No news amuses my mother, though last week the news was bad and it affected her not one whit.
The previous weekend my cousin’s son had told me during a visit that an aunt, who has lived for five years in a care home, was on morphine. She was 98 and in pain; two days later she died. Rather than telling my mother anything directly people usually phone me now to ask if they should directly relay news to her or if…………..?
So I rang and told her. She was very definite, especially as this was her sister in law rather than her remaining sister, that she was quite unaffected by the news. I rang her on several occasions that day and the next to make sure she remembered and understood. The third day was a visit anyway. We discussed the situation at length and she seemed unmoved by the news except to declare her sister in law had been a great asset to the family. This stance was at great variance to her previous lifetime position. She had always been jealous of her sister in law, whom she perceived to have more money than she had and to be more extravagant. I could recite verbatim the story she told endlessly of the numerous mixing bowls for her electric food mixer which her sister in law had broken until she eventually had a stainless steel one. My mother had always been incandescent on this point. ‘Stainless steel! In a bowl!’ she used to spit as if she were saying ‘solid gold diamond encrusted’ at the very least. Quite why she didn’t just buy a stainless steel bowl herself, I am not sure, I don’t think they cost a king’s ransom, probably less than a new pair of shoes.
Suddenly, upon death, her sister in law lost the mantle of short, stout and wasteful in which my mother had habitually clad her and was transformed into a towering figure of selfless joy-bringing.
But, upon the third day, having insisted that she was completely unaffected, my mother was very ill and continued to be so for a few days. Fortunately I had warned the carers, so they just upped the level of expressed concern, which seemed to accommodate the situation nicely.
A week further on and we are back to normal levels of dissatisfaction with the world and everyone in it. My aunt is referenced but mainly for the irony perceived. My mother’s sister entered the same care home just a week before her sister in law died. Although the two in the care home had had a double wedding, just before the second world war, it is unlikely they would have been bosom pals in care. The sister of my mother is well known for visiting family members once, going ‘Oh this is where you live’ and never returning. Being a bit anti-social myself I consider this scheme to have much to recommend it.
My mother is quiet at present; she is having difficulty, despite a fridge bursting with tasty treats, to know what to eat. I recall my father having the same problem in the months before he died.
I think when you have lived enough you can be bored with the news, unaffected by events and un-tempted by the tastiest morsels that can be found.
You can, in short, lose your appetite for life.
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JaneLaverick.com – ……..I had my fill, I ate it up without exemption……. (but with far too much butter for arterial health, apparently.)