Marianne Talbot The night before last mum and I sobbed in each other’s arms. She kept apologising because I had to look after her, and I kept insisting it was a privilege. I acknowledged there were times I wanted to throw her out of the window, but said I was sure she must have wanted to do this to me when I was little. She thought about this, laughed, and said ‘that’s true!’.
We felt so ‘connected’ that I became convinced she was going to die in the night. I think I went a little mad.
I moved her mattress downstairs into the sitting room. I then moved the mattress from the spare room so I could hold her hand as she slept. She has been hallucinating the last week or two and has been frightened on her own at night. She liked this arrangement and kept saying ‘thank you, thank you, I love you’.
This made me weep again.
In the middle of the night I woke to find her duvet wet through and thought ‘oh my goodness she’s wet herself’. Oddly nothing else seemed wet. Anyway I whisked away her duvet and brought down the one from my bed.
Half an hour later the bedclothes were wet again. That’s when I discovered the sitting room ceiling was leaking.
I believe in God but sometimes...
By noon the goodwill of the previous evening was dissipating. Mum had become again the horrible old bag she has been lately, and I was realising what a rod I was making for my own back.
Whilst mum sat there making disparaging noises, I took everything back upstairs (I had to wait for Anita to get mum’s mattress back up – love must have given me superhuman strength the night before). I re-made her bed, my bed and the spare bed and vowed that I’d never do all that again.
But I probably will. It’s such an emotional roller-coaster. I can swing from deep love and compassion one minute to almost pure hatred the next. It is playing havoc with my equilibrium.
Actually I don’t have much equilibrium.
Last week I was so sure I was going to kill mum (or myself) that I rang our doctor and told him. He was wonderful. He rang Judy (my sister) and ascertained she could take over. Then he rang Carol to make sure she could fill the gap. In the meantime I rang Joanna, who immediately offered her house as sanctuary, and Joelle, who picked me up and took me there. This is what friends are for.
Whilst I was away the social services machine whirred into action. The process for getting mum into a home has started.
I feel wretched.