Taking my old mum for a haircut

Arrived at my mum's aged care facility - ACF - at 9.40 this morning to take her to my hairdressers in the far flung suburb of Taylor's Hill. Taking mum with me queers my pitch just a tad. I don't think I'm alone in enjoying a precious forty minutes or so having my hair done. But mum needed a haircut and Paul, my lovely hairdresser, was able to squeeze her in at the last minute.

Doesn't pay to book a haircut, or a podiatry appointment too far ahead for mum. I've turned up to collect her for an appointment a couple of times to find she's made some private arrangement with a visiting provider. No good writing it in mum's diary. She doesn't check it.

As I pulled into the car park at said time, a staff member key-padded mum out of the front door. Was pleased to see mum's clothes were well coordinated: padded short black jacket over a long sleeved striped tee shirt; black jeans; good black leather zip-front shoes. (She's not so keen on the lace ups these days.) Her hair was nicely combed. Good effort, mum.

I'd prearranged for mum to be waiting for me at 9.45 so I was actually early. 'I've been waiting for ages,' she said, not unhappily. 'Since 9 o' clock.' I suppose she was keen to get out under whatever pretext. I would be.

She didn't mind, she said. She'd had lots of company, as she would have sitting outside the nurses' station in the busy reception area. I was slightly annoyed that she claimed she'd been waiting for ages and 'thought [I'd] never get there.' Once I'd have automatically believed her.

It's a fair drive out to Taylor's Hill, a newish labyrinthine north-western suburb. I was about to drive across busy Mount Alexander Road heading for the free way when the questions began. How's Al? Pete? Didi? Do you ever hear from your sisters? And so on. Cruelly, I suppose, I nipped the interrogation in the bud, only because the loop would have ended in five minutes and I'd have to answer the same questions again.

"Don't start blathering, mum,' I said. That's an expression I learnt at my mother's knee. 'Just listen to the music.'

'Cross the roundabout and take the second exit.' That's Jane, the sat nav. I needed Jane because I hardly know Taylor's Hill  having only been out to hairdresser Paul's new premises once before.

'You needn't worry,' says mum, who's miffed, to me, not Jane, 'I will never speak again.' She does that if I'm abrupt with her. She always has. I glance at her. She's set her face and is staring ahead.

Half an hour later, we're at the hairdressers. As I sit in my chair, looking into the mirror, I see mum who's sitting behind me - me in 25 years? - looking back at me. I wave. She smiles. It's warm, she has a coffee and the winter sun's shining through the huge windows. There's a new, green reserve across the road with playground equipment, tables and a few young trees coming along nicely. They certainly build amenity into these new suburbs. Still don't know where I am. Neither does mum.

Mum gets a lovely haircut, as opposed to the generic ACF trim. Both hairdressers praise my mum's gorgeous thick white hair which has been beautifully cut. Mum beams and preens.

I was considering keeping mum with me for the day. It would mean a dawdling time and lots of inane albeit animated repetition, not unlike the time I spent with preschool children in some ways. But as I drove towards the city, mum anxiously reminded me, again, that she had no idea where she was. She needs reassurance that I'm onto it and that I'm not going to abandon her and expect her to find her way back to wherever. Because at this stage she has forgotten where she lives.

The sadness begins. 'I feel like weeping,' she says. 'Weep,' I say, 'go on.'

Yes, I'm harsh but this is self-preservation. Why wouldn't she have this nebulous melancholy, that is, when she's not being the life of the party, buoying up the other residents at her ACF? She doesn't know why she feels this way but I think I do. I feel it too but bemoaning and crying doesn't achieve anything.

I indulged that sadness after Monday's visit when mum asked me where my dad was. 'Your dad didn't die, did he?' she pleaded, contorting her brow. It caught me off guard. 'Where was I when he died?' she asked.

'Mum, you were there and you did all the right things,' I said, straining to stem the tears.
'Did I?' she asked.

That made for a sad evening. Once I'd started crying in the car park after I'd left mum, it was hard to stop. And then I felt so washed out. Best not to begin.

Happily, compensations of memory loss, mum forgets these moments, just as she's forgotten that her husband died over three years ago.

When I left mum today, she looked amazing. She'd applied a bit of foundation and lippy; several staff had complimented her on her new haircut.

Just as I was about to make my escape, mum got me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes. Hers were brimming with tears. 'You know,' she said, looking down at me,' if you think of ringing me, or dropping in later, don't. Just leave me alone in here.' A rebuke.

But, weather permitting I'll be back to take her for a walk and a coffee on Saturday. And she'll be as delighted to see me as if I've been away for six months.

Back on-line?

Eighteen months ago, I'd never have imagined how my life was going to buckle and take a very different course.

Despite the evidence of my dad's terminal illness - and let's face it, life is terminal when one is 83 - in some naive part of my then 55 year old brain, I couldn't imagine him actually dying; couldn't imagine the debilitating grief that would unexpectedly unhinge me and come in waves. I knew the theory, but having been a child migrant, I hadn't really felt much when grandparents, aunts and uncles died. I was detached and numb back when I was sixteen and my mum, driving us home from a horse-riding outing, had pulled over to the side of the road to convulse in sobs over the steering wheel of her blue Austin 1800 because her mother had died. (Yes, I see that there is perhaps some redundant detail there, but the occasion of my grandmother's death did imprint itself so that those details are easy to recall.)

(Perhaps I'm inclined to writing long sentences today because I'm half-way through Peter Carey's extraordinarily brilliant page-turner, Illywhacker. God that man can write!)

My brain has been somewhat off-line for the past five months or so. (The fact that I'm now writing, and reading a complex novel, tells me I'm healing a bit; returning to what is normal for me.)

My dad's death in May last year, and its immediate aftermath, didn't help me to prepare for what we've been dealing with since April. During that time I've had to become my mother's gaoler. I've shared this role with one of my sisters and our husbands. So we've had to take away our mum's autonomy, albeit because she could no longer manage to live alone on her isolated coastal property.

Ultimately, because this living arrangement was no longer sustainable, given mum's dementia - hate that word - I've had to put my mum in an aged care facility. If you think leaving your infant at childcare or school is hard, think on. Hope you never have to deal with your beautiful mum begging you not to leave her; telling you she'll do anything, just give her another chance. 

That was the worst experience of my life. Absolutely no other option. It came down to my sanity, and that of sister, Reggie, or continuing to share custody of our tricky old mum.

But this tale has had a happy outcome. My mother loves her new home and she's struck it lucky, not only in the place she's living, with beautiful Queens Park, Moonee Ponds as her front garden, but also in finding a new female friend with whom she can stroll around the lake and reminisce.

All the stress has dropped out of our lives and my mum is calmer and more relaxed than I've seen her in at least three years since my late dad's diagnosis.

Still, I think it was a bit cheeky of the 'entertainment' - think piano accordion and drum machine - to be playing Please Release Me Let Me Go and I've Never Felt More Like Singing The Blues to a captive audience of octogenarians in the home.

The irony wasn't lost on my mum either as she sang along.

Refuge in a bakery.

What is it with me and seeking refuge in a bakery full of delicious aromas; sweets and pastries I'd best not eat?

I'm in Cedars Bakery, High Street, Preston. Just had half a sumptuous chicken pie that contained some surprise potato that I haven't bolused for but hopefully the 7 k slightly hilly cycle home should take care of that. That's if I can bring myself to leave this warm haven and go home. Al isn't home until this evening which leaves me and mum.

If you read back through my posts, skipping the France bit, you'll know that my mum is quite lovely but that I'm having difficulty sharing my house with her and her 'memory loss' - the euphemism for dementia.

She's been back with us now for a week and it's hard work. She demands attention. She can't just 'be'. She needs reorienting every morning and it's all about mum. 

I started working parttime a couple of years ago for my health's sake, so I could wind down from my stressful secondary teaching job. Now, though, I've lost my weekends and my days off. If I'm not constantly attending to mum and answering her repetitious questions about how much her house is worth, where she lives, whether there's anyone else in the house and who is that man in the kitchen - Al - how to work the washing machine and a myriad other inane questions she gets the huff.

'You need not worry about me any more,' she'll say, cross, pouting, frowning, pseudo 'in charge'. 'I will find my own place to live.'

But that isn't an option. She would need to live in supported accommodation. I've checked out a few places and they're not for my mum.

At my house she can safely go to the supermarket or walk down to the local shops. I even got her to go to the Anglican Church two blocks away yesterday. She's always gone to church. I'm hoping she can find a community of support that doesn't involve sitting around with old people wearing bad dentures trying to tap a balloon into a waste basket. 

Meanwhile I'll keep cycling, trusting she's okay alone and knowing she'll have forgotten how angry I was when I left her an hour or so ago.

Time out.

I try hard not to be annoyed with my elderly mum who's filled my empty nest in a big way. She's not consciously doing anything annoying. When I greet her in the morning she expresses this histrionic joy that I'm in the house. Take her a tea in bed, as Al and I do, and she's overwhelmed with rapture about the best cup of tea ever in this the best of all possible worlds.

I'll be in the kitchen, getting my breakfast prior to setting off at 7.30 am for school. Mum will stumble through in her fluffy red dressing gown and almost cry with surprise that I'm still home. "I didn't know there was anyone home!" She'll wail. " I thought everyone had left! Oh! I didn't know you were here!" Her voice is loud, over-enunciated precise, heavy on the consonants. This is mum apologising for being in the way; getting in my way.

On Tuesday morning she inadvertently blocked the doorway I was trying to go through. I was in my cycling gear, complete with mandatory helmet, gloved up against the 3 degrees outside, headphones already inserted. As I did the requisite dance to get around her I knocked over a stool, scattering stuff all over the floor. It seemed, at the time, vaguely metaphoric.

I try not to feel irritation.

When I get home around five, exhausted from the demands of teaching 70 adolescents & cycling 7k of hills to get home, mum's at me. Same histrionic elation bordering on tears at my 'surprise' return to my own home. She's been alone all day apart from her 4k stroll to the local supermarket - see, she's still very capable & fit. She'll have chatted with a few strangers. Yesterday she paid a bill at the local post office. She was drinking coffee when I walked in. Channel 9 news was turned up to stun - but she swears she's not deaf.

All I wanted to do was remove my jacket, crash helmet & contact lenses and chill..

I tried not to be irritated as she kindly, kindly offered me coffee, wine, anything, when all I wanted was some peace after the day I'd had. I was actually summoned by the principal yesterday for some perceived transgression. That was fun, siting outside his office while he finished his phone call, this guy who was at teachers college with me & is now my boss.

My house is no longer a refuge. I hung around at the local shops the other day just to grab some time out.

I'm currently delighted to be kept waiting at the doctors because it's relatively peaceful.

-

Apart from my lovely doctor's free counsel this morning - I didn't have to pay - I discovered something else. Despite mum living here, I should resume cycling on my days off. I haven't been able to ride lately because that means leaving mum on her own for even more time.

I cycled to the doctors this morning; a flat 9 k round trip. It was blissful. Two hours time out on a cold, sunny morning. Therapeutic, unlike the more fraught school rides where I'm mentally preparing lessons or trying to expunge the day's trials depending on whether I'm coming or going.

Mum seems to have survived my absence.

Paying it forward. Me and my old mum.

For the 'time being' my life has dramatically changed. But somehow it's not dissimilar to the life I had for 11 years when I was a stay-at-home mum for my two kids, born 16 months apart. Back then I learned to be in the moment and not expect to have any time to myself until after the kids had gone to bed. And even then, Al and I were alert.

In those days we didn't sleep in. We were grateful if the kids sat close together on the couch, cuddling blankets and soft toys, sucking their fingers, gazing at cartoons on TV for ten minutes. You can achieve critical mass given ten minutes.

At times I'd be half asleep in the morning and Pete's little fingers would open one of my eyes for me, to see if I was awake. Kind of cute, on reflection. When you're a parent to little kids, once you're up you're in service. You know, you know. Jeeze I hope I'm not turning into a latent 'mummy/mommy blogger'.

So now I'm once again in service; a labour of love. My mum, aged 82, has taken over my daughter's old room. She's been living with Al and I for three weeks now, since I did my mercy dash down to her seaside home.

I brought her here so she'd be safe, warm and well-fed and so she wouldn't be alone.

But it's a little taxing. Mum has dementia. There now. I've said it. Memory loss sounds so much kinder.

I suppose she has classic symptoms, if my Google searches are any indication: confusion, memory loss, mood swings. So she gives me a bit of a hard time, especially first thing in the morning when she demands to be taken home. Ah, Life, as sister Reggie says.

Mum was brilliant, in her heyday when she was Director of Nursing of a massive organisation. In my late teens if I needed her, I'd often be hard-pressed to get her on the phone, given her professional status. 'Sorry, Sister J is unavailable,' I'd be told by her secretary. 'She's in conference. I'll let her know you called.'

Mum has also put in the hours as an exemplary grandmother to her eight grandchildren. I'm not sure I could have coped without her. Many are the afternoons Reggie and I dumped our three babies with mum for a couple of hours. We'd go shopping, sometimes coming home to find mum with three babies aligned on a blanket on the floor while she changed three lots of nappies.

It's good to think of this while I'm sitting here in the lounge with mum, watching a bit of afternoon TV. It's not unpleasant with the autumn sun blazing in through the curtains.

We've had our little trip to the shops with my elbow getting a good workout as I lead mum around. I've sourced a walking frame for her, but she doesn't like the look of it; prefers to hang onto me.

The local shopkeepers are getting to know her and oblige with a chat. And props to our Lebanese cafe guy who keeps telling my mum that she and I look like sisters. (Hope he's joking.)

But there you go. I remind myself, as I'm putting her a bit of foundation and lippie on, that she's just me in 25 years.

One good thing: she responds well to a chardy, and so do I. Think the sun's over the yardarm now.

Cheers.

Empty nester?

You know how writing is therapy? That's often why I write. However, I've been warned off the topic I'm about to mention by one of my sisters - hi Reggie - and my daughter, Didi. I won't bother giving her a shout out because she'd rather spoon her eyeballs out than read anything I write. Gen Y. Suits me.

So. My mum is recently widowed - Dad died almost exactly a year ago - and she's been living alone in a small house on a large coastal block 90 minutes drive from me. Reggie lives three hours away in another direction and sister, Jane, is in the Northern Territory - not that there's anything wrong with that.

We three daughters called my mother daily, so I'm thinking that's about three hours worth of regular talk and support, albeit on the phone. Al and I visited mum every other weekend. She also had a large group of church and book-group friends in her village on the coast.

Happily, mum has enjoyed good physical health. She single-handedly cared for my dad during the last couple of years of his life when he was unable to look after himself. She achieved that feat through a special combination of nursing skill - she was a trained nurse; 'triple certificated sister' as we used to recite in our youth - and intense love. My mum and dad were the special two from the minute they clapped eyes on each other when my dad had come off his motorbike, broken his leg and ended up in Harrogate General Hospital in North Yorkshire, UK, where my mother was sister on duty.

Mum had been coping on her own until a couple of weeks ago.

Now she's with me.

She's on the couch now, at midday, with a cuppa and day-time TV. I think she's managing the remote control. She's wrapped in cosy blankets, because she's invariably freezing, and she's propped up on pillows. I hope she's okay because I'm about to go out for my endocrinology appointment that I booked several months ago.

I'll be riding my bike. And I'm so happy to have a doctor's appointment on my day off, despite the fact that today I've already taken mum for a fasting blood test at sparrow's fart, and a mid-morning CAT scan.

The 15k round trip cycle will be a break.

And I feel so guilty for needing a break from my brilliant mother whom I adore.