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It’s about 10 weeks since Dad died and 6 weeks since Mum made the move to the Reminiscence wing and since I last saw her. Her dementia has accelerated since he went and has taken her to a happy place. My initial reservations about her need for this enhanced care have been allayed. She is kept immaculate, as is her room, she is content and cheerful, only discussing missing Dad when one of us come to visit. We have had an entertaining couple of hours discussing her impending “wedding” to The King of the Cocos islands who “owns this hotel” so when she marries him her “hotel fees will be free”. “He’s all right I suppose, but not a patch on your father, however, needs must and I’m not getting any younger”.
😍

Still processing the events of the last few weeks and haven’t come out the other end yet.

The things that have lodged in my mind vary from emotionally raw and painful, through just plain funny, to positively uplifting.

Precious time with my father, tending to his failing form and laughing together at some of the unavoidable silliness

Watching him, four days before he died, carefully and methodically doing his utmost to shave himself and brush his teeth independently.

Steering my mother through the the minefield of her dementia as she attempts to navigate the path of events

More or less living in the residential home and experiencing the day to day randomness of a collection of befuddled individuals, my favourite being the quiz and the crossword sessions. Seriously wonderful.

Small pockets of brilliant lucidity between his confusion and delirium where Dad cracks jokes and Mum bosses him about.

Dad looking me in the eye and whispering “Where do we go from here?”

Grappling with the practicalities of arranging a good death, at home, with minimal interference from well meaning medical personnel.

Witnessing the compassion, diplomacy and skill of the palliative care team who helped myself and my family as much as they did my Dad.

Even right near the end, when rousable, Dad’s winning smile as the first reaction to any brief foray into consciousness.

Small (well, some quite large, but in the big scheme of things…) embuggerances:

Unwittingly flooding my elderly uncle’s house from the top floor and only discovering it on day 3 as I stepped out of bed on to a carpet which felt like a soggy sandwich that the juice had leaked over in a poorly packed picnic.

Getting stuck in a 5 hour jam on the M25 on my way to see Dad

Nearly shaving my head in the shower as I lift what I think is the comb to detangle the conditioner in my hair and discovering just in time that I am holding the razor.

Going for a sanity restoring swim and finding I can’t see as my goggles are filling up from the inside. With tears.

A regular stream of irrelevant queries and demands (the normal mother’s burden) by WhatsApp from my own family back home who I have left to fend for themselves, culminating (whilst I sit holding my Dad’s hand) in an unexpected and graphic colour photo of our spaniel’s testicles which, I am informed, have suddenly, impressively and massively enlarged overnight causing panic and dismay to all (apart from the dog, apparently).

Telling them to TAKE HIM TO THE BLOODY VET. Jeez.

As Dad witnessed my first breath, I witnessed his last.

Over the last two weeks I have experienced the poignant privilege of accompanying my Father through the last days of his life and am continuing to help my Mother, who has dementia, make sense of it all.
These events have been conducted in the fabulous care facility in which they have made their home for the last 18 months.
There have been heartbreaking, frustrating and frankly hilarious moments which I have recorded privately, some of which will follow when I am ready.

Dogs.
The animals that just keep on giving.
Tonight, came home to find a very strong smell of oil.
On investigation it became apparent that one of the four dogs which had been outside In the yard all day had comprehensively chewed their way through the oil line feeding the boiler from the 2000L tank and there was a steady stream of kerosene pouring into the yard, forming a lake in which all the dogs had been merrily paddling.
Cue two hours of clean up with old rags, newspaper, an enormous bonfire, a pressure washing frenzy of the yard with detergent, and repeated washing of the dogs’ feet.
Now I have no central heating and two people, a house, a yard, four dogs and four dogs beds that stink of oil.
Thinking about trading the hounds in for a couple of goldfish.

Lagertha the Lawn Queen (well, you have to name the bloomin’ thing to use the App) is back up and running. I’m pretty smitten and, frankly, obsessed. She has been cutting the grass in the dark with her headlights on which makes me, stupidly, very happy. I have had to turn them off, however, as the Springer spaniel turns into a frantically barking, demented, hairy blur whenever she approaches the kitchen doors.

Exciting day – New robotic lawnmower was installed and it was set off to do its thing round the garden. I obsessively and proudly tracked its progress remotely, using the app on my phone, whilst I was walking the dogs. Once I got home I happily watched it trundling about to and fro. Then it mysteriously disappeared from view and sent a forlorn alert to my phone. I went out to investigate and found it had managed to garrote itself on a loop of the boundary wire (which the installer had forgotten to bury for some reason) and cut through it, breaking the circuit and rendering the machine helpless. I had to rescue it and put it back to dock to await a return visit from the installer.
Jeez. Maybe I should get a sheep.
He definitely didn’t deserve that bit of cake with his cuppa.

Drove for an hour home from work and when I stopped I couldn’t find the case for my driving glasses which I normally keep in the door pocket. After several minutes of turning the car out I noticed something hanging off my coat sleeve. I’d accidentally shut the case on my coat and it’d been dangling there all the time.
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