when she sees who has come to visit her.

Mum hardly engaged with me at all over the weekend, but when I left on Saturday she pursed her lips and blew me a wee kiss, a memory of bigger kisses she has blown me in the past.

***

I started writing this series of posts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

Before that I blogged about whatever I was cooking and you can find my recipes here.

A love letter to her garden

6 Mar

Remember what it was like back in the early summer of 2020.

We were all locked down. People who lived on their own were mostly entirely on their own.

We live 100 miles away from Mum and we didn’t see her from one month to the next, except on a few occasions when she had a hospital appointment, and we drove down and picked her up, took her to hospital, and then dropped her off back home again, before driving back up the empty road to our own home. They were long and stressful days, but they included the joy of seeing Mum, even if it was for a short time.

On one of these occasions I talked to Mum about the 100 Days Project, and she was keen to take part. So she did, each day picking a thing in her world (generally her outside world, as she was uncomfortable at people seeing what she had in the house) and painting it.

In other times, there would be an exhibition of participants’ work some months after the 100 days was over, but not 2020. Or 2021, when I responded to Mum’s diagnosis of dementia by embroidering her Fisherman’s Smock.

But the exhibition of 2022 work is on at Edinburgh College of Art now, and alongside, they have created online galleries to showcase work from 2020 and 2021. I have never been more proud, than seeing Mum’s final paintings in this online gallery.

Please take a look; this series of paintings feels like the most perfect love letter to Mum’s garden, in the final year when she was able to enjoy it.

You can see Mum’s work here.

And a sneak preview, swiped from my phone, obviously, below…

***

I write more about the 100 Days Project and our relationship with Mum’s dementia here, starting with Taking Smock of the Situation.

Letting go

3 Mar

On 8 August 2021 I wrote:

There’s a new design a-coming.

It’s been a tough couple of days, with little stitching time. Somehow I held the tears back till I was about to drive back home again… not sure when they’ll end, so you may need to wait awhile for the new design. (You’re going to love it).

Some years before Mum’s dementia entered our lives, but after Dad had died, Mum called a Family Meeting, with her three children – myself and my two brothers. She wanted to tell us together what her wishes were for her remaining years, including details of what was in her Will, and her desire that we focus on quality of life, not length of it – she has always been very much in the DNR camp, but it was, I think, good for us all to hear this together so we all have clarity about ‘what Mum would want’ as she became unable to express it herself, or even to work out what the question was that she was being asked.

There is tradition on Mum’s side of our family to identify what things we might get on someone’s death, so I have a small side table that has a label with Mum’s name on it in the drawer, written in her GranBunnie’s handwriting.. There are other bits of furniture still at Mum’s with those same labels, others with initials written in chalk on the underside of the drawer by my Grandmother.

At the Family Meeting Mum wanted to go around the house with us, marking up who would get what. It was all written in The Book. This process of giving a future life to her treasures I think gave her pleasure, a satisfaction knowing that we would continue to love some objects that felt almost like an extension of her.

But, after Mum had moved out of the family home we just left everything as it was. The jars of various teas sat by the kettle (Assam in the morning, “David’s Special Tea” at 4 o’clock, chamomile or peppermint for visitors); the bottles of oils and vinegars and wee jars of favourite herbs and spices were by the Rayburn; the TV remote controls remained on the side table next to where she would sit; her favourite blanket draped over that same chair… in every room it still looked as though she might come back any moment.

We had been busy, of course. But also we had known that clearing such stuff would open the dam, and would unleash a torrent of tears. We felt we had time, we didn’t need to do it yet.

The only thing we did was to remove most of the things that had our names attached to them.

So, on 8 August 2021, I was driving back up to my own house, with what is now known as Gordon’s Big Cock in the back of the car. This is a Tibetan sculpture of a cockerel, encrusted in wee cabochons of coral and turquoise. It’s a mad thing, but a thing with such history, having been given to Mum by her much-loved Uncle Walter who spent time in Tibet in the 1930s and 40s. Paintings were gone from the walls – all my life The Owl had hung above the fireplace, in the childhood home I was born in, and in this house Mum and Dad moved to after I had left home. The collection of Indian paintings had grown when Uncle Walter died and Mum inherited more of them. The display cabinet had always sparkled with bits of silver, each item with a story to tell, a part of our family history. All gone from the cabinets now, all that was left were the green goblets (bought by Mum at a house sale); the blue porcelain serving dish that Gran used to pile high with wee sandwiches for tea; a set of odd porcelain ladles that none of us cared for; some pottery animal sculptures that mum had created. We had decided to remove the things that ‘would break us’ if the house was burgled or went on fire. We also knew that now was not the time to remove everything. So there were compromises.

But on that journey back, all my heart knew was that this was the beginning of saying goodbye to Mum forever. The comfortable home, filled with stories and memories and beauty was being dismantled; some of her treasures would live on and be loved in other homes, but not everything, there was an inevitability that many of these things that we held so dear would also be gone from our lives. And on the journey home, this was all too much for me to bear.

Some days I wonder if I feel so strongly about the association of the Things with their Stories and our Memories because Mum has dementia, and her stories have been washed away with her own memories? Or have I always had this strong connection, and desire to imbue everything with meaning, with connection? It makes it much harder to let things go when it feels like you are letting go of those connections too; but with practice, a lot of practice, I am getting better at it.

***

This series of posts starts here, with Taking Smock of the Situation, an embroidery project I started after I realised Mum might have dementia. There I was, embroidering her old fisherman’s smock with symbols relating to her life; while her memories were slipping away, like me at a party I don’t want to be at.

If you want a bit of cooking inspiration then you could check out my recipes here. Not sure there’s anything much that would make it to a Carer’s CookBook… but if you’re interested I will add some ideas for meals if you are caring for someone you love (and you both love good food!)

%d bloggers like this: