maybe I didn't love you

I've just come from a rather emotional counselling session where my relationship with Mum was, as it often is, central to what was discussed. As you might expect, one focus of the counselling is on finding reasons for my adult behaviour in what happened to me as a child. Today I told the story of "Mum and Blame", something I mentioned last year in a response to a comment on another post. Essentially, the story is as follows:

I've tried all my life to have my Mother comfort me but she wasn't really the warmest person and never seemed to be "on my side, no matter what", the way I saw other Mothers behave. If something went wrong for me and I was upset, I would invariably go to Mum for comfort only to have her make me feel ten times worse. I would reach for a hug and she would, in turn, reach for whatever explanation she could find to make it all my fault, even when it was actually no-one's fault and all I needed was some sympathy. As I've grown up, I've witnessed other parenting styles and I've come to realise that I never felt that either of my parents would support me or stand up for me. I didn't feel protected. In my late teens, I went through a phase of staying up late talking to Mum, trying to tell her as much about myself as possible. I hoped we were finally connecting, but all my confessions and confidences just got thrown back at me later, whenever it helped her win an argument. I think it's because of this that I'm sensitive to any talk of blame these days and always try and shy away from such talk. Looking back, I find myself playing psychologist and I speculate that Mum (on some subconscious level) panicked whenever I presented myself as unhappy and  was unconsciously desperate to prove that whatever had happened wasn't her fault. 

Anyway, on coming out of the session, I bought a sandwich and was heading back to my car in my usual dazed state, when I passed a busker on the street. He was singing a slow ballad, and I didn't recognise the song at first because I had only ever heard a "disco" version by "The Pet Shop Boys". As I strolled up the street, I didn't properly take in what was being sung:

     Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should.

     Maybe I didn't love you quite as often as I could. 

     Little things I should have said and done, 

     I never took the time....

It was only as I passed him that I took in the words:

    Maybe I didn't hold you

    All those lonely, lonely times

Suddenly I was alert. I had the strange feeling of everything being in focus, the feeling that my life had become a movie, complete with an appropriate soundtrack:

    If I made you feel second best,

    I'm so sorry I was blind.

    You were always on my mind.

    You were always on my mind.

It felt like a message. I wondered what the Universe was trying to tell me.

All I can say for sure so far is that it is true: I do seem to be always on Mum's mind these days. She has entirely forgotten her Husband, to whom she was married for 46 years, but she knows me and looks dotingly on me. The question is: can I accept the overflowing, unconditional love that she is suddenly showing me as having any value, knowing that it is only showing up now that some negative aspects of her personality have been deleted by the dementia?

   Tell me, tell me that your sweet love hasn't died.

   Give me one more chance to keep you satisfied.

I don't know if it's too late for me to accept this love as meaningful.

love and alzheimer's

"Is there anything I can bring you next time I visit?"

"No, I don't think so, Dear,...unless...."

"Unless?"

"I'd like a Boyfriend."

I smile, keeping my response "That's two of us!" to myself. Mum's just told me that she is 35, so I'm guessing that I'm not an "out" man this week.

At the next table, two of the residents have been a couple for the past year. In previous visits I've been a bit concerned that the man of the two was a bit overbearing - I worried that the woman had been coerced into this relationship. Tonight, it suddenly strikes me that they're the two least deteriorated residents in the room, and I wonder if their mutual focus and companionship is somehow slowing their descent. I wonder if Mum grasps this on some level. Mum is a tenacious survivor and has an almost infallible instinct on health matters.

I know that there will be many many cases of loving partners who have watched their spouses slide away into dementia, so I'm not naïvely suggesting that love can slow this disease. However, there is an intensity and focus required when one is courting someone (as I dimly recall). Wooing requires a special effort to present oneself at one's best and take pains to learn and retain as much about the other as possible. These are both strong tides to resist in dementia. If there's something in this, I envisage a task-force of gigolos and 'ladies of easy virtue' to be activated and sent into Care Homes up and down the land.

I think it's time for me to rent the movie "Away from Her"

fan club

Mum clasped her hands and beamed at me, besotted, gasping "Oh... aren't you handsome!"

That's a nice start to a visit.

I'd brought my laptop and a movie chronicling the city of Liverpool over the past 60 years or so. I'm not sure whether Mum genuinely recognised anything. I had thought she might respond to the sequences onboard the "Overhead Railway" (nicknamed "the Dockers' Umbrella"), which is where she and my Father first met, but the only point where she made a comment was when there was a shot of the New Brighton Lido. I'm confident that this was only because I've given her photos of herself as a 20-something, posing at the same Lido.

Afterwards, when I set a slideshow of photos going, Mum was quick to recognise herself in most shots but didn't know either her Husband or Daughter. I find it requires a little tact to reintroduce one's Mother to one's Father. I do it in a matter-of-fact way, not registering the shock I still feel when Mum has forgotten him. It's clear that, until corrected, Mum is minded to consider ME her Husband.

I stayed overnight for the first time - there's a free guest suite which I found an oasis of calm. I'm going to start doing this in future, as it will allow me to spend longer with Mum instead of worrying about my return journey within a couple of hours of my arrival.

As I signed out at Reception the next morning, a lady with a Zimmer frame passed, screwed her hand forcefully into my behind and gave me a sailorly wink.

I've found my key fan base - 80 and female. I've been looking for love in ALL the wrong places, it seems...

wishful thinking

Sometimes, as I drive over to see Mum, an idea comes into my head: a poignant fantasy that stops my heart for a moment and I have to shake my head and try and ignore it.

In this fantasy there is nothing actually wrong with Mum and she's actually just pretending.

As the movie violins kick in, I dream of a Mother who saw that her Son was holding back on his dreams because he was worried about leaving her behind when he went off on his travels. She cleverly faked her slide into Dementia in order to fool him into placing her in Care.

I know it's solipsistic and stupid, worthy of a daytime soap-opera plot, but the emotion behind it is strong for me, and I invariably get quite teary-eyed and short of breath thinking about it.

And I know why. It's the idea that Mum could be selflessly maternal. I realise that I've spent my life testing her maternal instincts and she's never passed that test. It seems there's still a child within me who still needs his Mummy.

I spend a few minutes with Mum and the fantasy evaporates. She really isn't pretending. I feel sadness for her, of course, but some also for myself.