A time for reflection. Kinda.
I have read many of my Christmas posts from years gone by, and for several years we used to travel to Suffolk in the run up to Christmas to drop off cards and presents to Mum.
More recently we went on Boxing Day hoping the traffic wouldn't be so bad. Last year I made the decision not to go up at all.
I decided not to go up as Mum wasn't helping herself. Not that she ever did, I now see that more clearly as posts a decade old show that she was determined not to change her lifestyle, even when such a change could improve her life. She would rather eat chocolates and shortbread, and puff on the fags. We just wanted to see that she had realised she could not go on like that.
I don't think she ever did, really, she thought she would just carry on and on. Her cleaner, Sheila, said earlier this year, back in July that the end was near. She knoew having seen it as a nurse and cleaner for many old ladies. Which is why I went up one last time to talk some sense into her.
This is my account from back in July when I last went to visit her:
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Some background.
I am the only child of two only children, meaning there is no one else.
Mum's issues stem from her parents and grandparents, and in particular from her Mother and Grandmother.
Mum's Grandmother, had two children, a son, Peter, and a daughter, Emma my Grandmother.
Peter could do no wrong, even when he did wrong. Emma could do no right, no matter how hard she tried. Photographs of her life show a girl and woman who never smiled.
Emma fell in love, or something close to it, but her Mother said no son-in-law of hers was going to be a gardener's labourer, which is what Granddad was then. So in 1936 he joined the Coldstream Guards, just in time for the start of the war in two years time.
After the debacle of Dunkirk, Granddad stayed in the UK as most British and Commonwealth troops did. At the end of 1943, he came home on leave, and nine months later Mum was born. By then Bill was getting ready to storm the Normandy beaches, and afterwards fight his way through France, Belgium into Germany.
At the end of the war, he had a rich future as an NCO, but Nana wanted him out of the Army. He left six months short of a pensionable engagement, so he left after just over a decade of service without a trade.
He went on to become a fitter's mate at the Lowestoft engine shed, 32D. That was fine until steam was phased out at the end of the 50s, and at which point he was back to square one.
Nana meanwhile, ruled the house with an iron rod, what was hers was hers, what was Granddad's was theirs. And that's the way it was.
Nana showed no affection to anyone, only to her Mother, to whom she would go back to every lunchtime when working at the canning factory to make her parents lunch, but it made no difference.
Mum grew up then in a house with lots of love from her Father and none from her Mother.
Just as an idea, maybe she tried to replace her Mother's love with something else, something to fill the void.
The love of another man, any man, or an addiction to chocolate. I don't know.
Nothing Mum did could make her own Mother love her, show her any affection. Nana would lock herself in their house when Granddad had friends round, and rejected Granddad's entire family, 13 brothers and sisters, who all lived within a mile of their house.
Mum found Dad and they married. I think she had me to have something that unconditionally loved her back.
And that she guarded that love, and began to poison me with whispers of how the unhappiness at home was Dad's fault, and how much better things were when he was working away.
At the same time she began an affair.
Some times she met this guy once or twice a year, sometimes a year would go by without meeting. I suspect he came round when Dad was working away. Dad suspected something, and the rows began, but he couldn't prove anything.
This affair last 23 years until the guy died. When this happened, Mum and Dad's relationship improved, Dad thinking that things really were getting better, but the reality was her lover had passed away.
Mum was jealous of my loves. I think something that would take some of the love I had for her away.
I was torn between the love of two women, two women, as it turned out, lied for their respective countries. I did what most would do, and believed my first wife's words, when the truth is, who knows.
Mum tried everything to rebuild bridges, but made things worse.
For two years we did not speak, then Andrea wanted Sky TV in Germany, and we needed a UK address, so we asked my parents, and I said we could not use them, it would mean a full "diplomatic" relations.
So, once my marriage ended, I spent the last Christmas that my Dad would enjoy. I came back from Germany laden with presents, and stayed three weeks. It was wonderful.
Five months later in April 1996 Dad died of a massive heart attack.
Mum was upset. And yet, there was something odd.
We were on a long car journey, and she confided in me of the affair. All 23 years of it.
I just wasn't expecting it, and the more I thought about it the angrier I became.
Worst of all was the fact she had poisoned the relationship I had with Dad. He was angry because he suspected the affair, and yet Mum was happy to blame hi and absolve her. I still don't think what she did was wrong, or for me, a wrong that can never be righted, or me as Dad as to what I should do.
In the end, I decided I could not forgive her, and the word love was something I never said to her again.
Did this desire to fill her life with sex with someone who was not her husband, a symptom of her childhood? I will never know.
Mum also liked to spend. I too am dreadful with money. But over the years Mum nearly went bankrupt twice, without telling Dad! Nana bailed her out one time, the next she emptied my other Grandmother's bank account.
With Dad gone, Mum could spend, eat, smoke to her heart's content without anyone telling her not to. She had no one to answer to.
But her lifestyle and choices were catching up with her. She had bad knees, so walked less, took a taxi to and back from work, and worked sitting down. With Dad's pension she was soon able to retire, and really relax.
When I left my second wife in 1999, she could barely walk round a supermarket. It has gone downhill from then on.
Over the years she paid people to go on holiday with her, so they could carry her luggage and help her on and off trains and planes.
She began to buy stuff from mail order catalogues. Anything. Lots of things. We had to be nasty to get her to stop. Thinking that gifts could make up for her actions of the past.
They couldn't.
In about 2001 or 2001, a friend's Mother passed away, and I overheard Mum at the wake explaining how various tools and things was making her life easier. I heard someone embracing disability rather than fighting it. And that's been the story of the last twenty years.
Each day doing slightly less and less, going out less and less, and her circle of friends shrinking until there was just a handful of people who would go round. This wasn't helped by Mum being indiscreet and badmouthing friends to other friends, forgetting they might talk.
So, here we are, 2019 and Mum having recovered from her second heart attack, and yet having started smoking for at least the seventh time after quitting. She is in her chair for over 23 and a half hours a day, her legs infected by gout and ulcerated. She has a team of people to come round to do stuff for her, what they don't do her neighbours do.
So, with this and her recent repeated admissions to hospital would make her change. No chance.
In the last decade, Mum has taken out equity release on the value of the house, borrowing something like £35k, but de to compound interest now owes over £70k, and each day she owes more and she owns less of her house.
Ian: What do you want, Mum?
Mum: I want to be better.
Then you could move about more.
I can't.
What do you mean?
The carers have told me I shouldn't walk to the toilet alone, I have to use the commode when they're not here.
Meaning you do less now than before your last heart attack?
Yes.
When was the last time you went outside other than to go to hospital?
I don't know maybe four months ago.
Why don't you go outside?
I can't get down the steps.
The have them taken away.
I can't social services had them put in.
What's wrong with the steps?
I can't get down them, I don't feel confident.
(I go to check on the steps, there are three steps, each step wide for at least one pace, and a railing on both sides)
Then the house is a prison.
Why don't you move?
This is my home.
But a prison, a gilded one, but you can't leave. Why not have the font door put back in, it would be a small step to get onto the drive?
I hadn't thought of that, but no.
The steps is just the first excuse. What's the plan, to stop you going into care?
To walk more. I can walk to the toilet now, under guidance. I plan to walk to one bedroom and then the next.
But not outside.
No.
(I looked at her table, it has shortbread, Pringles, biscuits on it. I mentioned it to Mum)
You don't miss anything, do you?
No, I am cursed. Why did you start to smoke again.
My friend came round, and I knew she had been smoking. I asked if the had one on her, she said yes. I begged her for one, just one, I said I wouldn't be hooked again. I don't have many, just when the carers come round.
The house smells different to that. You could smoke kippers in here. Look at the ceiling above your chair. Its the same colour as the ceiling at the ex-serviceman's club; nicotine brown. You did that. Well done you.
You are an intelligent woman, you know what needs to be done to change If you do not change, your path is clear. The infection in you leg will not get better, the diabetes sees to that. Estelle lost her legs before she had a stroke, that's what will happen. Do you want that?
No.
If you are serious about changing like you say, the biggest, most important and first change would be to stop smoking. Unless you do that, all else is just words.
I can't give up smoking.
You have given up seven times at least, you can do it. Is it boredom?
I think so.
Then get a hobby. Be like Jools' Nan and knit blankets for orphaned babies. Do something.
Why did you want to speak to the social worker?
To see if you could be forced into care against your will due to the amount of falls you have.
You can't force me, I went through this with my Mother.
Will you sell your house?
No.
Why not?
Its my house, my home. I have so many memories of here.
But it will kill you. Mum, there is nothing anyone can do. Only you can do that. If you want to change, you can, but not just for a week, but forever. Unless you do, people are just papering the cracks. If you don't change, you will die. Sooner or later. But if your legs don't get better, you could lose them, then you would have to be in a home, like Nan, with screaming dementia suffers on both sides. Is that what you want?
No.
Then do something to change.
I could go on, but there is no point.
I left after an hour, thinking that this will be the last time I see her alive.
Its not that she can't change, but won't.
She likes smoking too much.
One warning. Two warnings wasn't enough, she will keep puffing.
I went up not out of love for my Mother, but because i know when she goes into hospital she expects her cleaner to run errands for her, to get her stuff, and to visit. I said that was unfair, Sheila has a life to lead, a mortgage to pay, and anyway, when Mum goes into hospital, Sheila loses six hours of pay a week. That can't go on.
But will. Hmmm.
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Christmas Eve. No travel to Suffolk this year. Not any more.
We did get an update from the solicitor; she is progressing towards applying for probate, papers should be with me to sign next month. And so the wheels slowly turn.
But Christmas Eve, we have to go to Preston to pick up the turkey, I thought about how many years I have been making this trip over the marshes to Preston, and I guess it must be near a decade. And I have travelled in all sorts of weathers from now to gales and torrential rain. This year it was clear and warm. Once the sun got up. As we walked out of the back door, the crescent moon could be seen hanging away in the south, just above the soon to be risen sun.
We take the road to Whitfield, then along the Sandwich road, the day brightening all the time. The fields are still waterlogged and muddy from the rain at the weekend, but the road was just about clear enough to drive down.
We turn right at Perry Corner and go into Preston, where the shop is full of Christmas orders, and the boys have no butchering to to do,just find the right numbered bag and take the cash for each collected order.
We swap festive greetings, shake hands and I part with some cold hard cash. In return I get an 11 pound stuffed and bacon-latticed turkey crown, a huge joint of beef, a joint of salt beef and finally a selection of sausage meat.
So, back home as the sun rose, to get really busy.
First up was to make a batch of dough for a loaf with which I plan to make salt beef sandwiches for lunch. I use a mix of white and brown flour, and soon the dough is mixed and rising in a bowl on the windowsill in the warm sunshine.
Next is to add a selection of herbs and spices to a large pan, put in the salt beef and then top it with water, take to the stove and bring to the boil, which took half an hour. Then leave to simmer for three hours whilst the bread rose.
I keep watch on the simmering pan for three hours, turn the risen dough into a greased pan and put into a hot oven for 40 minutes. It bakes wonderfully well, getting a fine brown and curved top.
At midday the beef is done, the bread cool enough to cut. I cut several thick slices of bread, smother in salted butter, and finally carve out thick slices of the salt beef, still hot and steaming. The butter melts, and the smell is wonderful. Serve with two fresh brews.
Merry Christmas.
And then, for the afternoon, as shops up and down the country close for nearly 36 hours, and trains and buses start to return to their sheds and garages, the sun sets on another Christmas Eve. If you haven't bought or done anything by now, its too late.
I finish sorting through the family pictures, putting the final round ups at the end of each album. They're not in order, but whose gonna be looking other than me? I show Jools, but she only knows my Mum. So, these are unknown people staring from faded and curling photographs. Some smiling, most unhappy, or looking serious.
There is a box of doubles and unknowns that look good to be thrown out, they will go back into the attic, the albums will go on the shelves. I read in a book that we die twice; once when our bodies fail, and secondly when the last person who remembered us passes.
It was dark, there were no tasks to do, just music to listen to, the Gruffalo to watch, and coffee to drink.
No one to call.
We have nachos for supper, along with a pint of London Porter for me. All the major food groups there.
And that was it. One final task was to get the turkey and beef out of the fridge to bring it to room temperature, so cooking doesn't come as too much of a shot in the morning.
And that is it.
All was quiet in the house, no sound was hear, except a mouse. That the cats had brought in.
Oh well.
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