Lieben: German for to love

"Why would you want to learn German?" So said Mum, in a Yorkshire accent, a look of horror on her face. Given when I mentioned it, in her mind she was somewhere in the early 1940s, she thought I was betraying England. Why was I even telling her? It's something to talk about in my monologue as we shuffle around Queen's Park lake, given that mum can't carry on a regular conversation these days. 

Somehow, I've drifted back into talking about mum again. Wasn't my intention. I was thinking about my recent German classes at Melbourne's CAE.

The German people, our young Deutschlehrerin (female German teacher) told us a couple of lessons ago, would only use the expression 'I love…' in the context of an intimate relationship. Ich liebe dich - I love you - is reserved for one's partners, one's family.

 'So you mean,' said John, a student in the class - aged 80 by the way, 'they wouldn't debase the word by using it to describe lesser things?'

'Ja, genau!' she said. Yes, exactly.

So you wouldn't say you loved someone's hair or shoes. Das ist verboten. It's banned. Hurrah, I know another quirk of the German language. I won't embarrass myself by inappropriately professing my love when I'm in Germany: ich liebe das Wohnmobil  - I love this campervan.

Apart from giving my non-working life a bit of structure and perhaps staving off dementia, I decided to learn German because I've travelled there several times and intend to return. The German language was absolutely, well, foreign. We - Al and I - could be handed a German menu in a restaurant and have no idea what the hell was on offer, apart from the ubiquitous wurst, schnitzel and strudel, words that have found their way into our vernacular. We've been stumped driving off an 'Ausfahrt' (exit) on the 'Autobahn' (freeway); bemused as fellow campers have waved us off on a ride with a 'Good fart!' Suppose it could be an added bonus. But Gut Farht actually means have a good journey. As for ordering a glass of wine. In broken German I've asked for 'ein dry white'. Basically I've been requesting 'one - nearly - three, nonsense', given that in German 'w' is pronounced like our 'v' . Suppose that explains occasionally getting a glass of red and making do. Any port in a storm.

Now, German is less weird by the minute. It's easy enough to learn to speak because it's phonetic. Once you can recognise and mimic those 'guttural' sounds you're away. Suppose the grammar would be challenging if one didn't love grammar, as I do. Weird, huh.

Two hours of German class seems to pass by each week in about fifteen minutes. That's total absorption, or mindfulness or I'm having a series of cardio vascular accidents. I'll go with the former.

Given we don't mind debasing the word love in English I can say I love learning German, In German I think that's ich mag Deutsch lernen sehr gern. Course, I could be wrong.

Self help.

I've been reading an inspirational self-help book called Choose Yourself, by James Altucher. I happened upon his blog via a Twitter site I follow called Positively Positive. It linked to a post by Altucher. The post spoke to me. I was in a particularly dark mood.

 I read a couple more posts, following the links on the side bar and felt like someone who understood me was actually talking to me. Given the number of comments on each post, heaps of people feel the same way. That’s good to know; the power of the internet to connect.

So why was I in a dark mood? At the risk of conjuring up the mood again, I’ll go there; summarise.

Last year was a trial. In April, after it became clear that mum wasn't coping with living alone, I/we began to come to terms with my mother’s memory loss; her dementia. (Talk about words with negative connotations!) Much of the year was about finding a place for mum to live where she could potentially be happy. We tried having her live between my sister and I, but that was awful for everyone.

After the requisite assessments for mum, I started looking for an Aged Care Facility offering low level care with potential for mum to move to high care as and when she needed it. This is a really depressing task. Actually, that’s an understatement. It’s a nightmare which begins with glossy brochures from the Aged Care Assessment service and lots of internet searches. I actually only visited three hostels before I found a place for mum. Suppose that’s lucky. The first three places left me sobbing in the car afterwards. After the fourth place, I didn't cry. Felt bleak, of course, but thought, as I looked over at the fountains in Queen’s Park across the road, that mum might be okay in that place. They had a vacancy and in August, mum moved in. (Reading that back, I make it sound so easy. It wasn't.)

Heaps of people have been through this process. It truly sucks, despite what the glossy brochures tell you about Aged Care Facilities. Where mum is they display big colour photos of the residents having a wonderful time, apparently. My mum has starred in a couple. In one I saw the other day she is the archetypal daft looking old person – won’t say woman because gender doesn't seem to be a factor in these shots. She’s holding the ‘stalk’ of some sort of big helium filled balloon flower arrangement and wearing a silver ‘tiara’ that says 'Happy New Year!' She’s smiling off into the middle distance. I hate seeing my mum like this. It's something she would have scorned in her former life.

I pointed her out to herself - never miss an opportunity! - when we were walking along the corridor the other day. She peered. ‘That’s never me,’ she protested. So what? She seemed to be having a better new year celebration than I was at my place, pissed off at all the fireworks making my insomnia even worse.

I ‘get mum out’ of the facility a couple of times a week. When I arrive she’s always surprised and delighted to see me. Why wouldn't she be? She has few visitors and I never tell her when I’m going to drop in. She forgets anyway. 

I’m scared writing this because I’m perhaps fueling the stereotype of the elderly person with dementia. There is a stereotype. Whenever I talk about mum everyone makes it quite clear that their own aged person is/was ‘sharp as a tack/sharp until the end’. Seems it’s better to need assistance getting dressed or getting around. Clearly you’re lower down the scale if you need a bit of reorientation in the morning; a reminder what day it is – and really, who cares what freaking day it is? Or what year? But yes, everyone wants to make it quite clear that their aged parent has/had no cognitive impairment. 

Don’t think mum is suffering. She misses my dad but she’s not wracked with grief now, nearly two years after he died. She’s truly living in the minute. She has few worldly possessions apart from a few framed photos and paintings on her walls, her comfy recliner chair and her old Queen Anne chest of drawers. Her bed is a single hospital Occupational Health and Safety approved job. All her goods and chattels have been dispersed among the family, op shops and eBay. She quite likes that I've got her sixties teak dining table and chairs in my kitchen now. But she’s not bothered about all that ‘stuff’ that she’d acquired during her adult life. Furthermore, she sleeps for twelve hours a night. I wish.

As I've written before, you wouldn't necessarily know my mum has dementia unless you spend lots of time with her. She's still canny.

The other day I took her to the podiatrist. It's a short walk from my house, down to the corner and across the road. Mum was a tad disorientated, unsure which way to turn at each intersection. I got a bit frustrated as mum dithered about which way to turn because I forgot- sheesh! - that mum's brain wasn't sparking as it used to. I made her link arms with me and this solved the problem. (This sounds minor but it's not. It's a constant reminder that even though mum is physically the same, mentally she's not the person that she was.)

I accompanied mum into the podiatrist's office. In what I assume was a normal voice, he asked me questions about mum's feet. 'Why don't you ask mum?' I said. 

Holding mum's hammer toed left foot in his hands, he beamed up at her - she was in the high chair, of course - and started talking to her like she was a two year old.

Farque alors. I didn't want to queer our pitch by telling him to talk in a normal voice.

And then his phone rang. "Sorry, I have to take this,' he said. He held onto mum's foot with one hand and answered his phone with the other. 

He then regaled the person on the other end with the story of some prospective employee, who he named, having reneged on a job he was due to start the next day. We listened in to the conversation. After he hung up he filled us in on the details of this guy who'd been 'so unprofessional', giving so little notice that he's taken up another job offer; leaving this practice in the lurch.

He finished mum's feet and then we left.

As we were walking home she said "I actually thought he was being unprofessional giving us all that information. Didn't you?' And that's the thing. Just when I think mum's lost it she chimes in with something so apt.

This post doesn't tell the half of why all this has led me to a dark place. It's possibly my particular sensibilities. I over-empathise; can't go through all this without seeing myself in twenty years and then thinking why not quit now, while I'm ahead?

The James Altucher blog and book helped. I carried out one of his Daily Practice suggestions the other day. One thing he suggests is to forgive someone. You don't have to tell them - I'm paraphrasing Altucher - just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. "It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them." That's from his book, Choose Yourself. $1.86 Australian on Amazon Kindle.

Well, assuming that my brain needed oxytocin - whatever that is - I wrote my little note on a piece of paper, all the time feeling ridiculous. Then I thought about burning it. Now I live in Melbourne, and it's stinking hot and it was a Total Fire Ban day. Looked over at the kitchen sink and the lighter. Uh-uh, I thought. I'll probably set fire to the curtains and then burn the whole freaking house down. So I folded the paper a couple of times then ripped it into tiny pieces which I fluttered into the recycling bin. By the time I'd finished I was bubbling with laughter. Was that oxytocin or am I an 'oxy-moron'? It certainly lifted my mood.

There's some good advice in Altucher's book, and if you have the wherewithall, you could make zillions of bucks. 

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.

Me and The Third Ager.

If you met my mum now, you'd see a slender statuesque, somewhat stooped 80-something. She always looks good in her fashionable, casual clothes; her accessories match, her feet wear Rockport, her hair is well-cut and she pops a bit of lippy on before she goes out.

If you met my mum now, as I keep explaining in a slightly hysterical voice, to anyone who'll listen, you'd meet a smiling, solicitous, wide-eyed woman. She'd lean in close and encourage you. She'd want to know who you are, where you're from and what you do. I really think you'd like her.

But don't leave her presence, even for ten minutes. Because upon your return I could introduce you again and you could reenact the entire scenario. Mum, having completely forgotten you, wouldn't find it repetitious or strange because it would be completely new to her. If I mentioned you enough, dropped you into several conversations, told her a few of your exploits, it might sink in. But then again.

Mum's rich fabric of memory is wearing thin, fraying, and that's very hard to live with.

It's an extremely complex situation, as you can imagine. I'm not coping very well with having my mum living at ours.

In another post, I compared living with my aged mum to having pre-school children. But it's more taxing than that. There's a lot of joy in raising your kids - well, at least for a few minutes a day. They're learning, and you go and look at them while they're sleeping and you're filled with love.

I'm not finding any joy in my current situation, other than the idea that I'm saving my mum from being in some sort of supported care with others with 'memory loss'. My head hurts and I'm even more of an insomniac. I went out without any emergency glucose today because I'm not thinking straight - I have Type 1 diabetes. Happily I didn't need it.

Basically, I'm in my mother's service except when she's sleeping or when I'm at work. I bounce out of the door on my three working days looking forward to some respite, but unfortunately I don't get that because I'm a secondary teacher and I need to put the educational and emotional needs of my kids above my own.

While I'm writing this I can hear Al chopping veges in the kitchen whilst chatting, apparently happily, with mum. She's explaining to him that she doesn't want to be a burden and that there are plenty of other places she can go. I wish she'd go into the lounge and watch TV so I could write in peace.

On my right I have about 300ml of chardonnay.

As I've said many times, chardonnay helps. Mum enjoys it too. Oils the wheels of human endeavour.

Cheers.

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.