People watching at Mum and Dad’s care home. A selection of bodies, some robust and still with youthful vigour, others variously faded, with the whisper of their previous selves. A few cheerfully rude, wonderfully naughty and flirty nonagenarian men. Stooped and meandering ladies with the bits of themselves they can see in the mirror carefully groomed, wonkily lipsticked and powdered, but the hair on the backs of their heads conducting a rebellious, anti-gravity experiment. Glimpses of their previous pride, beauty and vanity as they shuffle forwards in their heels, clutching their matching handbags and patting down their coiffure.
I followed Mum and Dad down to supper as she held on to the the back of his electric wheelchair and he guided her down the corridor, gently and repeatedly ricocheting his wheels off doorways, bits of furniture and other residents.
Now sitting in my brother’s back garden with a chilled glass of rose contemplating the long haul back home with the truck packed full of stuff, some sentimental and much wanted, some useless garbage and many, many memories from my folks’, now sold and cleared, house.