Not going quietly

My mum has always been energetic and hates sitting around.  She’s still the same, even with dementia and in a care home.   The staff say she's always wanting to help.    

Currently her calling is to clear the plates at meal-times.  Except she starts doing this as soon as she has finished, even if no one else has.  This results in a plate tug-o'-war, with other residents loudly complaining that they are still eating.  

It doesn’t make her popular at table.

This week, for reasons unknown, she decided to collect clothes (wash-day memories?)  from  rooms on her corridor and dump them in a huge heap by the front door.  It took someone all day to sort it out.  

It might be easier for staff to have residents who snore in armchairs.    But I rather admire my mum’s spirit.  

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.