I recently described how this disease impacts on family as being like a pilot over Heathrow waiting to land - "in a holding pattern of grief" - Am alternately numb and outraged. Nothing makes me really laugh , but thankfully nothing makes me really cry. Feel have detached from life and am viewing it as a partisan observer. The witness. Siobhan has had a good week and has had her eyes open. Thank you to all who ask and your good wishes are very much appreciated even if I am not exactly jumping up and down. No matter how much I love you, and your company, there are times lately where I would rather eat my own foot than engage . If you see me in various cafes with my black/brown/grey head bent over a book then for the love of all that is good and holy walk on by. I hope to return to normal service asap or as soon as I
a/ get a grip -
b/ stop taking the tablets
c/ get a kick in the swiss.
a/ get a grip -
b/ stop taking the tablets
c/ get a kick in the swiss.
"
People when they ask about Mam always say the same thing ......... "Do She know ya hun ? " ..................... Well, let's see. Alzheimers is a progressive illness that STARTS with memory loss and confusion. Think of a kettle element that has furred up and now imagine that is your brain. As the protein coats the brain, parts of it shut down. Yes, shut down. So, not only does the person forget stuff like keys, purses, names, faces, etc etc but as it progresses, .............. things like walking, talking, eating, swallowing, how to open your bowels, and more. The tiny things we take for granted like drinking, eating, scratching your own nose, cleaning your teeth are all ( if you'll forgive the pun ) a distant memory. Siobhan is now slumped on an air cushion, swollen with meds and no movement, with no speech, spoon fed, in a nappy, with one tooth left as the rest rotted away. Know me ? I like to think she has an awareness that the women moving and lifting her are her daughters. I like to think she knows the one burning the incense and singing is Me, and the one massaging her feet and cutting her toenails is my Sister . ( We are indeed Mary & Martha ) I like to think she knows that the man feeding and wiping her chin is her beloved husband of 49 years. I like to think this as it keeps me from hurling myself over the bridge. Please take a moment from your day to think about this illness and how it effects and impacts on the whole family. I wish you all love and peace. M.
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Once upon a time when I was heartsick and sore and generally feeling out of sorts with the world, and most especially mySELF - my Mother handed me a piece of paper. The title on it was "How to find Peace".
At the time being possessed of no more clarity than I was "peace" I stuffed it into one of a thousand places where I keep things. They all end up in a multitude of scraps of paper, notes, bee...
At the time being possessed of no more clarity than I was "peace" I stuffed it into one of a thousand places where I keep things. They all end up in a multitude of scraps of paper, notes, bee...
r mats, fag packets and hotel napkins -all scrawled with notes and telephone numbers -and which are thus transported from home to home and country to country, dwelling in the bottom of rucksacks, suitcases, satchels and handbags.
When I moved in to this tiny house, I rescued it from the place it had lain undiscovered and unread for years. I use the term unread loosely as there was a cigarette burn through the "e" of Peace.
My higher self may have read it.
I could not.
It has been propped on a mirrored shelf with photos of Siobhan, and other priceless things - a beautiful print of a naked woman wrapped in a golden silk shawl my aunt had above her bed, a silver cigarette case and holder, a miniscule wind-up ghost, a pair of tiny leather hand stitched dolls shoes I bought in Spain, a lock of my mothers hair in a glass bowl.
I often wonder how Siobhan dealt with the enormity of her first born, the drama, the hysteria, the mania. How far removed she was from the bawling, cackling, wild eyed child she had birthed. A woman who believed that you held your head high and quietly, and did your crying at home behind closed doors.
When I moved in to this tiny house, I rescued it from the place it had lain undiscovered and unread for years. I use the term unread loosely as there was a cigarette burn through the "e" of Peace.
My higher self may have read it.
I could not.
It has been propped on a mirrored shelf with photos of Siobhan, and other priceless things - a beautiful print of a naked woman wrapped in a golden silk shawl my aunt had above her bed, a silver cigarette case and holder, a miniscule wind-up ghost, a pair of tiny leather hand stitched dolls shoes I bought in Spain, a lock of my mothers hair in a glass bowl.
I often wonder how Siobhan dealt with the enormity of her first born, the drama, the hysteria, the mania. How far removed she was from the bawling, cackling, wild eyed child she had birthed. A woman who believed that you held your head high and quietly, and did your crying at home behind closed doors.
Tonight, I read the page.
I share with you here the message.
"There is such a thing as peace.
It may be felt and known. My hearts desire and prayer for you is that you may be able to say I have peace. This peace is a calm, intelligent sense of friendship with the energy of the Universe. He that feels it, feels no barrier, no separation between himself and the Creator.
Such a man can see death waiting for him , and yet not be greatly moved. He can go down into the cold river, close his eyes on all that he has , and has known on earth, launch forth into a world unknown, and yet feel peace.
It is the want of this very peace that makes many in the world unhappy. Milliions have everything that is thought to be able to bring pleasure, and yet are never satisfied. Their hearts are always aching. There is a constant sense of emptiness within. They have no peace.
He that knows peace from within can lie down in the silent grave, and yet feel calm. Such a man can think of Eternity and not be greatly moved. He can see in his minds eye the assembled masses of the world, the open books, the listening angels, and an all seeing presence and finally know the peace that passeth all understanding. "
I share with you here the message.
"There is such a thing as peace.
It may be felt and known. My hearts desire and prayer for you is that you may be able to say I have peace. This peace is a calm, intelligent sense of friendship with the energy of the Universe. He that feels it, feels no barrier, no separation between himself and the Creator.
Such a man can see death waiting for him , and yet not be greatly moved. He can go down into the cold river, close his eyes on all that he has , and has known on earth, launch forth into a world unknown, and yet feel peace.
It is the want of this very peace that makes many in the world unhappy. Milliions have everything that is thought to be able to bring pleasure, and yet are never satisfied. Their hearts are always aching. There is a constant sense of emptiness within. They have no peace.
He that knows peace from within can lie down in the silent grave, and yet feel calm. Such a man can think of Eternity and not be greatly moved. He can see in his minds eye the assembled masses of the world, the open books, the listening angels, and an all seeing presence and finally know the peace that passeth all understanding. "
Dad had his eye "procedure" on Tuesday morning - ( lid lifted and stitched) - and has been sitting at home since like the "Phantom of the Opera" - with a massive white bandage obscuring half his face. We have ascertained the amount of fuel/food in the house, and I have been ferrying toasted sandwiches, mince pies, apple tarts and daily copies of The Times to his armchair. He is esconsced watchin...
g the snooker with the remote and his mobile beside his landline and the panic button.
He was asked the other day (as he has been for the last 4 years) what clothes will be left out for Siobhan on Christmas Day.
"The girls will do that" says he.
He was also asked would he like to have dinner there himself. Then he was asked if Siobhan would be taken out !!!
"How?" says he.
We used to take her out. Well, mostly me and my sister. Then mostly me at the end. Against his wishes and without his permission, I have pulled and dragged her out of chairs and beds and carried her to friends cars and taxis and taken her OUT.
To fields, to beaches, to water.
(We caused consternation once on a manic beach that looked like Coney Island on the 4th July as I pulled this lady up through the dunes wearing a pyjamas, a nappy and an ankle tag.)
This was when she was in the hospital and while they thought we were sitting on the bench outside eating Icebergers and watching the Travellers.
Siobhan, when she would see me slumped in an armchair huffing and sighing that I was "bored" would respond - "Be active, be alive, get some air into your lungs, shake the cobwebs off yourself"
I have always loved water, and being near it as has She. Being from an inland town where their only water was The Barrow Siobhan spent many a happy hour with her siblings ( a bakers dozen) mucking about on the river.
It was a pleasure to see her stand at the waters edge as the foam drenched her slippers with my sister and I on either side holding her, the Trinity of us reflected in the late evening sun.
Little Thomasina would have had a canary.
He has always been a follower of rules, the antithesis of his eldest child who is an inveterate breaker of same. He does not like to "rock the boat" - it is my favourite pastime, apparently. I feel more and more like Randall P. McMurphy and fear that one day I may actually charter a bus and take the whole damn lot of them OUT fishing or drinking, or both.
A wheelchair accessible taxi has been booked for Christmas Morning, ditto a chair and it will be my absolute best christmas present to take her to the house on the mountain which smells like "Home".
The Stephen Hawking chair will not fit through the doors I have been informed but as I replied "I don't care if it's like "Weekend at Bernie's" I will do it or die trying".
As she has said of me "That one would rise a row in a barrack of Soldiers."
He was asked the other day (as he has been for the last 4 years) what clothes will be left out for Siobhan on Christmas Day.
"The girls will do that" says he.
He was also asked would he like to have dinner there himself. Then he was asked if Siobhan would be taken out !!!
"How?" says he.
We used to take her out. Well, mostly me and my sister. Then mostly me at the end. Against his wishes and without his permission, I have pulled and dragged her out of chairs and beds and carried her to friends cars and taxis and taken her OUT.
To fields, to beaches, to water.
(We caused consternation once on a manic beach that looked like Coney Island on the 4th July as I pulled this lady up through the dunes wearing a pyjamas, a nappy and an ankle tag.)
This was when she was in the hospital and while they thought we were sitting on the bench outside eating Icebergers and watching the Travellers.
Siobhan, when she would see me slumped in an armchair huffing and sighing that I was "bored" would respond - "Be active, be alive, get some air into your lungs, shake the cobwebs off yourself"
I have always loved water, and being near it as has She. Being from an inland town where their only water was The Barrow Siobhan spent many a happy hour with her siblings ( a bakers dozen) mucking about on the river.
It was a pleasure to see her stand at the waters edge as the foam drenched her slippers with my sister and I on either side holding her, the Trinity of us reflected in the late evening sun.
Little Thomasina would have had a canary.
He has always been a follower of rules, the antithesis of his eldest child who is an inveterate breaker of same. He does not like to "rock the boat" - it is my favourite pastime, apparently. I feel more and more like Randall P. McMurphy and fear that one day I may actually charter a bus and take the whole damn lot of them OUT fishing or drinking, or both.
A wheelchair accessible taxi has been booked for Christmas Morning, ditto a chair and it will be my absolute best christmas present to take her to the house on the mountain which smells like "Home".
The Stephen Hawking chair will not fit through the doors I have been informed but as I replied "I don't care if it's like "Weekend at Bernie's" I will do it or die trying".
As she has said of me "That one would rise a row in a barrack of Soldiers."
Tonight my driver told me I had 30 mins in the building as she had to get home to her OWN Mama. I ran around the gaff saying hello, watered as many plants as I could, and horsed the melty bits of a choc ice into Mam.
She had a speedy facial while I listened to Louis tell Carol he had slept with Ingrid.
The temper of Renee!
I raced down the hall past the matron with ice in a glass for the sup of....
She had a speedy facial while I listened to Louis tell Carol he had slept with Ingrid.
The temper of Renee!
I raced down the hall past the matron with ice in a glass for the sup of....
..Baileys while she tried to mention that she heard I was on the radio.
"I'm never off it , sure" I retorted as I skidded round the corner and nearly collided with the smoothie trolley.
(It smelt primarily of bananas, which I actually was by that stage )
Flinging the remote across the bed I turned on the delicious John Creedon who opened the show with a trio of Beatles songs.
Now THAT'S better, says I.
Siobhan had her feet rubbed, furry socks put on, chair moved and adjusted and parked by the radiator with her eldest child singing off key ( and reeking of fags) in her ear.
She has the patience of a saint.
The only form of communication left is non-verbal. It is a gentle plucking of the blanket around her legs with the thumb and first 2 fingers of her right hand. I watch for this the way a twitcher would wait for a rare bird. I scan her closed eyelids to see if there is a flicker of the tiniest of muscles to indicate if there is anything I can do for her. If there is an itch I could scratch for instance. Or a position I could haul her into that would be a tad more comfortable and staunch the arrival of a pressure sore. I hold her hand gently and ask her to press mine to indicate an answer to various yes/no questions. I wait for the softest of gentle pressings but I wait in vain.
"I'm never off it , sure" I retorted as I skidded round the corner and nearly collided with the smoothie trolley.
(It smelt primarily of bananas, which I actually was by that stage )
Flinging the remote across the bed I turned on the delicious John Creedon who opened the show with a trio of Beatles songs.
Now THAT'S better, says I.
Siobhan had her feet rubbed, furry socks put on, chair moved and adjusted and parked by the radiator with her eldest child singing off key ( and reeking of fags) in her ear.
She has the patience of a saint.
The only form of communication left is non-verbal. It is a gentle plucking of the blanket around her legs with the thumb and first 2 fingers of her right hand. I watch for this the way a twitcher would wait for a rare bird. I scan her closed eyelids to see if there is a flicker of the tiniest of muscles to indicate if there is anything I can do for her. If there is an itch I could scratch for instance. Or a position I could haul her into that would be a tad more comfortable and staunch the arrival of a pressure sore. I hold her hand gently and ask her to press mine to indicate an answer to various yes/no questions. I wait for the softest of gentle pressings but I wait in vain.
As I kiss her goodbye I tell her I am going to write her story, and all the other things I said I would write. This woman has been keeping everything I ever wrote since I was a small child. The gift she keeps giving me is the bagfuls and foldersfull of stuff that my Dad drops over to me on a weekly basis.
"Here's more of your stuff that Mam kept" he will say while I take it away to put in the pile of "Mustsortsoonstuff" trying to swallow the lump in my throat.
I put on my best "Carla" accent as I was leaving and I swear she smiled.
"Here's more of your stuff that Mam kept" he will say while I take it away to put in the pile of "Mustsortsoonstuff" trying to swallow the lump in my throat.
I put on my best "Carla" accent as I was leaving and I swear she smiled.
Tonight as I sat in her darkened room, lit only with christmas tree lights , rubbing Siobhan's hand where she had a ring cut off today, I reminded her of an episode of my childhood.
It is all I can do to prompt the vast recall of memory that entwines us. And so I talk of old times, and times past and they come blushing in, tippytoeing like a ballerina on point, afraid to break the hush. The soun...
It is all I can do to prompt the vast recall of memory that entwines us. And so I talk of old times, and times past and they come blushing in, tippytoeing like a ballerina on point, afraid to break the hush. The soun...
dtrack of my Mothers life now is her daughters voice.
The room she lives in is silent.
Apart from the steady thrum of machinery into her electric air bed and the faint voices permanently calling from the halls
............. for tea, for a nurse, for Bridie.
One evening in late summer I sat by the open window listening to the water trickling down the fountain in the garden and heard the plaintive sounds of singing coming from the sun room.
One elderly man had begun to softly sing a snatch of a song, one no doubt he had often sung in happier times and his chorus was picked up , first tentatively and then surer - the voices rising and dipping in a faint reedy choir. The Palestrina Boys Choir is made up of young boys with high soprano voices - young adolescents their voices thin and high with an average age of 9 -12. The combined age of the people singing here was over the thousand mark.
Enclosed nuns singing the Magnificat quietly as they observe their perpetual adoration on red velvet kneelers could not have sung sweeter. Monks chanting "Om mahne pehme hung" draped in their saffron robes could not have been more connected. There was a magic about those voices and the recall of the familiar words brought comfort.
Like a prayer.
I looked wistfully at the dictaphone on the air cushion and cursed the fact I had not more cassettes.
When I was a small child I visited my Nana Dooley in her home in Carlow and always slept in the same bed as my Mam. - As she was caring for her Mother at the time, all of the children - siblings and cousins - were as familiar with the geography of this room as I - Her own Mam sleeping in the other double bed across the chimney breast where all I could see of her was a bump in the blankets and the small hills of her feet. She and I went to bed at the same time. She , at the back window overlooking her roses and knowing who was downstairs "Toping" by the rattle of the latch. Me, at the front window, overlooking the houses and children allowed out still to play "Heck-the-beds" , and in the gap at the corner of the crescent - the railway tracks that all night had a syncopated che /che che/ che soundtrack as they carried people and goods to Naas, Newbridge, Kildare Town, Leixlip, Maynooth and on into Dublin. There was always the sound of a solitary dog howling like a coyote.
The room she lives in is silent.
Apart from the steady thrum of machinery into her electric air bed and the faint voices permanently calling from the halls
............. for tea, for a nurse, for Bridie.
One evening in late summer I sat by the open window listening to the water trickling down the fountain in the garden and heard the plaintive sounds of singing coming from the sun room.
One elderly man had begun to softly sing a snatch of a song, one no doubt he had often sung in happier times and his chorus was picked up , first tentatively and then surer - the voices rising and dipping in a faint reedy choir. The Palestrina Boys Choir is made up of young boys with high soprano voices - young adolescents their voices thin and high with an average age of 9 -12. The combined age of the people singing here was over the thousand mark.
Enclosed nuns singing the Magnificat quietly as they observe their perpetual adoration on red velvet kneelers could not have sung sweeter. Monks chanting "Om mahne pehme hung" draped in their saffron robes could not have been more connected. There was a magic about those voices and the recall of the familiar words brought comfort.
Like a prayer.
I looked wistfully at the dictaphone on the air cushion and cursed the fact I had not more cassettes.
When I was a small child I visited my Nana Dooley in her home in Carlow and always slept in the same bed as my Mam. - As she was caring for her Mother at the time, all of the children - siblings and cousins - were as familiar with the geography of this room as I - Her own Mam sleeping in the other double bed across the chimney breast where all I could see of her was a bump in the blankets and the small hills of her feet. She and I went to bed at the same time. She , at the back window overlooking her roses and knowing who was downstairs "Toping" by the rattle of the latch. Me, at the front window, overlooking the houses and children allowed out still to play "Heck-the-beds" , and in the gap at the corner of the crescent - the railway tracks that all night had a syncopated che /che che/ che soundtrack as they carried people and goods to Naas, Newbridge, Kildare Town, Leixlip, Maynooth and on into Dublin. There was always the sound of a solitary dog howling like a coyote.
The room I lay in smelt of carbolic soap, and Dettol, and sometimes the commode. Lying in the dark- staring at the framed picture of the Sacred Heart permanently displaying his injury lit by a tiny flame - listening to the voices of the adults downstairs was anathaema to me. I wanted to be down there in the fog of smoke and laughter, drinking club orange and eating all the chocolate rings out of the tins of biscuits .Or maybe given a pound after bouncing on a drunken Uncles lap and asked to sing a yella belly song for them. I wanted my mam more.
Of course I played to the gallery, and it was only on very rare occasions that I would open the door to the stairs and sing from behind it.
One morning as she dressed hurriedly in the still dim room I sat up and whispered "where are you going?"
Whisht, says she rolling up her tights - I am running down to first mass in the Cathedal, I wont be long.
I flung the covers off me and began to dress.
"I'm coming,"
Despite her protestations I accompanied her through the quiet grey sunday morning streets, with the curtains closed the length of the avenue and into the massive cathedral.There too, the choir was faintly heard balanced high on their forbidding patform, and the sound of the organist and the combined voices made me turn to face them despite the disapporiving glances of the old women in their black mantillas .
On our way home Siobhan took me into McDarby's and bought the biggest cornet with a flake.
This little madam had no breakfast and I'm afraid she might take a "weakness " on me " she explained,
I reminded her of this tonight and she listened carefully,It is all she can do. She is my confessor, my best pal, my Mother.
My voice has ALWAYS been the soundtrack of her life.
Of course I played to the gallery, and it was only on very rare occasions that I would open the door to the stairs and sing from behind it.
One morning as she dressed hurriedly in the still dim room I sat up and whispered "where are you going?"
Whisht, says she rolling up her tights - I am running down to first mass in the Cathedal, I wont be long.
I flung the covers off me and began to dress.
"I'm coming,"
Despite her protestations I accompanied her through the quiet grey sunday morning streets, with the curtains closed the length of the avenue and into the massive cathedral.There too, the choir was faintly heard balanced high on their forbidding patform, and the sound of the organist and the combined voices made me turn to face them despite the disapporiving glances of the old women in their black mantillas .
On our way home Siobhan took me into McDarby's and bought the biggest cornet with a flake.
This little madam had no breakfast and I'm afraid she might take a "weakness " on me " she explained,
I reminded her of this tonight and she listened carefully,It is all she can do. She is my confessor, my best pal, my Mother.
My voice has ALWAYS been the soundtrack of her life.
Little Thomasina has always loved to take his family out for "Mystery Drives" . The day would start early and with much promise. Sun splitting the stones in the Square with Paddy Byrne whitewashing the aformentioned in anticipation of the Corpus Christi procession. Thomasina standing whistling at the raised boot of whatever car he was driving at the time. He has always been a petrol head and believed in the old adage that it is better to be looking at it than looking for it...
. I remember the cars now from their registration plates.
53 EYI - A Blue Hillman Hunter
695 UZO - A Navy Ford Fiesta
VZR 211 - A luminous Yellow Renault 4
AND way too many more to mention. He probably spent the night planning these sudden trips but conveniently never mentioned them. Least of all to his wife.
The first she would know was when he tipped her the nod to get the flasks out and to make about a 1000 salad sandwiches.
(Or maybe it just felt like that buttering the bread long before the days of "spreadable" spreads ).
Unknownst to her (or us ) he would have been scavenging around upstairs for a motley assortment of pyjamas and nighties flung around warm bedrooms ,while we were busy chopping spring onions and soft tomatoes and shelling eggs.
And sending someone to Hughie Moores for salad cream and sliced pans. (The wrappers being immediately re-filled with the quartered sandwiches. )
Then for the Coup-de-Grace.
Alongside mismatched bedwear, bottoms with no "fork "in them, tops that were only" fit for dusters," and an eclectic bunch of toothbrushes ( the first to his hand - whether they be ancient and used for scouring tiles or the dogs matted arse) they were wrapped in a Dunnes Stores plastic bag and hidden under the spare wheel, along with buckets and spades, and a bulging packet of LUG worm!
Yes, worms.
Dear reader, I ask you to picture the scene if you will. A packed car in the baking heat with windbreakers, windcheaters, wet weather gear, tartan rugs, tents, poles, sleeping bags, fishing rods, unruly children, with a unique aroma of eggs, onions, and bait and allow you to draw your own conclusions.
Of course I got sick.
I have spent my life getting sick out of car windows and shouting "Pull over, pull over" to no avail. Thomasina would check my pallor in the rearview mirror till it turned from white to lime and then skew to a skidding stop on the grass verge.
Where of course I would be fine as the motion had stopped and I could bend over retching and inhale lungfuls of fresh sea air instead of worms, onions, and my brothers feet.
Did I mention we used to fight in the back seat?
"God, give me strength" Thomasina would shout foaming at the mouth while Siobhan calmly advised him to mind his blood pressure AND the road.
Because we were wearing shorts and the leather seats were scorching we did not want to be pressed up against each other.
Or "Hawing" on each other.
"If I get BACK to yee", he would shout flailing his left arm into the gaps of the seat and inadvertently clouting the bare leg of the wrong child.
(I have called my parents Little Thomasina and Siobhan since I was a small child. They have called each other "Mammy" and "Dad" since ditto. )
Interestingly, I only stopped being "car sick" when I got a job as a chef on a ship - which is a whole nother story -
These trips were often and usually to beaches ( even though we had a mobile in The Burrow of Rosslare, and then Carne) but sometimes further afield where the light would be growing dim as we pulled into some far flung town looking for a B&B - ( where we would be disgraced marching down the corridor to the communal bathroom at midnight)
Back in those days Irish children were as welcome in pubs as the flowers of may and spent the night trickacting around pool tables and scourging large bottles of TK Red Lemonade ( free on the bar as a mixer ) or cokes with pub crisps and bars of plain in a fug of smoke/ country music/diddly eye sessions.
Christmas is fast approaching and I have NADA bought but as I sit typing this to the strains of Verdi's "Aida" from the New York Met live on lyric I am not present here.
In my mind I have gone to Killorglin, or Kinvara, or Kinsale and a purple sunset and the smell of fish and chips from the pier is masking the smell of the mulled wine candles, and the smiles of my youthful parents grow fonder with recall.
53 EYI - A Blue Hillman Hunter
695 UZO - A Navy Ford Fiesta
VZR 211 - A luminous Yellow Renault 4
AND way too many more to mention. He probably spent the night planning these sudden trips but conveniently never mentioned them. Least of all to his wife.
The first she would know was when he tipped her the nod to get the flasks out and to make about a 1000 salad sandwiches.
(Or maybe it just felt like that buttering the bread long before the days of "spreadable" spreads ).
Unknownst to her (or us ) he would have been scavenging around upstairs for a motley assortment of pyjamas and nighties flung around warm bedrooms ,while we were busy chopping spring onions and soft tomatoes and shelling eggs.
And sending someone to Hughie Moores for salad cream and sliced pans. (The wrappers being immediately re-filled with the quartered sandwiches. )
Then for the Coup-de-Grace.
Alongside mismatched bedwear, bottoms with no "fork "in them, tops that were only" fit for dusters," and an eclectic bunch of toothbrushes ( the first to his hand - whether they be ancient and used for scouring tiles or the dogs matted arse) they were wrapped in a Dunnes Stores plastic bag and hidden under the spare wheel, along with buckets and spades, and a bulging packet of LUG worm!
Yes, worms.
Dear reader, I ask you to picture the scene if you will. A packed car in the baking heat with windbreakers, windcheaters, wet weather gear, tartan rugs, tents, poles, sleeping bags, fishing rods, unruly children, with a unique aroma of eggs, onions, and bait and allow you to draw your own conclusions.
Of course I got sick.
I have spent my life getting sick out of car windows and shouting "Pull over, pull over" to no avail. Thomasina would check my pallor in the rearview mirror till it turned from white to lime and then skew to a skidding stop on the grass verge.
Where of course I would be fine as the motion had stopped and I could bend over retching and inhale lungfuls of fresh sea air instead of worms, onions, and my brothers feet.
Did I mention we used to fight in the back seat?
"God, give me strength" Thomasina would shout foaming at the mouth while Siobhan calmly advised him to mind his blood pressure AND the road.
Because we were wearing shorts and the leather seats were scorching we did not want to be pressed up against each other.
Or "Hawing" on each other.
"If I get BACK to yee", he would shout flailing his left arm into the gaps of the seat and inadvertently clouting the bare leg of the wrong child.
(I have called my parents Little Thomasina and Siobhan since I was a small child. They have called each other "Mammy" and "Dad" since ditto. )
Interestingly, I only stopped being "car sick" when I got a job as a chef on a ship - which is a whole nother story -
These trips were often and usually to beaches ( even though we had a mobile in The Burrow of Rosslare, and then Carne) but sometimes further afield where the light would be growing dim as we pulled into some far flung town looking for a B&B - ( where we would be disgraced marching down the corridor to the communal bathroom at midnight)
Back in those days Irish children were as welcome in pubs as the flowers of may and spent the night trickacting around pool tables and scourging large bottles of TK Red Lemonade ( free on the bar as a mixer ) or cokes with pub crisps and bars of plain in a fug of smoke/ country music/diddly eye sessions.
Christmas is fast approaching and I have NADA bought but as I sit typing this to the strains of Verdi's "Aida" from the New York Met live on lyric I am not present here.
In my mind I have gone to Killorglin, or Kinvara, or Kinsale and a purple sunset and the smell of fish and chips from the pier is masking the smell of the mulled wine candles, and the smiles of my youthful parents grow fonder with recall.
Another Comedy of Errors played out tonight with yours truly as warm-up, stand-up, support, headliner and fat lady singing. Did I mention we killed a phantom dog?
It was blowing a hooley and with that lovely fine sleet that soaks you right through. I am giving it loads in the car and trying to manoevure the shopping, bunches of carnations , Tuc crackers, a block of cheese and chives and a chocol...
It was blowing a hooley and with that lovely fine sleet that soaks you right through. I am giving it loads in the car and trying to manoevure the shopping, bunches of carnations , Tuc crackers, a block of cheese and chives and a chocol...
ate orange around the front seat while attempting to smoke, fasten my seat belt, open the window and put on my coat.
When She and I get together on a wednesday we have a pissing contest about who had the worst week, and there is a litany of complaints , medications and war stories swapped.
I was in full flow of a diatribe about how every call I took this week was from someone a/depressed
b/more depressed
c/ At the end of their tether
and a panorama of people who had a pain in their head, chest, stomach, legs (?) or arse.
And some with all 5.
( Take a bow, Thomasina)
Out on the Newtown road just as the lighting goes from sodium orange to deepest pitch a flash of white bolted from a gate.
"Jesus h Christ," I shouted as she slammed on the brakes and I head butted the dash -"We've druv over an effin' dog" -
In her excitement the driver turned off the engine and left us in what the Dulux colour chart would call "Country Black" ( which is fine if you are a goth OR a jobbing vampire but not in heavy traffic on the N25.
When She and I get together on a wednesday we have a pissing contest about who had the worst week, and there is a litany of complaints , medications and war stories swapped.
I was in full flow of a diatribe about how every call I took this week was from someone a/depressed
b/more depressed
c/ At the end of their tether
and a panorama of people who had a pain in their head, chest, stomach, legs (?) or arse.
And some with all 5.
( Take a bow, Thomasina)
Out on the Newtown road just as the lighting goes from sodium orange to deepest pitch a flash of white bolted from a gate.
"Jesus h Christ," I shouted as she slammed on the brakes and I head butted the dash -"We've druv over an effin' dog" -
In her excitement the driver turned off the engine and left us in what the Dulux colour chart would call "Country Black" ( which is fine if you are a goth OR a jobbing vampire but not in heavy traffic on the N25.
"In the name of God and all his angels will you turn on the lights and the hazards before we are rear-ended and killed. " I screeched.
( worse than being killed would be having to wear one of those Avid Merrion soft collars for 3 months )
I flung open the door in the gale and was tiptoeing back down the road to find the pooch in a tangle of matted fur, collar and burberry coat................. ( what? it IS winter after all. )
Nada.
I bent down gingerly and tried to see if it was "under" the engine or wrapped around a wheel.
Nada.
The driver was rooting in the glove and produces a tiny torch.
Oh. My. God.
"I'll look then will I ? I enquired while she was closing the window.
I lay down on the road. Did I mention I got my hair done today.I looked under the car.
Nada.
I did lose the cheese knife though.
The man who was supposed to be driving me home decided the pints were very "moreish" and sent his mother back to the home in a cab. ( With her wheelchair in the open boot ).
Blissfully unaware, I was arranging flowers, cutting cheese, (oh behave) lighting candles, plugging in trees, watering plants and talking nonsense to people until my original driver arrived back to collect me. I had not heard her texts due to the volume of the above.
On the way back at the exact same spot a car was parked with its hazards on and its doors open .................
"Ha, do you suppose they have a clock work dog on a string? Like the way people used to put fivers on catgut? "I asked.
She laughed so much a cyclist had to swerve into a ditch.
I left Siobhan with red cheeks from a Cappuccino with Baileys in it, and red ears from my nonsense.
Oiche Maith. Comhladh Sabh. M.
( worse than being killed would be having to wear one of those Avid Merrion soft collars for 3 months )
I flung open the door in the gale and was tiptoeing back down the road to find the pooch in a tangle of matted fur, collar and burberry coat................. ( what? it IS winter after all. )
Nada.
I bent down gingerly and tried to see if it was "under" the engine or wrapped around a wheel.
Nada.
The driver was rooting in the glove and produces a tiny torch.
Oh. My. God.
"I'll look then will I ? I enquired while she was closing the window.
I lay down on the road. Did I mention I got my hair done today.I looked under the car.
Nada.
I did lose the cheese knife though.
The man who was supposed to be driving me home decided the pints were very "moreish" and sent his mother back to the home in a cab. ( With her wheelchair in the open boot ).
Blissfully unaware, I was arranging flowers, cutting cheese, (oh behave) lighting candles, plugging in trees, watering plants and talking nonsense to people until my original driver arrived back to collect me. I had not heard her texts due to the volume of the above.
On the way back at the exact same spot a car was parked with its hazards on and its doors open .................
"Ha, do you suppose they have a clock work dog on a string? Like the way people used to put fivers on catgut? "I asked.
She laughed so much a cyclist had to swerve into a ditch.
I left Siobhan with red cheeks from a Cappuccino with Baileys in it, and red ears from my nonsense.
Oiche Maith. Comhladh Sabh. M.
Little Thomasina has always loved to take his family out for "Mystery Drives" . The day would start early and with much promise. Sun splitting the stones in the Square with Paddy Byrne whitewashing the aformentioned in anticipation of the Corpus Christi procession. Thomasina standing whistling at the raised boot of whatever car he was driving at the time. He has always been a petrol head and believed in the old adage that it is better to be looking at it than looking for it.... I remember the cars now from their registration plates.
53 EYI - A Blue Hillman Hunter
695 UZO - A Navy Ford Fiesta
VZR 211 - A luminous Yellow Renault 4
AND way too many more to mention. He probably spent the night planning these sudden trips but conveniently never mentioned them. Least of all to his wife.
The first she would know was when he tipped her the nod to get the flasks out and to make about a 1000 salad sandwiches.
(Or maybe it just felt like that buttering the bread long before the days of "spreadable" spreads ).
Unknownst to her (or us ) he would have been scavenging around upstairs for a motley assortment of pyjamas and nighties flung around warm bedrooms ,while we were busy chopping spring onions and soft tomatoes and shelling eggs.
And sending someone to Hughie Moores for salad cream and sliced pans. (The wrappers being immediately re-filled with the quartered sandwiches. )
Then for the Coup-de-Grace.
Alongside mismatched bedwear, bottoms with no "fork "in them, tops that were only" fit for dusters," and an eclectic bunch of toothbrushes ( the first to his hand - whether they be ancient and used for scouring tiles or the dogs matted arse) they were wrapped in a Dunnes Stores plastic bag and hidden under the spare wheel, along with buckets and spades, and a bulging packet of LUG worm!
Yes, worms.
53 EYI - A Blue Hillman Hunter
695 UZO - A Navy Ford Fiesta
VZR 211 - A luminous Yellow Renault 4
AND way too many more to mention. He probably spent the night planning these sudden trips but conveniently never mentioned them. Least of all to his wife.
The first she would know was when he tipped her the nod to get the flasks out and to make about a 1000 salad sandwiches.
(Or maybe it just felt like that buttering the bread long before the days of "spreadable" spreads ).
Unknownst to her (or us ) he would have been scavenging around upstairs for a motley assortment of pyjamas and nighties flung around warm bedrooms ,while we were busy chopping spring onions and soft tomatoes and shelling eggs.
And sending someone to Hughie Moores for salad cream and sliced pans. (The wrappers being immediately re-filled with the quartered sandwiches. )
Then for the Coup-de-Grace.
Alongside mismatched bedwear, bottoms with no "fork "in them, tops that were only" fit for dusters," and an eclectic bunch of toothbrushes ( the first to his hand - whether they be ancient and used for scouring tiles or the dogs matted arse) they were wrapped in a Dunnes Stores plastic bag and hidden under the spare wheel, along with buckets and spades, and a bulging packet of LUG worm!
Yes, worms.
Dear reader, I ask you to picture the scene if you will. A packed car in the baking heat with windbreakers, windcheaters, wet weather gear, tartan rugs, tents, poles, sleeping bags, fishing rods, unruly children, with a unique aroma of eggs, onions, and bait and allow you to draw your own conclusions.
Of course I got sick.
I have spent my life getting sick out of car windows and shouting "Pull over, pull over" to no avail. Thomasina would check my pallor in the rearview mirror till it turned from white to lime and then skew to a skidding stop on the grass verge.
Where of course I would be fine as the motion had stopped and I could bend over retching and inhale lungfuls of fresh sea air instead of worms, onions, and my brothers feet.
Did I mention we used to fight in the back seat?
"God, give me strength" Thomasina would shout foaming at the mouth while Siobhan calmly advised him to mind his blood pressure AND the road.
Because we were wearing shorts and the leather seats were scorching we did not want to be pressed up against each other.
Or "Hawing" on each other.
"If I get BACK to yee", he would shout flailing his left arm into the gaps of the seat and inadvertently clouting the bare leg of the wrong child.
(I have called my parents Little Thomasina and Siobhan since I was a small child. They have called each other "Mammy" and "Dad" since ditto. )
Interestingly, I only stopped being "car sick" when I got a job as a chef on a ship - which is a whole nother story -
These trips were often and usually to beaches ( even though we had a mobile in The Burrow of Rosslare, and then Carne) but sometimes further afield where the light would be growing dim as we pulled into some far flung town looking for a B&B - ( where we would be disgraced marching down the corridor to the communal bathroom at midnight)
Back in those days Irish children were as welcome in pubs as the flowers of may and spent the night trickacting around pool tables and scourging large bottles of TK Red Lemonade -
Of course I got sick.
I have spent my life getting sick out of car windows and shouting "Pull over, pull over" to no avail. Thomasina would check my pallor in the rearview mirror till it turned from white to lime and then skew to a skidding stop on the grass verge.
Where of course I would be fine as the motion had stopped and I could bend over retching and inhale lungfuls of fresh sea air instead of worms, onions, and my brothers feet.
Did I mention we used to fight in the back seat?
"God, give me strength" Thomasina would shout foaming at the mouth while Siobhan calmly advised him to mind his blood pressure AND the road.
Because we were wearing shorts and the leather seats were scorching we did not want to be pressed up against each other.
Or "Hawing" on each other.
"If I get BACK to yee", he would shout flailing his left arm into the gaps of the seat and inadvertently clouting the bare leg of the wrong child.
(I have called my parents Little Thomasina and Siobhan since I was a small child. They have called each other "Mammy" and "Dad" since ditto. )
Interestingly, I only stopped being "car sick" when I got a job as a chef on a ship - which is a whole nother story -
These trips were often and usually to beaches ( even though we had a mobile in The Burrow of Rosslare, and then Carne) but sometimes further afield where the light would be growing dim as we pulled into some far flung town looking for a B&B - ( where we would be disgraced marching down the corridor to the communal bathroom at midnight)
Back in those days Irish children were as welcome in pubs as the flowers of may and spent the night trickacting around pool tables and scourging large bottles of TK Red Lemonade -
( free on the bar as a mixer ) or cokes with pub crisps and bars of plain in a fug of smoke/ country music/diddly eye sessions.
Christmas is fast approaching and I have NADA bought but as I sit typing this to the strains of Verdi's "Aida" from the New York Met live on lyric I am not present here.
In my mind I have gone to Killorglin, or Kinvara, or Kinsale and a purple sunset and the smell of fish and chips from the pier is masking the smell of the mulled wine candles, and the smiles of my youthful parents grow fonder with recall.
Christmas is fast approaching and I have NADA bought but as I sit typing this to the strains of Verdi's "Aida" from the New York Met live on lyric I am not present here.
In my mind I have gone to Killorglin, or Kinvara, or Kinsale and a purple sunset and the smell of fish and chips from the pier is masking the smell of the mulled wine candles, and the smiles of my youthful parents grow fonder with recall.
There is a smell of baking in the Home tonight and a hand written sign that says what date it is.
"8 days till Christmas" is written in brackets underneath it. Because I have been out there so long and so frequently I am as invisible as the pictures on the walls.
I come and go. I come and go. I come and go.
It occurred to me one night recently that I have been there longer than most of the staf...f and the original line up of Nurses/Carers has changed dramatically over the past 4 years.
They come and go too. Some are missed, others .........not so much. Some have impacted hugely on us as a family and have crossed the thin line between caring into friendship. They are on my phone and in my heart and some have bonded so completely with Little Thomasina that he is delighted when they call or phone.
Some have left to have babies, to emigrate or retire, some because they themselves became ill and needed nursing or chemo.
They are ALL missed in their own way.
Because I am the witness, the silent watcher, I see the new people as they arrive. The anxious, worn out, stressed faces of the families in the porch mirror ours when WE were the Newbies.
On the night that Siobhan was admitted - (after exactly 7 months in Hospital - amid a fraught hilarious transfer that could have come straight from "Carry on, Doctor" - where along with
"8 days till Christmas" is written in brackets underneath it. Because I have been out there so long and so frequently I am as invisible as the pictures on the walls.
I come and go. I come and go. I come and go.
It occurred to me one night recently that I have been there longer than most of the staf...f and the original line up of Nurses/Carers has changed dramatically over the past 4 years.
They come and go too. Some are missed, others .........not so much. Some have impacted hugely on us as a family and have crossed the thin line between caring into friendship. They are on my phone and in my heart and some have bonded so completely with Little Thomasina that he is delighted when they call or phone.
Some have left to have babies, to emigrate or retire, some because they themselves became ill and needed nursing or chemo.
They are ALL missed in their own way.
Because I am the witness, the silent watcher, I see the new people as they arrive. The anxious, worn out, stressed faces of the families in the porch mirror ours when WE were the Newbies.
On the night that Siobhan was admitted - (after exactly 7 months in Hospital - amid a fraught hilarious transfer that could have come straight from "Carry on, Doctor" - where along with
forgetting to strap in the man who was heading to Ardkeen, they forgot the paperwork) I was whitefaced with exhaustion and relief when I realised I could close the bedroom door , and that THIS room was Siobhans new "home".
When an angel in white ascertained that I had not eaten all day , she brought me in some cheddar,home made brown bread and butter, a tiny pot of strong coffee and biscuits. This simple supper and act of kindness slayed me and I dissolved into sobbing, as much for the humanity as for the realisation that Siobhan was NEVER coming home again.
I watch the new residents now when they arrive.
In the early days they are full of chat and laughter. Through some fog or shroud of memory they carry their handbags, and take strolls in the courtyard in pairs. They reminisce about old times, compare backgrounds, talk about their children, think they are on holiday and wonder who should they pay for tea.
And when the taxi is coming.
This is "Hotel California" though, and though they may check out, they never leave. I remember every room and its occupant. I can hear their voices in the back of my mind
When an angel in white ascertained that I had not eaten all day , she brought me in some cheddar,home made brown bread and butter, a tiny pot of strong coffee and biscuits. This simple supper and act of kindness slayed me and I dissolved into sobbing, as much for the humanity as for the realisation that Siobhan was NEVER coming home again.
I watch the new residents now when they arrive.
In the early days they are full of chat and laughter. Through some fog or shroud of memory they carry their handbags, and take strolls in the courtyard in pairs. They reminisce about old times, compare backgrounds, talk about their children, think they are on holiday and wonder who should they pay for tea.
And when the taxi is coming.
This is "Hotel California" though, and though they may check out, they never leave. I remember every room and its occupant. I can hear their voices in the back of my mind
"Have you a dog?" one will ask anyone who passes all day. Walking the length of the corridor to get a vase I will pass each numbered door and remember all of them and all that they said. Sometimes it feels like "The Overlook Motel" and I feel I will open a door and see a barman from Portland,Maine or Portland, Oregon settin' em up.
It gets quieter the longer they stay. (An image of Siobhan looking fabulous in a new outfit and scarf with hair and make up done standing pitifully at the glass door watching me leave kills me. This disease has so changed her, even the contours of her face have altered and she looks different completely from the woman she was. It is more shocking for visitors , I see it incrementally. ) It gets much quieter, so that my voice seems unnaturally bright and breezy as they sit quietly, all staring at the over loud tv or out the window.
"There's a woman in a box in that big room down there" says T to me last week. "I think she's dead, imagine?" she laughed.
I steer her back up the hall and put on a CD of Pavarotti to distract her and she tells me it's an "alright place, but there could be more entertainment".
It gets quieter the longer they stay. (An image of Siobhan looking fabulous in a new outfit and scarf with hair and make up done standing pitifully at the glass door watching me leave kills me. This disease has so changed her, even the contours of her face have altered and she looks different completely from the woman she was. It is more shocking for visitors , I see it incrementally. ) It gets much quieter, so that my voice seems unnaturally bright and breezy as they sit quietly, all staring at the over loud tv or out the window.
"There's a woman in a box in that big room down there" says T to me last week. "I think she's dead, imagine?" she laughed.
I steer her back up the hall and put on a CD of Pavarotti to distract her and she tells me it's an "alright place, but there could be more entertainment".
"Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light,
my head grew heavy and my sight grew dim,
thought I'd stop for the night,
there she stood in the doorway, I heard a mission bell,
and I was thinking to myself this could be heaven or this could be hell,
then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way,
there were voices in the corridor,
I thought I heard them say ..............."
my head grew heavy and my sight grew dim,
thought I'd stop for the night,
there she stood in the doorway, I heard a mission bell,
and I was thinking to myself this could be heaven or this could be hell,
then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way,
there were voices in the corridor,
I thought I heard them say ..............."
Have had a bizarre few days - even for me. I appear to be running into exhaustion or a wall myself. On another post I commented hilariously about a trip to the dentist. But the reality of what she said has made itself clear. (Basically I snapped the root off a healthy tooth from grinding my teeth while asleep ).
The Dentist said this was most likely stress related.
The enormity of this hit me li...ke a frying pan in the face when I was having a flying chat with a friend earlier. While mentioning the above, as a throw away remark I said "sure, that's nothing. I have nightmares every night and usually wake up crying". It was his look of shock that reminded me that to other people this is NOT normal.
It also can't be normal to obsess about sleep, and focus so much on getting it. Neither can it be normal to be as exhausted and stressed when on paper I lead a charmed life, having coffee and pistachio shortbread and reading a Kindle. The messages, e mails, texts and calls silenced and unreturned on my pc and phone add another layer to the layer of guilt. But I feel I am retreating and battening down the hatches. Lighting the fire at lunchtime and closing the curtains early. I am so bored.com of Christmas, - ads, songs, parcels, food, blah blah blah. The canvas lies unopened, the paints hardening on their tray, the screen is blank, the printer silent.
I long for Spring, for green shoots, for brighter evenings, for the tulips to peep out of the mayonnaise bucket in the yard.
The Dentist said this was most likely stress related.
The enormity of this hit me li...ke a frying pan in the face when I was having a flying chat with a friend earlier. While mentioning the above, as a throw away remark I said "sure, that's nothing. I have nightmares every night and usually wake up crying". It was his look of shock that reminded me that to other people this is NOT normal.
It also can't be normal to obsess about sleep, and focus so much on getting it. Neither can it be normal to be as exhausted and stressed when on paper I lead a charmed life, having coffee and pistachio shortbread and reading a Kindle. The messages, e mails, texts and calls silenced and unreturned on my pc and phone add another layer to the layer of guilt. But I feel I am retreating and battening down the hatches. Lighting the fire at lunchtime and closing the curtains early. I am so bored.com of Christmas, - ads, songs, parcels, food, blah blah blah. The canvas lies unopened, the paints hardening on their tray, the screen is blank, the printer silent.
I long for Spring, for green shoots, for brighter evenings, for the tulips to peep out of the mayonnaise bucket in the yard.
My Brother in Law - a quiet Leitrim man, remarked once about the changing of the season -
"T'is lovely to be on this side of it looking into it" -
Siobhan has been a little more responsive and aware and has had her eyes open a few times lately. Her gaze is fixed on a spot above her bed on the right hand corner. I thought at first it was on a photo of us as a family, when my sister was a new born baby and I named us all out to her.
But when I lay my head down beside her to follow her line of vision it isn't. Who knows what or who she sees? Who knows what She is looking into?
To all of the people who have sent messages, and best wishes I return them a thousand times. To all I have not been in touch with or replied to I apologise a thousand times. And to you reading this, whomever and wherever I wish you nothing but happiness all the days of your life. Happy Christmas, Peace out. Namaste. M
"T'is lovely to be on this side of it looking into it" -
Siobhan has been a little more responsive and aware and has had her eyes open a few times lately. Her gaze is fixed on a spot above her bed on the right hand corner. I thought at first it was on a photo of us as a family, when my sister was a new born baby and I named us all out to her.
But when I lay my head down beside her to follow her line of vision it isn't. Who knows what or who she sees? Who knows what She is looking into?
To all of the people who have sent messages, and best wishes I return them a thousand times. To all I have not been in touch with or replied to I apologise a thousand times. And to you reading this, whomever and wherever I wish you nothing but happiness all the days of your life. Happy Christmas, Peace out. Namaste. M
We are T minus 37 hours before we move Siobhan to her daughters home on Christmas Day in the morning. So far so good. I have a feeling there could be high jinks to report so I am cutting it short for now as I have to make all the gifts. Yes, make. Have a lovely Christmas Eve. Try to relax and unstress. I have had a much better day after the spa ( more of which anon ) and am realising there is only one of me, and what I can't do, I can't do. Simples. As the Balinese people say," why worry? Same, same. "
It is not what is under the tree but who is around it. Namaste.
It is not what is under the tree but who is around it. Namaste.
"Well you are simply the living end" says the Nurse on duty tonight. She is eyeballing the crisps, chocolate, Baileys and 7 Up lined up to be fed to Siobhan, in a row on the arm of Stephen Hawkings chair.
"Well it IS Christmas " I respond.
Then I show her how I do it. She is impressed.
Tonight it has been my job to "dress" my Mother for Christmas. For the 4th year I have selected an outfit and ...accessorised it and hung it on hangers on the wardrobe door. The carers start asking Dad around Halloween each year what she will be wearing.
"Oh, the girls do that" says he.
It is girl singular.
I do the dressing, she does the cooking.
I do entertaining and watering of plants, she does driving and medical appointments.
I do perfume, she cuts toenails.
We are truly the Martha & Mary of sisters.
Actually, we always have been.
"Michelle, you are supposed to clean FIRST before you start dressing up things" said my Mother years ago as she watched in disbelief while I moved the fluff around the window sills to fit lovely things on them.
As a teenager I was known to paint an entire room in pink or black emulsion - (mood depandant ) without moving anything. And when I say entire I include the windows, skirting boards, and posters. It looked like Mr Bean had done it, and I also only painted up as far as I could reach. A man always did the top bits and the "cuttin' in". Masking tape ? What's that eh ? I was like a bull in a gap. Now I like to call this behaviour "spontanaeity".
The nurse asks whether I am on Turkey watch tomorrow.
"No, my house is too tiny and too mental"
"Oh, you're in a flat are you?"
I think she thinks I am a student. I reassure her that is is an actual house, with an attic and an oil tank but that my sister is the boss of all that.
She tells me that Little Thomasina had nothing but the height of praise for us both today.The best daughters in all of Ireland apparently. In reality we are 2 tired, middle aged women but to him we are STILL the girls.
Tomorrow it is me who will oversee the dressing, moving, lifting, wheeling, and installing by the fireside in her youngest childs house of Siobhan. The quiet Leitrim man may have to be on standby with a drill as I will take the doors down if I have to. Did I mention that chair is HUGE.
Despite me giving him "down the banks" earlier about ringing at sparrow fart to ascertain the menu and then sleeping through the luncheon gong, Frank put a lip on him when I tried to cry off from cooking his christmas lunch. I bought the lamb chops today from an incredulous butcher who threw in a 5th free. HE thinks I am mental as well. I caved in and promised I would ring him in the morning with a time. (Frank , not the Butcher ) But Martha has come to my rescue and presented me with my evening meal at 9.30pm of an alternate fowl she was serving tonight.
(My dining today - Breakfast - Panna Cotta with Raspberries and shortbread in The Yard. 2pm.
- Lunch - Scrambled egg on toast 6pm
- Dinner Half a box of Roses T.B.A.
Now all I have to do is faff around with it, make gravy and nuke.
His goose is cooked. Literally.
Happy Christmas
"Well it IS Christmas " I respond.
Then I show her how I do it. She is impressed.
Tonight it has been my job to "dress" my Mother for Christmas. For the 4th year I have selected an outfit and ...accessorised it and hung it on hangers on the wardrobe door. The carers start asking Dad around Halloween each year what she will be wearing.
"Oh, the girls do that" says he.
It is girl singular.
I do the dressing, she does the cooking.
I do entertaining and watering of plants, she does driving and medical appointments.
I do perfume, she cuts toenails.
We are truly the Martha & Mary of sisters.
Actually, we always have been.
"Michelle, you are supposed to clean FIRST before you start dressing up things" said my Mother years ago as she watched in disbelief while I moved the fluff around the window sills to fit lovely things on them.
As a teenager I was known to paint an entire room in pink or black emulsion - (mood depandant ) without moving anything. And when I say entire I include the windows, skirting boards, and posters. It looked like Mr Bean had done it, and I also only painted up as far as I could reach. A man always did the top bits and the "cuttin' in". Masking tape ? What's that eh ? I was like a bull in a gap. Now I like to call this behaviour "spontanaeity".
The nurse asks whether I am on Turkey watch tomorrow.
"No, my house is too tiny and too mental"
"Oh, you're in a flat are you?"
I think she thinks I am a student. I reassure her that is is an actual house, with an attic and an oil tank but that my sister is the boss of all that.
She tells me that Little Thomasina had nothing but the height of praise for us both today.The best daughters in all of Ireland apparently. In reality we are 2 tired, middle aged women but to him we are STILL the girls.
Tomorrow it is me who will oversee the dressing, moving, lifting, wheeling, and installing by the fireside in her youngest childs house of Siobhan. The quiet Leitrim man may have to be on standby with a drill as I will take the doors down if I have to. Did I mention that chair is HUGE.
Despite me giving him "down the banks" earlier about ringing at sparrow fart to ascertain the menu and then sleeping through the luncheon gong, Frank put a lip on him when I tried to cry off from cooking his christmas lunch. I bought the lamb chops today from an incredulous butcher who threw in a 5th free. HE thinks I am mental as well. I caved in and promised I would ring him in the morning with a time. (Frank , not the Butcher ) But Martha has come to my rescue and presented me with my evening meal at 9.30pm of an alternate fowl she was serving tonight.
(My dining today - Breakfast - Panna Cotta with Raspberries and shortbread in The Yard. 2pm.
- Lunch - Scrambled egg on toast 6pm
- Dinner Half a box of Roses T.B.A.
Now all I have to do is faff around with it, make gravy and nuke.
His goose is cooked. Literally.
Happy Christmas
It all went off rather swimmingly in the end. Despite the fact I left the house trailing ribbons and a tin of biscuits wrapped in 4 and a half yards of giftwrap - still attached to the roll - which I had to get my nephew to fix.
"Pull the paper off and tear the sellotape with your teeth". says I. He also had to pull up the straps on my Doc Martens ( kelly green ) in the car to affix them to m...y tiny feet. We rocked up to the driveway to see the wheelchair accessible bus parked and ready with its doors open. Inside Siobhan is being wheeled up from Mass and there is a sprint to the bedroom where I helped the carers get her ready for the off.
A part of me is amazed that my "normal" family are entrusting the care of this precious person to me. One of the nurses seems positively bemused that it is the hippy who is doing this. We left in a convoy - My Father in his car, my sister and nephew in hers and Siobhan and I in the bus. My sister has taken the precaution of drawing a map to her house on the back of a gift token.
She has lived there for 15 years.
I protest.
You have called me from too many lanes and fields trying to direct people up here Michelle, she informs me sagely and leaves to make the annual gravy.
"Pull the paper off and tear the sellotape with your teeth". says I. He also had to pull up the straps on my Doc Martens ( kelly green ) in the car to affix them to m...y tiny feet. We rocked up to the driveway to see the wheelchair accessible bus parked and ready with its doors open. Inside Siobhan is being wheeled up from Mass and there is a sprint to the bedroom where I helped the carers get her ready for the off.
A part of me is amazed that my "normal" family are entrusting the care of this precious person to me. One of the nurses seems positively bemused that it is the hippy who is doing this. We left in a convoy - My Father in his car, my sister and nephew in hers and Siobhan and I in the bus. My sister has taken the precaution of drawing a map to her house on the back of a gift token.
She has lived there for 15 years.
I protest.
You have called me from too many lanes and fields trying to direct people up here Michelle, she informs me sagely and leaves to make the annual gravy.
I would swear on a stack of Bibles that Siobhan knew we were off on an adventure. From the crowd around her in the room, checking things and placing an air cushion in the chair, to the speed of knots I took off down the hall at. Like a dog that can smell the wind and the beach she was alert and awake in the bus. To the shocked delight of the other passengers, ( another resident and her daughter) I pretend to take a photo of the builders cleavage of the driver as he harnesses the wheelchairs to the floor. A seamless transfer, and we end up in the driveway at the mountain home where a small crowd await our arrival in the sunshine.
It was a lovely day. I wheeled her around and showed her the house, the tree, her son.......... things she has not seen in a while. I fed her a pureed lunch in the corner by the fire ( which has a picture of a disappointed horse and Jimmy "Hill" Joyce on either side) and then wheeled her in to the top of the table for the main event. I gave her half a glass of Guiness while we ate.
I can only assume that it was lovely for her to be in a cosy house beside a real fire, listening to women cooking and children playing and smelling the meat roasting. I can only assume that an afternoon spent being cuddled and spoilt while hearing the music, tvs, guitars, X-boxes, and screams was a pleasant change from the silence of her room.
I can only assume these things from her point, but from mine it was perfect. Don't tell anyone but I am going to book the bus again asap. Have a pleasant evening. M
It was a lovely day. I wheeled her around and showed her the house, the tree, her son.......... things she has not seen in a while. I fed her a pureed lunch in the corner by the fire ( which has a picture of a disappointed horse and Jimmy "Hill" Joyce on either side) and then wheeled her in to the top of the table for the main event. I gave her half a glass of Guiness while we ate.
I can only assume that it was lovely for her to be in a cosy house beside a real fire, listening to women cooking and children playing and smelling the meat roasting. I can only assume that an afternoon spent being cuddled and spoilt while hearing the music, tvs, guitars, X-boxes, and screams was a pleasant change from the silence of her room.
I can only assume these things from her point, but from mine it was perfect. Don't tell anyone but I am going to book the bus again asap. Have a pleasant evening. M
There have been 2 words that summarise my existence -
"Behave" and "Perform".
They are not mutually exclusive. It would have been very cool if someone had used a smidge of reverse psychology on me decades ago and saved all that palaver.
It exhausts me now just to think of it. Basically, I am incapable of either admonishment to order.
And quite frequently I have been known to confuse the two.
"B...ehave" is the word whispered out of one side of thin lips. Usually on encountering other adults, entering peoples homes,being brought on drives, going on school tours.
It was of course meant to offset the behaviour that it in fact encouraged.
This included - behaving outrageously for any/all adults and morphing into an Irish Shirley Temple singing, dancing and reciting for a £1 note.
- Opening every door and press in anyones house, rooting in drawers and saying "Can I've these"? with wide eyes.
- causing numerous fights in a moving vehicle, insisting we stop because of car sickness and then crying for ice-cream/chips.
- eating the packed lunch before the bus left town, buying pachouli oil in The Dandelion Market, and learning how to steal flip flops from the second boldest girl in the school.
"Behave" and "Perform".
They are not mutually exclusive. It would have been very cool if someone had used a smidge of reverse psychology on me decades ago and saved all that palaver.
It exhausts me now just to think of it. Basically, I am incapable of either admonishment to order.
And quite frequently I have been known to confuse the two.
"B...ehave" is the word whispered out of one side of thin lips. Usually on encountering other adults, entering peoples homes,being brought on drives, going on school tours.
It was of course meant to offset the behaviour that it in fact encouraged.
This included - behaving outrageously for any/all adults and morphing into an Irish Shirley Temple singing, dancing and reciting for a £1 note.
- Opening every door and press in anyones house, rooting in drawers and saying "Can I've these"? with wide eyes.
- causing numerous fights in a moving vehicle, insisting we stop because of car sickness and then crying for ice-cream/chips.
- eating the packed lunch before the bus left town, buying pachouli oil in The Dandelion Market, and learning how to steal flip flops from the second boldest girl in the school.
Perform is the other word that works in inverse proportion to the command. If I am wheeled out to entertain with a fanfare of "Oh, she's some funny lads" I will be clamming up faster than Clammest Clam from Clammytown.
Not a peep.
Usually to be found skulking amongst books and rooting in other peoples things saying "Can I've these?" with tired eyes, or sulking at the back door smoking.
I offer all of this to explain why Siobhan is gone to the pineapple chunk in her Surita hoist as pissed as a newt.
It may have been the dash of Baileys in her coffee at 3pm as we watched "To kill a Mockingbird". It may have been the Hennessy while I was singing Raglan Road at the top of my voice with Luke Kelly. It may have been the sherry trifle while Declan Sinnott and Christy Moore played "Joxer goes to Stuttgart" to a hysterical Glaswegian crowd in a mammoth gig.
"I lived there then, member?" I roared above the noise. (I like to think she nodded.)
All over the rest of the building Residents, Carers, and Relations were attending mass , singing hymns, exchanging gifts, listening to the choir, sitting round the old joanna at a knees-up.
(We did a lap of honour to get a breath of unscented air - *Yankee candles * I sprayed perfume on her wrists and took off her bib and put pink gloss on her lips. )
And where is Siobhan in the middle of all this?
At a whore of a session in her own little space is where. With her "favourite" child is where. The jury is out on whether I behaved or performed.
Not a peep.
Usually to be found skulking amongst books and rooting in other peoples things saying "Can I've these?" with tired eyes, or sulking at the back door smoking.
I offer all of this to explain why Siobhan is gone to the pineapple chunk in her Surita hoist as pissed as a newt.
It may have been the dash of Baileys in her coffee at 3pm as we watched "To kill a Mockingbird". It may have been the Hennessy while I was singing Raglan Road at the top of my voice with Luke Kelly. It may have been the sherry trifle while Declan Sinnott and Christy Moore played "Joxer goes to Stuttgart" to a hysterical Glaswegian crowd in a mammoth gig.
"I lived there then, member?" I roared above the noise. (I like to think she nodded.)
All over the rest of the building Residents, Carers, and Relations were attending mass , singing hymns, exchanging gifts, listening to the choir, sitting round the old joanna at a knees-up.
(We did a lap of honour to get a breath of unscented air - *Yankee candles * I sprayed perfume on her wrists and took off her bib and put pink gloss on her lips. )
And where is Siobhan in the middle of all this?
At a whore of a session in her own little space is where. With her "favourite" child is where. The jury is out on whether I behaved or performed.
Nollaig Beag.
Tomorrow the annual Christmas party will be held for residents in my Mothers nursing home. It will be my 4th year in attendance. The place will be packed to the rafters.
All morning there will be a frenzy to get things prepared and get lunches over and done with.The kitchen staff will be purple by noon. Trays of cold meat, salads, and homemade brown bread with smoked salmon on, be...etroot salad, followed by fruit flans with cream, pavlova, christmas cake , mince pies, the works. They throw up a great spread.
My sister has never attended.
I doubt my brother even knows there IS one.
My Father - Little Thomasina - did the first year with me but bowed out gracefully without an encore. He has had me primed and ready for weeks.
"Don't forget Mams party on the 6th sure you wont?" he will mention in his twice daily call.
As if.
I have become so innured to the repetition that at times I resemble a little dutch weather doll - out and in and in and out, rain or shine.
Don't get me wrong. I cannot even now, think of anywhere else on the planet that I would be..............should be.
I tell my sister tonight what it entails. It went something like this.
"It will be like mission control at N.A.S.A. over there tomorrow" - says I nodding in the vague direction of the kitchen, as I crush an ice-cream with glistening shards of melting chocolate. "You couldn't get your foot sideways in the door to get a spoon there will be bedlam and nowhere to park, there will be tall country men carrying chairs all over the gaff with their shirts stuck to them. There will be a crowd unseen since the days of the moving statues at the mass beforehand, and a queue longer than Lourdes at the door of walking aids and wheelchairs. There will be a clatter of hysterical red faced over -heated children running wild in the halls like a re-make of Lord of the Flies, and elbows will be drawn at the stack of plates and cutlery. It's like the Peter Kay sketch, the same 3 platters on every table."
By a miracle I have sanitised my hands with the anitseptic foam at the door so I push the triangle of melted chocolate into Siobhans mouth and lick my fingers. I am wearing a pair of my deceased Aunts slippers. She has been dead for 9 years. Name of God. Actually, they are black embroidered with the words Angel in gold. I am either being coolly ironic or completely self absorbed.
I digress.
While my sister rests her aching ,back drinking a strawberry smoothie and looking at my texts - "This phone would drive me MENTAL!!!" she shouts - I fill her in on the mass thing, the choir thing, the speech thing, and she looks suitably aghast.
"I know, right?"
"We wont be there though will we Siobhan?" I ask the small woman in the massive chair. "We will be in here having the crack and with only the tree lighting listening to jazz and eating ice-cream" I say rubbing her hand. I lean in to kiss her goodnight and whisper "No matter what she says I am your favourite child and always have been".
As I retrieve my coat from the bed my sister leans in for her own kiss and I hear her whisper "No matter what she said......." before I open the door.
A man I love buried his Mother today. A woman who was only diagnosed with an illness in November. I spent half the day getting to the funeral and the other half getting back. I did NOT go to the "meal & refreshments" afterwards or I may not have come home till tuesday fortnight. On Christmas morning I went in to collect Siobhan and was met by one of the residents who informed me that her own "Mam...my" died during the night.
I then hear that the other Mammy went home on New Years Morning. To their credit her family played a blinder and nursed her at home. Last night I spent the night with my own Mammy giving thanks to a supreme being that I still have her.
By accident I opened a file today on my phone that has a photo of her taken on Christmas Day. I almost dropped it.
The difference is shocking.
I would hazard a guess that anyone visiting her after a long time would walk on by. Unbelievably, and almost impossibly, out of this strangers face shines my Mothers eyes.
As the illness progresses and dental hygiene starts to slip, and then become untenable due to the clamping of the mouth the teeth begin to disappear. On a nightmarish trip to the dentist where I had to pry her mouth open the dentist informs that she has only one tooth left.
One? ONE? wtf.
The rest she says have rotted away, been re-absorbed and eliminated.
Right.
Tomorrow the annual Christmas party will be held for residents in my Mothers nursing home. It will be my 4th year in attendance. The place will be packed to the rafters.
All morning there will be a frenzy to get things prepared and get lunches over and done with.The kitchen staff will be purple by noon. Trays of cold meat, salads, and homemade brown bread with smoked salmon on, be...etroot salad, followed by fruit flans with cream, pavlova, christmas cake , mince pies, the works. They throw up a great spread.
My sister has never attended.
I doubt my brother even knows there IS one.
My Father - Little Thomasina - did the first year with me but bowed out gracefully without an encore. He has had me primed and ready for weeks.
"Don't forget Mams party on the 6th sure you wont?" he will mention in his twice daily call.
As if.
I have become so innured to the repetition that at times I resemble a little dutch weather doll - out and in and in and out, rain or shine.
Don't get me wrong. I cannot even now, think of anywhere else on the planet that I would be..............should be.
I tell my sister tonight what it entails. It went something like this.
"It will be like mission control at N.A.S.A. over there tomorrow" - says I nodding in the vague direction of the kitchen, as I crush an ice-cream with glistening shards of melting chocolate. "You couldn't get your foot sideways in the door to get a spoon there will be bedlam and nowhere to park, there will be tall country men carrying chairs all over the gaff with their shirts stuck to them. There will be a crowd unseen since the days of the moving statues at the mass beforehand, and a queue longer than Lourdes at the door of walking aids and wheelchairs. There will be a clatter of hysterical red faced over -heated children running wild in the halls like a re-make of Lord of the Flies, and elbows will be drawn at the stack of plates and cutlery. It's like the Peter Kay sketch, the same 3 platters on every table."
By a miracle I have sanitised my hands with the anitseptic foam at the door so I push the triangle of melted chocolate into Siobhans mouth and lick my fingers. I am wearing a pair of my deceased Aunts slippers. She has been dead for 9 years. Name of God. Actually, they are black embroidered with the words Angel in gold. I am either being coolly ironic or completely self absorbed.
I digress.
While my sister rests her aching ,back drinking a strawberry smoothie and looking at my texts - "This phone would drive me MENTAL!!!" she shouts - I fill her in on the mass thing, the choir thing, the speech thing, and she looks suitably aghast.
"I know, right?"
"We wont be there though will we Siobhan?" I ask the small woman in the massive chair. "We will be in here having the crack and with only the tree lighting listening to jazz and eating ice-cream" I say rubbing her hand. I lean in to kiss her goodnight and whisper "No matter what she says I am your favourite child and always have been".
As I retrieve my coat from the bed my sister leans in for her own kiss and I hear her whisper "No matter what she said......." before I open the door.
A man I love buried his Mother today. A woman who was only diagnosed with an illness in November. I spent half the day getting to the funeral and the other half getting back. I did NOT go to the "meal & refreshments" afterwards or I may not have come home till tuesday fortnight. On Christmas morning I went in to collect Siobhan and was met by one of the residents who informed me that her own "Mam...my" died during the night.
I then hear that the other Mammy went home on New Years Morning. To their credit her family played a blinder and nursed her at home. Last night I spent the night with my own Mammy giving thanks to a supreme being that I still have her.
By accident I opened a file today on my phone that has a photo of her taken on Christmas Day. I almost dropped it.
The difference is shocking.
I would hazard a guess that anyone visiting her after a long time would walk on by. Unbelievably, and almost impossibly, out of this strangers face shines my Mothers eyes.
As the illness progresses and dental hygiene starts to slip, and then become untenable due to the clamping of the mouth the teeth begin to disappear. On a nightmarish trip to the dentist where I had to pry her mouth open the dentist informs that she has only one tooth left.
One? ONE? wtf.
The rest she says have rotted away, been re-absorbed and eliminated.
Right.
The shape of her jaws has changed. There are times when I walk in when I will glimpse my Grandfather, or any one of a parade of Uncles - all gone - but not my smiling blonde Mother.
Her eyes have also changed. When they are open one is fixed and staring, the other gazing off to the left. It is not a sight for the faint hearted. I watch sadly as my tiny niece gives her a Hollywood style air kiss and am amazed at the honesty of children. Unfortunately these small children will never remember their Nana Vaun "well".
Inside Siobhan, lying barely under her skin is the essence of her. Scratch the surface and she is there, present and aware and patient. There are times she must just want me to shut up, to stop singing or giving a running commentary, to stop "wooling the head off her" with the hairbrush, to turn down the music, or blow out the candles. There are symbiotic moments of perfect clarity and understanding between us where I sit in silence massaging her hands and opening the curled fingers. She communicates with me best in the silence. It is in the silence, and the space it allows, that all things arise and have their being. She is simply being when I am being simple.
Sometimes I will spot her for a nano second - in the tilt of her head - in an involuntary sigh - or a half smile that plays around her lips when I am being completely outrageous. Other times it is like she has come back for a fleeting visit. These times are hard to witness and as a family we find them disconcerting. Her eyes have also changed. When they are open one is fixed and staring, the other gazing off to the left. It is not a sight for the faint hearted. I watch sadly as my tiny niece gives her a Hollywood style air kiss and am amazed at the honesty of children. Unfortunately these small children will never remember their Nana Vaun "well".
Inside Siobhan, lying barely under her skin is the essence of her. Scratch the surface and she is there, present and aware and patient. There are times she must just want me to shut up, to stop singing or giving a running commentary, to stop "wooling the head off her" with the hairbrush, to turn down the music, or blow out the candles. There are symbiotic moments of perfect clarity and understanding between us where I sit in silence massaging her hands and opening the curled fingers. She communicates with me best in the silence. It is in the silence, and the space it allows, that all things arise and have their being. She is simply being when I am being simple.
Sometimes I will spot her for a nano second - in the tilt of her head - in an involuntary sigh - or a half smile that plays around her lips when I am being completely outrageous. Other times it is like she has come back for a fleeting visit. These times are hard to witness and as a family we find them disconcerting. Her eyes will open, first a tad, then halfway, then wide, then round like she has been surprised, or shocked or both. It is like when the electricity supply is flickering, and then gives a power surge momentarily before it shuts down. I witnessed it with her sister ( who also had Alzheimers ) when I visited one night and had a conversation with her lasting only a minute but it was the first time she had spoken in months.
On this night I thank the silence for leaving her to let me love and learn from her still. On this night do something lovely in honour of your own Mother, wherever She may be in the Universe. Thankfully for all of us and the children, I remember Nana Vaun well.
Her eyes have also changed. When they are open one is fixed and staring, the other gazing off to the left. It is not a sight for the faint hearted. I watch sadly as my tiny niece gives her a Hollywood style air kiss and am amazed at the honesty of children. Unfortunately these small children will never remember their Nana Vaun "well".
Inside Siobhan, lying barely under her skin is the essence of her. Scratch the surface and she is there, present and aware and patient. There are times she must just want me to shut up, to stop singing or giving a running commentary, to stop "wooling the head off her" with the hairbrush, to turn down the music, or blow out the candles. There are symbiotic moments of perfect clarity and understanding between us where I sit in silence massaging her hands and opening the curled fingers. She communicates with me best in the silence. It is in the silence, and the space it allows, that all things arise and have their being. She is simply being when I am being simple.
Sometimes I will spot her for a nano second - in the tilt of her head - in an involuntary sigh - or a half smile that plays around her lips when I am being completely outrageous. Other times it is like she has come back for a fleeting visit. These times are hard to witness and as a family we find them disconcerting. Her eyes have also changed. When they are open one is fixed and staring, the other gazing off to the left. It is not a sight for the faint hearted. I watch sadly as my tiny niece gives her a Hollywood style air kiss and am amazed at the honesty of children. Unfortunately these small children will never remember their Nana Vaun "well".
Inside Siobhan, lying barely under her skin is the essence of her. Scratch the surface and she is there, present and aware and patient. There are times she must just want me to shut up, to stop singing or giving a running commentary, to stop "wooling the head off her" with the hairbrush, to turn down the music, or blow out the candles. There are symbiotic moments of perfect clarity and understanding between us where I sit in silence massaging her hands and opening the curled fingers. She communicates with me best in the silence. It is in the silence, and the space it allows, that all things arise and have their being. She is simply being when I am being simple.
Sometimes I will spot her for a nano second - in the tilt of her head - in an involuntary sigh - or a half smile that plays around her lips when I am being completely outrageous. Other times it is like she has come back for a fleeting visit. These times are hard to witness and as a family we find them disconcerting. Her eyes will open, first a tad, then halfway, then wide, then round like she has been surprised, or shocked or both. It is like when the electricity supply is flickering, and then gives a power surge momentarily before it shuts down. I witnessed it with her sister ( who also had Alzheimers ) when I visited one night and had a conversation with her lasting only a minute but it was the first time she had spoken in months.
On this night I thank the silence for leaving her to let me love and learn from her still. On this night do something lovely in honour of your own Mother, wherever She may be in the Universe. Thankfully for all of us and the children, I remember Nana Vaun well.
Fortunately I made a collage of Siobhan for her birthday a number of years ago. It was a collection of family photographs that I had copies made of and then butchered with a scissors to get only her from the various shots. I mounted them on board and laminated and gave it to her. It hung proudly in the living room at home.
Now, It hangs directly in her line of vision from the Stephen Hawking chai...r she lives in.
There are many and varied shots of her, as a young bride, a new mother, at weddings, pregnant, on holiday in Doolin and Europe, asleep in the back of my Dads camper van, swimming, sight seeing, walking, sitting, her silver wedding anniversary ( the night her son and daughter walked in the door shouting "Surprise!" from Germany via London having phoned from Stuttgart that morning. This was the 80's so that was quite a feat then) holding Grandchildren, drinking a pint of stout, holding her pet terrier Chloe on her lap, straight haired and permed. In all of them she is essentially herself. There is no posing, no artifice, just honesty and a quiet ladylike disposition that negates my oft used adage - "Trot Mare, trot foal" –
Now, It hangs directly in her line of vision from the Stephen Hawking chai...r she lives in.
There are many and varied shots of her, as a young bride, a new mother, at weddings, pregnant, on holiday in Doolin and Europe, asleep in the back of my Dads camper van, swimming, sight seeing, walking, sitting, her silver wedding anniversary ( the night her son and daughter walked in the door shouting "Surprise!" from Germany via London having phoned from Stuttgart that morning. This was the 80's so that was quite a feat then) holding Grandchildren, drinking a pint of stout, holding her pet terrier Chloe on her lap, straight haired and permed. In all of them she is essentially herself. There is no posing, no artifice, just honesty and a quiet ladylike disposition that negates my oft used adage - "Trot Mare, trot foal" –
In one of the images she has been captured in a moment that my sister and I discussed the other night. She is hanging curtains.
Siobhan always had a "great pair of hands" and could turn them to pretty much anything. Apprenticed to sisters who were seamstresses after she left St.Leos' in Carlow town, she served her time there and then in Wexford was one of a host of green tweed -suit wearing assistants in Corrys with Cornelius de Groot. This is a woman who knew her way around a needle and thread -and could run up a pair of curtains, hem your school skirt, take up, down and in your levi's and fix your "project" for domestic science while making Shepherds pie and Apple tart.
She also loved to paint and could always see faces or animals in wallpaper patterns or cloud formations. Once when a wall was being stripped to be dry lined she drew children and faces and dogs on the scraps of paper left on. I think my Dad became suspicious even then. I like to think she was just spontaneously creating and not that the lights had begun to wink out one by one.
My sister had a new window she needed to dress. Don't even ask. It involves a new stove. Anyway, when she asked me where to buy some I said take the ones from home.
She hesitated.
I always take the ones from home. I have steadily rifled and filched from the hot press for years. I am a magpie when it comes to cute unusual things. Which may explain the eclectic state of this house, and the depletion of the blanket box. We have had a thing about going upstairs at home. It was horrific horrific and traumatic to go into her wardrobe and take her things out to a nursing home.
I did it.
Even when the ceiling in my old bedroom collapsed and Dad turned down the ear shattering volume on the tv and up his hearing aids (plural) she did NOT venture upstairs.
"I thought it was thunder" says he.
In her house on Christmas Day she had a sparkling new set of red floor length curtains.
"Member Mam always had pins in her mouth, and I used to beg her to fix things saying I'd ate it first?"I asked. She laughed. I believe in the energy of old things, and love keeping things that hold memories. We stop and look up at the collage of her, hanging the curtains in the living room and smile. My sister loves old things and memories too but she is creating them instead.
Siobhan always had a "great pair of hands" and could turn them to pretty much anything. Apprenticed to sisters who were seamstresses after she left St.Leos' in Carlow town, she served her time there and then in Wexford was one of a host of green tweed -suit wearing assistants in Corrys with Cornelius de Groot. This is a woman who knew her way around a needle and thread -and could run up a pair of curtains, hem your school skirt, take up, down and in your levi's and fix your "project" for domestic science while making Shepherds pie and Apple tart.
She also loved to paint and could always see faces or animals in wallpaper patterns or cloud formations. Once when a wall was being stripped to be dry lined she drew children and faces and dogs on the scraps of paper left on. I think my Dad became suspicious even then. I like to think she was just spontaneously creating and not that the lights had begun to wink out one by one.
My sister had a new window she needed to dress. Don't even ask. It involves a new stove. Anyway, when she asked me where to buy some I said take the ones from home.
She hesitated.
I always take the ones from home. I have steadily rifled and filched from the hot press for years. I am a magpie when it comes to cute unusual things. Which may explain the eclectic state of this house, and the depletion of the blanket box. We have had a thing about going upstairs at home. It was horrific horrific and traumatic to go into her wardrobe and take her things out to a nursing home.
I did it.
Even when the ceiling in my old bedroom collapsed and Dad turned down the ear shattering volume on the tv and up his hearing aids (plural) she did NOT venture upstairs.
"I thought it was thunder" says he.
In her house on Christmas Day she had a sparkling new set of red floor length curtains.
"Member Mam always had pins in her mouth, and I used to beg her to fix things saying I'd ate it first?"I asked. She laughed. I believe in the energy of old things, and love keeping things that hold memories. We stop and look up at the collage of her, hanging the curtains in the living room and smile. My sister loves old things and memories too but she is creating them instead.
I am the best supporting actress in a real life Benjamin Button re-make. Whether I am nominated for an award or overlooked is up for dissecting by a jury of my peers. I will have to call on all my powers of method,detachment, awareness and eternity to pull off this role. The show must go on. All of life a stage, and every man must play a part. Lights, camera, action. I hope I don't fluff a cue. And speaking of fluffers, we're gonna need a smaller sock.
Cue the music, I'm ready for my close-up.
The chain appears to be have been steeped in a corrosive acid of fear and doubt and is weakening but who would have thought the blackest sheep, the weakest link, the craziest broad would step forward, sieze the mike, and squinting into the spotlight begin falteringly - and then with confidence - to sing a warriors song.
Cue the music, I'm ready for my close-up.
The chain appears to be have been steeped in a corrosive acid of fear and doubt and is weakening but who would have thought the blackest sheep, the weakest link, the craziest broad would step forward, sieze the mike, and squinting into the spotlight begin falteringly - and then with confidence - to sing a warriors song.
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