My mother as she is
I went to a zoom meeting recently, organised by my eldest sister, and conducted at my mother’s house, on my mobile phone: Mum has neither a camera, nor a microphone, nor the will to organise such things herself, so we sat companionably side by side at the dining table – a large, reassuring object harkening back to the days of large family dinners – and warbled happily on the phone. It was good.
I noticed that at times my mother has difficulty speaking, but otherwise, she seems to me to have been much more like her usual self. My elder sister, seeing my mother under the overhead lights, expressed concern to me – when Mum was elsewhere phoning my other sister – and I said, “Oh, yes, I suppose Mum does not look very well… But she’s fine…” All the usual things one says to reassure, when one needs reassurance too.
My mother is indeed tired, so tired, that at times, her skin looks translucent. I am used to being a witness to her decline and her constant struggle to recalibrate for the things she can no longer do – for her, a heartbreaking realisation, that I have at least had time to accustom myself to, rather more than my siblings have. To them, a sudden realisation is alarming.
My mother cannot help harking back to the way she was; I too feel hamstrung, so, while I get used to that feeling, meanwhile I do my best to help, smile and hope. It’s just about all I can do. That, and make phonecalls to organise deliveries, extra help; all that kind of thing. I have to stay cheerful, and even when fatigued, I accept there is no better alternative.
My elder sister would like to phone me to talk about it. She will do that when she has time. And I will reassure her as best I can. I know Mum is lucky. She is still able to live at home and has the freedom to live unfettered by the well-meaning “supervision” of others, a word I noted in a recent advert for a care-home, which reminds me of my kindergarten days and makes me shudder.
I try not to supervise, or worry, but I do grieve, a gradual process like the tipping of a sand-timer to the inevitable empty glass.
Thanks for listening.
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December 21, 2020
Quiet Crises
Fran Macilvey Fran Macilvey, Fran's School of Hard Knocks 2 Comments
Quiet crises
Throughout this year, I have gained a new appreciation for those among us who soldier on: the health care workers, supermarket supervisors and the staff stacking shelves, the cohorts of recyclers, cleaners and organisers. It has been too easy, while we were taking our previously “normal” lives in our stride, to overlook the crucial parts taken by so many players in keeping our erstwhile expectations on track. I feel a sincere gratitude to those of us who get on with things, because they have little choice: a semblance of normal life has to continue.
Which has always been my mother’s rationale for keeping going, despite her increasing frailty. Recently, she was taken into hospital. On the advice of a GP, an ambulance was summoned, and asked to ferry my mother to one of the Edinburgh hospitals, where her arrival was expected. Ten hours later, an ambulance finally came to the door because my husband, coming to the scene fresh, and alarmed at my mother’s pallor, called the emergency services again; so that my mother’s case was re-prioritised; and thus, two paramedics arrived.
For our pains, and those of my mother, we received a small peroration from the lead paramedic on the use of the emergency services to summon help and a comment that he disliked the emergency ambulance being used as a taxi service.
It’s only now, after an exhausting weekend in recovery from a series of eight-, ten- and twelve-hour days in attendance on my mother, while seeing to a dozen things at once and keeping abreast of my own household’s needs, that I sense the illogicality of much of what he said: I was not at all offended that he felt the need to speak his mind; I am, however, rather puzzled by the implications.
If the ambulance service is not there to ferry sick persons about, what is it for? At what point does a sick person, unable to move, feed or toilet themselves, become an emergency? And why is it only noisy emergencies that get priority? Without re-prioritisation, would my mother still be waiting to reach her bed in the hospital as other calls were constantly prioritised above her? Must we both be in a state of collapse before someone notices our lives crumbling under the weight of accumulated impossibility? For we had no carers on hand no help manage our own quiet crises, nor hope of any. (I had had to tell my mother’s carers not to come to the house, since by then she had been expecting admission to hospital.)
In the last two weeks, I have begun to appreciate some of the complexities that underpin our public services and their organisation. I’m grateful for these insights, and can only hope that I have learned enough to carry me through the next phase of my mother’s rehabilitation. No hospital visits allowed, but phonecalls are always a route through the maze.
In this season of love and goodwill, in the midst of a million quiet crises, I wish you all well, and hope that the New Year brings us peace and joy.
Merry Christmas.
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