It’s funny how context can totally change your perception of things.
Children’s playgrounds, which are always in garish colours, get my back up. They are hideous and often ruin a perfectly good view. Kids deserve to have them, but must they be so loud?
The swings and slides of my childhood were grey and they worked just as well.
Every time we drive past the local school, I grind my teeth and I certainly didn’t intend photographing the thing this day. Sailing past at speed, I was aiming for the sky.
Looking at the image I captured, I decided that the splash of colour actually works.
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It’s a wonder my teeth are not ground down to nubs. I am an intolerant old woman.
But then, I was an intolerant young woman too.
It’s in the genes. Blame father. Most things annoyed him. He turned complaining into an art form. Not satisfied with muttering about current annoyances, he moaned about events to come, I suppose hoping that Mother would somehow change their course. She did have a great many skills, after all.
There were few things Mum could not cope with and although she was often very impatient, she was amazingly tolerant of my father’s ill temper. She made many sacrifices to keep him happy which I think unconsciously she kept a tally of.
In the year before my mother died, her mind began to drift. Not wanting to acknowledge it, we put misunderstandings and confusion down to her profound deafness. She was a stubborn woman who refused to consider a hearing aid as it would make her look old. I suspect the truth was that she was quite happy not to hear anymore.
Early in 1996, Dad decided what Mum needed was a holiday in the sunshine. They should go to Tahiti. If he’d asked her, I seriously doubt that’s what she would have chosen, but he had always wanted to go there.
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Using my BA employee’s staff travel concession, perhaps I could get them to Los Angeles on a free business class ticket. Those concessions are wonderful when they work, but you have to be flexible and I needed my parent’s flight to connect with a full fare one to Papeete.
Tahiti is a very long way from England! It was asking a lot to expect it to work out. Even if the BA flight didn’t fill, there was always a chance my parents would be downgraded, making that long journey ghastly for two octogenarians, but after monitoring the bookings on the computer, I selected the best option and Dad did the rest with the local travel agent.
Before their departure, I arranged an extra day of and flew to England where I spent the night in Wiltshire, “collecting” my parents. Next day we went back up to Heathrow where to my great relief, they were confirmed in business class, for an on-time departure and I flew back to New York. As my parents were escorted airside, I urged them to enjoy their holiday.
“We usually do!” said my Mum, smiling and I remember thinking how sweet she looked.
It’s a memory I hold onto because I’ve always felt that the person who was my mother did not return from what turned out to be a disastrous trip.
Luckily, I had a friend in Los Angeles who prevented it from being a total disaster, but the connecting flight to Tahiti was delayed and their “business class” seats did not materialise, so that they arrived utterly exhausted and very stressed, only to discover that hotel arrangements did not include meals which would not have been a problem if Dad had possessed a credit card, but such a thing had never been necessary to him before. He carried a small number of travellers cheques, but they would not suffice.
.
Fortunately, I had given my dad a fax number for the office where I worked and soon I received an SOS. With a few phone calls back and forth, I managed to sort something out with regard to meals although my parents were going on to Bora Bora which involved further sorting out. Still, I believed all was well.
“No news is good news!” said one of my colleagues when no further messages arrived.
Don’t ever believe that rash statement!
A day or so later I got the alarming news that my mother had fallen and hit her head. She was not seriously hurt, but the accident had shaken her badly. Most of the story, I am sure was never disclosed. What I was told later was bad enough.
For example, Mum said to Dad one day: “I’ve got Win’s problem.”
Win was an aunt who had died with Alzheimer’s. On her return to England, Mum had been unexpectedly confronted with Win’s illness and seen the person who had been her sister turn into a troubled, angry woman in great distress. Mum had had to have her put into a nursing home, something she absolutely dreaded the thought of herself.
Mum had asked me once to promise that I would never put her in a home. I would not say the words, knowing it was a promise I could not in good conscience commit to. Sometimes, I knew, there were no alternatives.
But would it have been kinder to make that promise, to give my mother comfort just then? It is something I’ve asked myself over and over.
At that early stage, Mum told my dad that he must not pay attention if she got “funny”.
A euphemism.
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The return journey was an appalling nightmare with a prolonged delay and a night stop in Los Angeles. It is a wonder one or both of them did not succumb to the stress. Dad recovered but my mother really never did.
When I went to see them a few weeks later, I could see that she was no longer the same person. Her eyes were different and she had become paranoid, accusing my father and I of plotting against her, although a moment later she was happily talking about making his birthday cake, which she did, a month too soon.
Because Mum was deaf, I could no longer talk to her on the phone and now she couldn’t write letters, so my only communication with her was through my father. I sent cards in the hope they might mean something and I visited when possible. Mum continued as best she could, putting meals together and they were fine, but it was painful to see how she struggled with things she had done all her life.
Mum had always made me a Christmas cake. I actually didn’t much care for it as it was far too sweet for my taste, but friends at home liked it and Mum enjoyed doing it, so I had never discouraged her. I flew over after the ’96 holidays and Mum proudly showed me the cake which she had attempted to decorate to reflect the South Pacific. When I got back to New York, I took the cake, still wrapped up, to my friend Tim and thrust it at him asking him to deal with it as I couldn’t bear the sight of the smeary decoration.
When I saw my mother next, in the Spring, I sensed that she was dying. I am grateful that she still knew who I was but I left with a heavy heart and shortly after I was told that my brother and I would be asked to go soon to discuss arrangements for on-going care. So we waited for the call.
In June, Mum was admitted to hospital, they said to evaluate the sort of care she would need. Perhaps it was more to relieve my father, as things had begun to go seriously wrong. That list of sacrifices Mum had made over the years, far from being forgotten, turned into resentment and anger. The sweet, tolerant woman my father had married was gone, replaced by a vengeful creature he did not recognise.
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Dad readily admitted that he was self-centred, proudly proclaiming himself to be the most selfish man on the planet. I doubt he was quite, but he certainly tried my patience, however no-one should have to endure what he went through those last months.
At the beginning of July, my brother was in England on business and went to visit. He took Dad to the hospital where Mum ignored him as she chatted happily to Peter, telling him that I had been in to see her that morning. I was actually in New York, but it was a comfort to know that she thought I had been there.
Peter had been back in Zambia only a couple of days when Mum died and he had to fly all the way back again. Dad had called me in the morning to say the hospital had advised that Mum’s heart was very weak. I said I would fly over but he said no, it wasn’t necessary, however an hour later he called back to say she was gone. What he actually said was:
“SHE’S DEAD!”
It isn’t quite the way you want to hear about your mother’s demise, but that was my dad.
There was a flight that would get me there that night, so I called the airport to organise a ticket, threw a few things in a bag, arranged a babysitter for Yeti, my cat and rushed out.
The day I had dreaded all my life. I ought to be crying, but just then the tears wouldn’t come. Too much to think about and deep down I had to acknowledge that it was a relief. It was merciful she had not suffered longer. Mum did not want to be in a home. Maybe she had simply given up the will to live.
She was at peace. At last.
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