Sunday Blog 164 – 22nd December 2024
“I’ll go if you go,” we’d both said. The Christmas party at my mother’s residential aged care home was like all the events. Kindly meant, organised with care. Riven to the core with loss on the part of the residents, anticipatory grief on the part of the families and the mental absence of those with dementia.
“I’ll wheel you away the moment you want to,” I promised, after I’d worked out that getting stuck at the event was one of Mum’s resistance points to attending. Even in the drastically simplified living environment of her aged care resident room, Mum managed to find new things to be anxious about. Most of her meals she took in her room, and having an empty table for the dinner tray to be delivered was another emerging phobia. I could see her looking around vainly – she was largely blind by then – to make sure it was clear.
On this occasion I did convince her to attend the Christmas party, a long-table lunch. I noticed how little I wanted to engage with others, I just wanted to focus on Mum and her comfort. I managed desultory chit-chat with the woman to my left, Mum spoke to the resident on her right. I didn’t think there would be enough time to build a connection, and I was right. I never saw her again.
“Let’s take a selfie, Bet.” As always, she smiled her beautiful smile, even though we both wanted to be anywhere but there.
I wheeled Bet back as soon as we could decently excuse ourselves after dessert.
Mum lasted so much longer in the residential aged care facility than we’d thought – making it right through to August. But she never really connected with other residents.
Recently, I woke from a vivid dream from my second round of sleep. That sleep after 5am where I can awake feeling more groggy and less refreshed than when I first awoke. There was Mum in my dream. She was like she was in her late 80s – still spry, still getting on a plane every now and again to visit her son in Sydney or maybe get on a cruise ship.
It took me a little while to realise it was her in the dream, and then I said; “I can get one more selfie!”
She didn’t look at the camera, every time I tried to take one, she was looking at me, and then I woke up and thought, “You wouldn’t want her back, suffering like she was, for one more selfie.”
But still, feeling her loss keenly this first Christmas without her.