Seven ages

I know it's not exactly an original thought, but Shakespeare was such a wonderfully perceptive writer, wasn't he?

His monologue The Seven Ages of Man came back to me - and especially  "Last scene of all...Is second childishness and mere oblivion..."  when we were visiting my mother at the weekend.

Newly-installed in a care home, mum is a shuffling shadow of herself. Dementia has cruelly taken firm and irrevocable hold of her memory and reasoning.

She reminded me so much of a toddler, trying to make sense of her world and struggling to express herself.  At one stage, a fellow resident wobbled into the room on a stick.  She and my mother quizzically eyed each other, bobbing and struggling to form the words they wanted to exchange.  And then, brief contact over, they retreated.

We left, sad at the spectacle and suddenly overwhelmingly grateful of our faculties and freedom.