October 15, 2008: a great generation

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October 15, 2008: a great generation

In her eighties and with advanced Alzheimer's disease, Marianne Talbot's mother is fast becoming one of the last survivors of a great generation, one which Marianne hopes the next generation will prove worthy of

I spent the weekend with my nephew, his wife, and their two children. It was his daughter's fifth birthday on Saturday and she had a party. I enjoyed myself enormously. I can’t remember when I last played pass the parcel. (When did they start wrapping presents in each layer?)

Mum used to adore this little girl and her brother, who will soon be seven. This adoration was mutual. Now mum is settled in her home I have invited the children and their parents to stay so we can all visit mum. It would be lovely if, when they’re grown, they have some memory of her, and of the fun they had with her.

When I got home there was an ominous message on my answering machine. It was from the son of the second of mum’s best friends. I have never met this son and there was only one reason he’d be ringing me...

...and so it proved. Maive died suddenly last Wednesday.

Funnily enough it was the same thing that killed mum’s other best friend, Pam: a burst aorta. Pam died in the middle of a game of bridge, as she was telling an anecdote about her time in the Wrens. Maive died as she was changing for bed after a night out with friends.

Way to go eh? Shocking for the family, but wouldn’t you choose that if you could?

I am so sorry about Maive. She was a complete star. Spending time with Maive couldn’t but leave you with a smile on your face. I never knew her to be anything but optimistic, and her laugh was infectious. Being groomed mattered very much to her: her nails were always perfect, as was her make-up.

I always think of Maive, mum and Pam as being as thick as thieves. But this can’t have been the case: Maive and Pam came from different parts of mum’s life.

Maive and mum met, just after the war, when both had young children and lived in the same block of flats. They seemed to live for the time when, husbands gone to work, they could hang a duster in the window to signal the coast was clear, and spend the day in irreverent laughter.

Pam and mum met much later, though again when both had young children (both had two sets of children). But the laughter was the same.

Mum had, indeed has, a gift for friendship. When she got Alzheimer’s and started to deteriorate, I got to know her friends on my own account. To a woman they are, or were, an admirable bunch.

As one by one they die, or succumb to dementia, I hope that we, the next generation, are worthy of them.

Saga and caring

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