Who are we?
By MP on Tuesday 25 July 2006, 10:11 - Background - Permalink
It is about time I started using names for the people in this weblog. I'm Mike,
48. There's also my siblings Greg, 46, Rachel 59, and Derek, 62.
Rachel lives in Queensland, but at the moment she is down in Sydney for three weeks - house-sitting for Greg, taking the lead role in looking after our parents, and doing business with her Sydney clients.
Greg is on holiday with his wife Regan and daughter Cassy, until the end of July. He is staying with Derek in the UK. Because of our proximity to mum and dad, it is Greg and I who most often get involved with them. It is a great relief when Rachel is down here. The lessening of pressure on Greg and I is quite palpable.
When she is at home in Queensland, Rachel normally calls my parents every Sunday, and does her best to have a conversation with my mother. She often feels that mum doesn't really know who she is talking to. Derek has avoided phoning mum and dad - their memory of him is now so unreliable that it can cause more confusion than joy. He and his wife Janet visited us all this April. They spent part of each day with mum and dad, but even at the end of the visit, Derek was not really recognised for who he was. Mum knew that she knew him, but couldn't be sure who he was. Dad somehow never really knew he was speaking to his son, until we told him, and even then he could only remember Derek as a young boy, and kept remarking how odd it was to meet someone who was a retiree himself, but for whom no recent memories existed. Dad was continually surprised at how much Derek knew about him! It was almost comical at times.
So it is Greg and I who are most easily recognised, but sometimes it feels as if we are hanging by the thinnest threads of memory. When I turned up at the house on one occasion, my dad didn't recognise me and was shaping up to kick me off the premises. Greg and I are constantly being confused with each other in our parents' minds. My dad often tells me what 'Mike' has said or done, and I know he is really talking about Greg.
Rachel has suffered the worst experiences of my mother's failing memory. A few months ago she stayed with mum and dad in their own house, as had been customary up to that point. Each evening my mother would say it was time for her to go home. Rachel would try to explain that she was staying as a guest, that she was mum's daughter. My mother simply wouldn't accept this, and grew extremely argumentative. Rachel wondered, given some of the things she said, whether our mother was worried that Rachel was after her husband! Although my mother later realised that she had made a mistake and apologised, the situation kept repeating itself. Mum even grabbed Rachel's arm and tried to forcibly remove her. It got too stressful for all concerned. Rachel had to cut her stay short and return to Queensland. Since then she has stayed at Greg's house when she is down in Sydney.
Even my father has had similar treatment. At times, mum doesn't know who he is, tells him to get out of her house, and denies that she married him. If they have been sleeping in the same bed, she kicks him out, and he has to begin a spell of sleeping in his own room. Usually, some weeks later, at night, mum will get anxious in the dark and come looking for him, but that is only the cue for the cycle to start again.
Dad called a few times to ask me to take a copy of their wedding certificate over to the house so that he could prove that he and mum were married. I made a copy, and took it over, but as their marriage was no longer an issue by the time I got there, I felt it better not to raise the subject again. Twice more this happened, and so I eventually set up a noticeboard in the kitchen, and pinned the marriage certificate to it. My mother recognised it as hers immediately, but then was very suspicious when I told her that the groom named on the certificate was actually the man sitting at the table in the next room.
At other times I've tried to use photographs to show her that she and dad are married, but this has backfired. It is almost as if she resents the proof that she is wrong. The last time I showed her a photo of the two of them together, she snapped 'Yes, I've seen that!' quite dismissively, as if it were a fake.
My dad, who has always tried to be so stoical, has taken this really hard. Last weekend, when I gave my mum a hug, he said, 'I get into trouble if I try to do that.' His tone was wistful, plaintive, but also trying to be light, to make a joke of it. 'Your mum doesn't want anything to do with me,' he said. 'It really hurts me.' It was language I never thought I would hear from my father. To hear him say 'I'm very upset,' is difficult, but in one way I'm glad that he's reached a point where he can actually give us some idea how he feels, instead of pretending that nothing matters, that it is all the same to him. It's just a shame it had to come so late, and in such circumstances.
Rachel lives in Queensland, but at the moment she is down in Sydney for three weeks - house-sitting for Greg, taking the lead role in looking after our parents, and doing business with her Sydney clients.
Greg is on holiday with his wife Regan and daughter Cassy, until the end of July. He is staying with Derek in the UK. Because of our proximity to mum and dad, it is Greg and I who most often get involved with them. It is a great relief when Rachel is down here. The lessening of pressure on Greg and I is quite palpable.
When she is at home in Queensland, Rachel normally calls my parents every Sunday, and does her best to have a conversation with my mother. She often feels that mum doesn't really know who she is talking to. Derek has avoided phoning mum and dad - their memory of him is now so unreliable that it can cause more confusion than joy. He and his wife Janet visited us all this April. They spent part of each day with mum and dad, but even at the end of the visit, Derek was not really recognised for who he was. Mum knew that she knew him, but couldn't be sure who he was. Dad somehow never really knew he was speaking to his son, until we told him, and even then he could only remember Derek as a young boy, and kept remarking how odd it was to meet someone who was a retiree himself, but for whom no recent memories existed. Dad was continually surprised at how much Derek knew about him! It was almost comical at times.
So it is Greg and I who are most easily recognised, but sometimes it feels as if we are hanging by the thinnest threads of memory. When I turned up at the house on one occasion, my dad didn't recognise me and was shaping up to kick me off the premises. Greg and I are constantly being confused with each other in our parents' minds. My dad often tells me what 'Mike' has said or done, and I know he is really talking about Greg.
Rachel has suffered the worst experiences of my mother's failing memory. A few months ago she stayed with mum and dad in their own house, as had been customary up to that point. Each evening my mother would say it was time for her to go home. Rachel would try to explain that she was staying as a guest, that she was mum's daughter. My mother simply wouldn't accept this, and grew extremely argumentative. Rachel wondered, given some of the things she said, whether our mother was worried that Rachel was after her husband! Although my mother later realised that she had made a mistake and apologised, the situation kept repeating itself. Mum even grabbed Rachel's arm and tried to forcibly remove her. It got too stressful for all concerned. Rachel had to cut her stay short and return to Queensland. Since then she has stayed at Greg's house when she is down in Sydney.
Even my father has had similar treatment. At times, mum doesn't know who he is, tells him to get out of her house, and denies that she married him. If they have been sleeping in the same bed, she kicks him out, and he has to begin a spell of sleeping in his own room. Usually, some weeks later, at night, mum will get anxious in the dark and come looking for him, but that is only the cue for the cycle to start again.
Dad called a few times to ask me to take a copy of their wedding certificate over to the house so that he could prove that he and mum were married. I made a copy, and took it over, but as their marriage was no longer an issue by the time I got there, I felt it better not to raise the subject again. Twice more this happened, and so I eventually set up a noticeboard in the kitchen, and pinned the marriage certificate to it. My mother recognised it as hers immediately, but then was very suspicious when I told her that the groom named on the certificate was actually the man sitting at the table in the next room.
At other times I've tried to use photographs to show her that she and dad are married, but this has backfired. It is almost as if she resents the proof that she is wrong. The last time I showed her a photo of the two of them together, she snapped 'Yes, I've seen that!' quite dismissively, as if it were a fake.
My dad, who has always tried to be so stoical, has taken this really hard. Last weekend, when I gave my mum a hug, he said, 'I get into trouble if I try to do that.' His tone was wistful, plaintive, but also trying to be light, to make a joke of it. 'Your mum doesn't want anything to do with me,' he said. 'It really hurts me.' It was language I never thought I would hear from my father. To hear him say 'I'm very upset,' is difficult, but in one way I'm glad that he's reached a point where he can actually give us some idea how he feels, instead of pretending that nothing matters, that it is all the same to him. It's just a shame it had to come so late, and in such circumstances.
