The urge to go home

 

Two weeks ago, Mum died, aged ninety. She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  I was with her every day in hospital for the last sixteen days of her life. One of the few things Mum could remember was her address, and no wonder, for she had lived there nearly sixty-three years.

In the last couple of years, she had twice had respite periods in a care, and throughout those stays, her litany had been consistent:

‘Where am I? What do I do now? How do I get home? When can I go home?’

During her final stay in hospital, it remained much the same.

 

For me, as I faced her demise, I allowed home to change its meaning.

In Mum’s earlier absences from home, the thing she was missing was clearly being in her marital home with her husband. "Where's Martin?" was very much part of her round of questions.

 

However, this time it was different and she hardly mentioned Dad, but firmly still wished to go home.  Dad said she had recently been talking much more of her childhood in Wolverhampton. her family had left there for Cornwall when her parents divorced.

"I believe," he said, "That now, when she talks of home, she is talking of her childhood home

in the Midlands. She wants to go back there."

 

Myself, once it was clear that Mum was dying, I assigned home a third meaning. It is Heaven. 

 

There was some evidence that Mum was preparing to move on.

Several times, she asked, ‘Can I just go in peace?’

She asked me a couple of times as I sat at her bedside when I was ‘going back to Heaven?’

When my father and brother and I were all there round her bed, she counted us twice and each time included a couple of extra people who we couldn't see.

Above all, taking home as Heaven allowed me to answer her repeated question both comfortingly and honestly,

‘When can I go home?’

‘Soon.’

Potatoes of hope

Right now, we have both friends and family members in hospital. It takes a lot to cheer me up. But my school friend Jennie managed it. With potatoes.  

Jennie had come by a sack of very large potatoes (a long and elaborate tale in itself).

Having finally gained the potatoes, she felt their dimensions recommended them for a more interesting destiny than the pot. She would play a prank on her elderly friend Viv. 

She took her mother and Viv out to lunch. Then during the meal, slipped away back to Viv's house. 

Jennie went round the back to the conservatory and from her capacious handbag took several of the massive potatoes. But they were now transformed. Using a kids' craft kit, Jennie had given them little faces and arms. 

She ranged them on the ledge around the outside of Viv's conservatory, as if peering in the window. 

However, it was a blustery day and they blew right over.

She rearranged them. They blew over again. 

Finally she had all the potato people in place. 

She stepped back to admire her handiwork. 

 And fell five feet off Viv's patio. The drop was long enough for her to imagine dying. 

However, her guardian angel was on the alert that day and she fell neatly into the arms of a garden recliner chair.  Bruises there were aplenty, but breakages none.

At this point many would have given up, but Jen limped back up the steps to the house. The potatoes had fallen over again. 

Instead, Jennie placed them looking in through Viv's porch window. 

I would love to say that hilarity ensued. But in fact Viv failed to notice the potatoes looking in at her.

The following day, Jennie had to ring up and drop increasingly unsubtle hints to get Viv to spot her veggie-visitors. 

Finally, Viv saw them: 'Ha, ha, ha, ha!'

And for Jennie, that was enough. 

Mission accomplished. 

The self-describing toilet

I've been spending time at the hospital with my Mum.  As I arrive each morning I stop at the public toilets on the way in.
Today, a cleaner said,
'I'm afraid you can't come in here, but you can use the disabled one, opposite.'

In I went and shut the door.

Behind me a voice said, 'Welcome.'

I jumped.

'If you are blind or partially sighted and would like an audio description of this toilet, just wave your hand in front of this sensor.'

I didn't need such a description and frankly was doubtful that prose could do the toilet justice, so did not wave.

However, in spare moments, I found myself wondering whether the description would include the confetti of shreds of toilet paper on the floor, the trim of ancient grime along edges and corners.

The next day I returned surreptitiously and waved my hand.
The description was functional - toilet in righthand corner, sanitary bin to its left, emergency cord behind it.

I was dissatisfied with the description on two counts.

Firstly, it omitted some information that would have been very useful:
'Watch out! The person before you left the seat up. And try to avoid treading in the shallow pool of suspicious-looking fluid just in front of the loo.'

Secondly, it lacked ambition. If unable to see one's surrounds, one might wish to believe that they were beautiful and luxurious.
'The walls are frescoed in the Italian manner, surmount by a rococo  cornice of white stucco, with a scallop shell motif picked out in gold leaf.'

Now that's the toilet I'd want to visualise.