Marianne Talbot Sometimes being with mum is so life-enhancing I feel buoyed up for hours. It was like that the other night.
The evening didn’t start well. Some students were coming to sing carols. So everyone was walked or wheeled into one of the sitting rooms. With about 50 residents, staff, relatives and a lot of wheelchairs, it was a bit of a squeeze. But mum was in a fine mood and happy to be asked several times to move for someone else.
The students arrived and walked self-consciously into the space left for them. They launched into ‘Hark the Herald Angels sing’.
Mum was electrified. Slowly she got up and moved towards the choir. I considered stopping her but she wasn’t doing any harm so I followed. She walked into their midst and stood transfixed with wonder. At the end of the carol, she looked at them, then at me, then at them again. Then she said ‘Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you all’.
When they resumed mum sang along with them. She couldn’t remember the words of course. But she had the tune bang on. And her voice is still lovely.
As is her smile! Toothless, but so expressive of love and pleasure that I felt quite tearful. I doubt the choristers will ever feel as appreciated as they did that night. My heart almost burst with love and pride.
During the interval we sat down. When the singing re-started the man next to me, a new resident, started crying. I put my arm round him, held him tight, and asked if he was OK. It took a while to understand his mumble. But it became clear that his tears were of pleasure not pain. He was just as overcome as mum.
Dementia is often portrayed as de-humanizing. To the extent it destroys the capacity to reason this is right. But the capacity for reason is only one of the things that manifests our humanity. Dementia is very far from destroying the other: the capacity to love. The other evening mum and the gentleman next to me demonstrated their humanity in spades.
Yesterday I went to a musical afternoon at the home hoping for the experience to be repeated. It was not to be. Mum was asleep in a chair. So were most of the other residents.
Naturally great efforts were put in to rouse them. It is very disappointing when you want someone to be jolly and they won’t go along with it! But when one resident, a woman who hardly ever speaks, suddenly yelled loudly and clearly ‘Shut up!’, we allowed our efforts to subside.
Oh well, some you win, some you lose!