Mother, like the sun rising

Mother is getting better.

Mother: perfectly poised, always beautifully dressed, full of intelligence, dignity and inner resources. Party animal. Traveller (China, India, Budapest for music festivals or something, France, Spain, northern Norway, USA for half our family, Shetland at every opportunity when I lived there). Give her a ticket, don’t see her for dust.

Bewitches everyone who meets her.

Mother knows which month it is, and which day of the week, and quite often the date.

Mother, exasperated, is telling the continuity announcer to go and get his lunch. He’s talking too fast.

What a relief. Last week got pretty bad. Anyone watching someone they love losing the plot is going to be scared. She came out of hospital (blood pressure thing) to my place, with an undiagnosed lung infection, until I got my doctor round because she was sleeping 95% of the time, was disorientated, thought she was still in hospital, couldn’t find her call–bell, thought I was a nurse, didn’t know day from night. Didn’t understand why she couldn’t take her night pills mid–afternoon. Thought it was the middle of the night when the sun was shining. Grudgingly agreed with me when I pointed to it. “I’ll believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.” Even being registered partially sighted doesn’t cover that one. Couldn’t remember the doctor being there, later that day, or the next etc. She’s definitely, slowly, been losing her grasp over the last few years, but that week was a real shock.

A course of antibiotics later and plenty of TLC, things look much sunnier. She’s back in charge. Have involved Social Services people quite a lot over the months, and she has carers at her place. We ponder out loud on whether she should be in her place at all, meaning she is alone at times, but she’s a determined lady and that’s how she got this far. As long as she stays with me nearly all the time. As long as she is hardly allowed to be alone, which to her means Can't get any peace. How did I get to be 96? she asks me. "Sheer bloody persistence." She bursts out laughing.

It still takes her a few minutes to remember which 5 grandchildren (and 6 great–grandchildren) belong to which parents. And she still forgets she’s 96. Nobody else does – she’s amazing.

And she’s fascinated by blogging.