Swings, roundabouts & " It's a Great Big Shame"
Hello Joy, sorry that you are feeling low. I visit my mum when I can. Some days are good and some are bad. Saw her Good Friday and she was comfortable: even joined in with some songs I started singing, correcting me on the pronunciation and smiling a huge smile when she realised that she had remembered the lines of the songs and how they sounded.
Easter Day was, for the most part, awful. She was physically uncomfortable most of the time she was up and about and suspecting that the other residents were talking about her at lunch. I took her out into the sunshine briefly but she wasn't happy and just tolerated a cup of tea and biscuit. As soon as she got to bed in the afternoon she fell into a deep sleep and I sat with her for almost four hours reading, writing and doing crosswords, sewing a label into a new cardy because the home had managed to tumbledry her favourite wool one and reduced it to a matted felt kiddie's jacket. I was ready to run and get her anything she wanted but she didn't want anything except sleep.
Easter Monday I went in late in the day and she was sleepy then too, but I encouraged her to eat some supper, (the carers had given up). It wasn't much: a few bites of a sausage, and tinned tomato, a pot of yogurt, some tea and a couple of Jaffa cakes, but she did seem to be brighter after the food.
Yesterday I stayed at home. My turn for a duvet day..
There is only so much you can do and you have to try and find a balance between caring for your mum and caring for yourself. Sometimes when I go in feeling haunted, I see my mum and immediately feel better. She has a knack of smiling which is enough to lift anyone's heart. Other days I find her looking grey and ghastly and very sleepy and I think 'Good Grief, how has she managed to survive the day?' I wish I wasn't sharing this role alone, though.
A fortnight ago a carer saw me looking upset and said to me " Your mum is OK, she is strong you know." It was a very strange thing to say because my mum is totally helpless physically and looks like a beautiful but underfed bird. However, I think I knew what she meant. I am going through a kind of bereavement everyday, feeling tearful, guilty, worried about her care, dreading a call to say the end has come, thinking about how awful it will be without her... but in fact, there is still a lot of my mother left. It's a 'different' mother but not always as changed as you might think. I rather like my mother in her new self, she can be refeshingly forthright! ( I hope this doesn't sound silly) She continues to be a source of wonder to me!
Not sure if any of this makes sense, but just wanted you to know that we almost all feel guilty about our mums sometimes but that there are also some good days and even some funny moments sometimes. I won't forget the look on my mum's face last Friday when we got to the end of " It's A Great Big Shame " ( 'and if she belonged to me, I'd let her know who's who... putting on a fellow that is six foot three and her only four foot two. They hadn't been married not a month nor more, when underneath her thumb goes Jim, OH isn't it a pity that the likes of HER should put upon the likes of HIM!' My mum sang that last line and then said with her long lost school marm's manner, " It's pronounced 'PUTT' you know, not 'PUT' ( i.e the word should rhyme with 'butt'.) We both laughed and I said I knew, but was privately amazed that she had picked on this point. Then I sang the song about the woman being jilted at the altar ( 'There was I waiting at the church, waiting at the church, waiting at the church. I thought he'd left me in the lurch' etc etc and when we got to the last line, she again joined in with ' Can't get away to marry you today, My wife won't let me' and we laughed together. She stopped herself and said. 'It isn't really funny, you know' and I said I knew, it was tragedy, but we were both laughing again by then.
I don't know how it is that she remembers tunes and words, but it is a real bonus when something simple seems to make a few happy moments for her. You will achieve the same: probably already have done. Kind regards