Today my lovely Irish Mammy leaves our family home for a care home.
The sun is shining and it is going to be an absolute scorcher here in Brighton. I start the morning with a swim and a lay on the beach.
The Summer sunshine vibes at odds with my inner gloom and sadness.
It’s a strange day like waking up to the morning of Brexit.
Something feels off.
An ordinary workday but a day that changes everything in our home.
We knew that Mum breaking her knee two years ago was the start of a new chapter.
Suddenly, my soda-bread, jumper knitting, scone making Mum was incapacitated.
Everything in our family has been turned upside down since. We’ve been caught in constant firefighting and reacting to Mum's ever-changing needs since.
We learned that confusion, disorientation and memory problems were common side effects of anaesthesia surgery in the elderly - a sort of postoperative delirium.
Yet, some of us in the family felt that the observable differences in behaviours and norms could not be explained away by the trauma of the falls.
Mum’s dementia diagnosis came in February 2024.
The next fucked-up chapter in the declining aging parents story.
When your parents get to their late 80s without any serious health issues then you are fooled into thinking that you’ve side stepped the worst landmines.
Always the romantic fantasist because the reality of life is too fucking brutal, naively, I held onto the human equivalent of the dog being sent away to live on a lovely farm.
My parents are lovely and bad things don’t really happen to this family so they would be living out there golden years unscathed.
Of course what happened to our family is not unique. Dementia is seen as the new cancer given how widespread it has become. The forecasts are grim reading with expectations that it is to rise significantly in the coming years.
Yet, despite its prevalence, there’s a strange paradox: something so common can still feel intensely personal and isolating. It’s almost surreal how a shared condition can make you feel like you’re navigating uncharted territory alone.
Each trip home felt like an endurance test. The urge to revert to my 8 year old self tempered by the reality of an incapacitated woman who is in the advanced stages of dementia.
The house increasingly resembles a hospital. The living room doubles as her bedroom, with a hoist, wheelchair and hospital bed occupying the space.
Acceptance of her new state, bed-bound, fragile and vulnerable has been one hurdle, yet its the tiny moments that hurt the most. Sometimes I feel that I am connecting with Mum. The conversation feels lucid and my mind is seeking reassurances that she is still present.
Then the dementia takes over.
Now the dementia has taken over to the point where she needs to leave the family home for full time nursing care.
A recent two week respite stay had a profoundly positive impact on my Mother. It was the turning point we all needed, the final push that it was now time for a care home.
Rationally, I know this is the best thing for her.
Emotionally, I’m heartbroken.
Last night there was a small party in the house celebrating the one year anniversary of when our live in carer arrived to the family home. It also happened to be the last night Mum would be in the family home.
I called and found myself in a living room filled with my siblings, a cake sitting in front of my Mum. Dad held the phone up to her face. She was happy, smiling, and asked how I was.
This was the last time I will see her in our family home I realised. Dad tells me not to be upset but I rush to get off the phone so I can release the floods of tears.
I sob on the sofa for the evening clutching a tissue box.
Living in another country gave me the advantage of being able to step from the chaos at home when needed but today it feels isolating.
The thought that my Mum will no longer be at home fills me with profound sadness. I’m haunted wondering if the next trip home is the one she finally forgets who I am. The next new fucked up chapter.
Grief is always there - bubbling just beneath the surface. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t know my own mind.
Is it peri-menopause? Is it grief? Do I need HRT?
The tears come easy today.
I eat chocolate, distract myself writing this blog. Using it as a way to pour out the insides of my heart and brain. I can’t be fucked editing it or worrying if it makes any sense.
I try and work for a few hours but knock off early to sit on the beach. For a few brief hours I distract myself with swimming and people watching.
My sister sends a video of Mums new room. As care homes go this place is the Ritz.
The desire to ring home being restrained by my subconscious and the emotional toll that I know it will take. I’m timing the call until after I’ve posted this.
The toll is nothing next to that of my Father, her husband of 65 years. They are both still very much in love and the hardest parts of this has been watching the slow separation of them both.
The tenderness, love and devotion my Dear Father has shown to my Mother in her sickness has been profoundly inspiring to watch - and heartbreakingly unbearable at the same time. It’s an extraordinary, deep love that so few of us will ever be fortunate enough to experience.
65 years side by side on the sofa, in the car, in the bed or at the kitchen table.
The end of an era.
My Irish Mammy fulfilled the role of a dedicated homemaker who worked hard at creating a lovely home for our family. She was the very embodiment of home itself.
Truth is she's not been there for a long time . The things that made home have slowly disappeared - her scones, her knitting, her endless questions of whether I’m hungry five thousand times a day have slowly faded away.
Despite living in the UK for over 20 years I still suffer the immigrants dilemma - the pull of the Auld Sod, often stuck between the emotional tug-of-war between home and my chosen country of resident.
My Mum has been my anchor to Mother Ireland. Now it feels like it is dislodging and with that my connection to Ireland begins to loosen.
In this shift, I am left to navigate the bittersweet reality of the changing meaning of home.
I love you Mum x
