Andante

Roberta, our case manager, called me to express her 'concerns' about my mother. Apparently she has recently received 'incident reports' every week, which have related mum's resistence to help and aggression towards both the nurses and the care worker, Gail. On top of this, Roberta is worried that mum is losing weight and getting dirtier. Apparently there has been a report that the bathroom is in severe need of cleaning.

I respect Roberta: I think she is one of the few that seek what is best for the 'patient' rather than looking for the best way of doing their job. During a pause in her litany of problems surrounding my mother she admitted that she did not have any solution, and then began again by saying that perhaps mum would be better in 'another environment'. She was having difficulty saying all this, but I was deliberately not helping by being an active listener. I had automatically gone into negotiation mode. I wanted her cards on the table. When she paused to ask what I thought I replied along the following lines:

  • None of these issues were new to us
  • We (the family) talk about the issues every few days
  • Yes, mum would be better fed and cleaner in a home
  • She would probably also be much more disorientated
  • Dad would have to be 'dealt with' too, as they are inextricably linked

It was ironic to me that Roberta had homed in on nutrition and hygiene as problems. Were these not the two aspects of life that I had flagged as top priority way back when we started?

We concluded the talk quite satisfactorily, in my opinion. Roberta would fund another companion for a second day. Dad could go to day care twice a week. One of the companions for mum would take her out for a long outing each week, and another worker would go into the house and do some cleaning. This, I think, is a step in the right direction.

The slightly uplifting closing theme prepared me for the next movement.

Allegro

I dropped in on mum and dad and showed them the paired photos (1961 and 2006), and several others taken at the latter session. I also took several of their wedding photos over to show them. Mum really enjoyed the whole thing. She did just as I had imagined - running a thickened fingernail from one face to another, answering 'me' when I questioned her about the woman under her finger, 'mine' when I asked her about the four children and her husband. I said that 'he', pointing at the photo of dad, was 'him' pointing at dad himself, sitting next to her at the table.
'Oh, no!' she said.
But over time we perhaps got her around this objection. Yes, there was the old man sitting next to her and her children in a more recent photograph. She could see it, but how had that been done? For a minute I thought she was going to accuse me of 'photoshopping' the image, but she seemed temporarily willing to accept dad as her husband.

Dad and I then left for a hit and run attack on the supermarket. We were in and out of the mall in twenty minutes. Dad kept saying how grateful he was for the photographs (he thinks this will finally convince mum that he is hers). He was equally grateful for the shopping and the mere fact of my being at the house. Having another member of the family there temporarily defuses some of their disagreements. I dropped dad back at the house, put all the new food in the cupboards, and laid out dinner for the two of them. That was my work for the day done, and it was time to relax.

Adagio

I moved on to Greg and Regan's place for dinner. I gave them updates on the first two movements of the day. Cassy read her current favourite book (Dr Dog) to me, and we had a glass of wine with the meal. Cassy said:
' I know what Granddad's favourite subject is.'
'What's that,' Greg asked.
'The war.'
Greg then reminded me of a story about dad. I will be writing it down for posterity later tonight because it contains an incredibly strong, almost surreal, cinematic, image that I cannot get out of my head: a lone airman is calmly walking down the runway of a Belgian airfield that has just been strafed and bombed by the Luftwaffe. On either side of the runway Spitfires have been parked in rows. Every one of them is burning violently. They had all been ready for combat: armed and fueled. The flames are tearing high into the air and their combined cloud of black smoke is smothering the sky. Walking slowly between the two rows of flaming aircraft like this is a near-suicidal act of fearlessness or recklessness.

Andante

On the way home I drop in again on mum and dad, to leave their copies of the photographs. Both of them have gone to bed, but dad answers the door quite quickly. He's been unable to sleep because he is distraught about mum's denial of the marriage, he says. We stand together in the kitchen. He is wearing shortie pyjamas and nervously running his fingers around the elastic waistband of his shorts. He needs to make sure that someone else knows what he's going through, so I let him talk for as long as he wants to. One revealing little fact that emerges is that the day mum got lost she and dad had had an argument and he had walked away from her - or she had refused to follow him home.

In the end I have to say that we all know what mum is like, we all know the problem, but none of us has the solution.
'Ah yes,' says dad. 'That's the...'
'Sixty-four thousand dollar question,' I say.
'Exactly.'

But he's got things off his chest and goes to bed a little calmer.