Words by Michelle Fitzgerald
This is the third Christmas ‘without’ my Mum.
My daughter and I wander through the long corridor of the dementia wing before reaching the nurse’s station.
‘Could you swipe us in please?’
It’s the maximum security wing of the care home. This is the 10th year of Mum Alzheimer’s and the second year she’s resided in the dementia-specific area, after countless falls and a drastic decline in cognition and mobility.
I’ve grieved every lost version of my Mum.
A thousand little deaths, with each small decline of the person she once was. Releasing my grip on who she was once and accepting the new version of my mother is a heartbreaking exercise in the graceful acceptance of loss.
In the twilight of dementia, mum is mostly non-verbal and no longer mobile.
She is chair-bound.
My daughter grips my hand firmly as we walk through the wing. Only eight residents occupy this annexe. The pungent, chemical stench of bleach and incontinence wafts through the hallway making my eyes water and my stomach churn.
We peer through the open doors of each dweller’s room. Ghosts of their former selves.
Some lay peacefully, watching daytime TV. The dings, whistles and applause of gameshows utterly incongruent with the haunting images before us. Others float through the passageways, mumbling incoherently.
Cries of distress echo through the concourse. Brief flashes of coherence and understanding of where they are and why they’re here, only for the thought to be lost and the panic to surface.
A woman strokes a plush labrador toy. She hums softly with each caress.
My daughter grips my hand firmly. A veteran visitor of her beloved Nanny Maravene at the tender age of four-and-a-half, she’s been coming since she was a newborn, but the older she gets the more she understands and the more upsetting the experience has become. Our hearts hang heavy beneath the weight of it all.
Our shoulders stiffen as we sharply inhale a breath before we enter Mum’s room. We never know what we’ll be met with each visit or which version of Mum will greet us, though it is becoming less uncertain in this current stage of her decline.
We enter and exhale in unison. Relief and disappointment released in our breaths.
Mum is asleep in her chair. A pillow is propped beneath one arm. Her scoliosis-addled body is twisted oddly. Her legs are twigs, wasted away by her immobility. Wiry white whiskers jut out from her chin. Her nails are delicately painted. Her emphysema breath, stale and sour, wheezes in and out of her snoring mouth. Her skin though weathered and crinkly is somehow luminescent. Her beauty, still beguiling.
I nudge her arm gently to wake her.
Her eyes open. There is not an ounce of recognition behind them. I want to cry, but I have nothing left. I’ve cried out every tear possible, over the past 10-years of this insidious disease.
I play some Christmas carols through my bluetooth speaker. Thelma plops the Santa hat on top of Mum’s half-cocked head. We take a selfie to mark the festive occasion. Spiritless smiles stare back at us as we swipe through my phone.
Bing Crosby croons ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ and a gut-punch of heartache suddenly thwacks me right in the chest. A primitive wail escapes me. Feral and forlorn. Thelma bear-grips me. Her embrace is steadfast and powerful. I sob wildly. I want to stop but my heartbreak demands to be howled.
I miss my Mum with all that I am, for all and who she ever was.
My heart aches and breaks in her present absence.
What I would give to go back in time; before the darkness of Mum’s decline.
What I would give to go back to the start.
If we could just start over.
I wouldn’t take a single moment for granted.
If we could just start over.
When our roles weren’t reversed and you were still capable of mothering.
If we could just start over.
When I was just your daughter.
Please, can we just go back to the start?
I wish, oh how I wish…
But Christmas will break your fucking heart.
