2001-2005

I may find some stray emails to fill this gap, but a heavy workload and a nervous breakdown (on my part) kind of took their toll.

Suffice to say, Mum moved house to a semi-sheltered block of flats, insisting on managing the sale without my help. She also chased a dream to own a holiday home abroad, accepting a company's offer to take her to Spain and chauffeur her around their new development.

I wasn't happy with the deal she accepted on our family home, and I grew concerned at her confusion as to just how many payments she had made on the Spanish apartment.

Despite my Chronic Fatigue problems, I helped her move home and eventually intervened in the Spanish deal, accompanying her out there to inspect the non-existent block of flats.

When the promised refund didn't transpire, I engaged a Solicitor who recouped £25,000 for us, but I remain convinced that Mum had paid at least 3 times as much as this. Unfortunately, her accounts were too vague to back up my belief. She had liquidated a lot of assets since I had last seen her figures.

frustration

I will never make a novelist, because when it comes to writing it all down, I can't remember clearly any of the million and one vexations of my weekend with Mum. Suffice to say we ended up having a flaming row in a supermarket restaurant at which point Mum burst into tears and said, "I'd like to go now", leaving half her food.

A few fragments:

I arrive on Friday evening, having been told to feed myself before arriving. I am attacked remorselessly by that wind-up tampax of a dog. The house is freezing.

I work myself to exhaustion on Saturday, with no thanks at all from Mum. Sunday at the supermarket, she turns to me in the queue for the meal and asks, "Are you going to pay for us both, then?". Charming - only then do I remind her that I've gone to considerable lengths to indulge her this weekend and without any thanks.

Conversation turns to my Sister: "Well, [her friend] reckons that Dad spoiled [my Sister] terribly", to which she adds "He REALLY DID spoil her VERY MUCH". At which point, I said something along the lines of that not being really true, and why did she say that, and why is it always necessary to blame someone? - to which she replied that SHE doesn't think so, only [her friend] had said so .... which is not what she said at all. She will NOT face up to her own remarks, and will disown a statement, "horrified", 20 seconds after spitefully uttering it.

Mum wants me to bleed the radiator in the bathroom. I let some air out but there's no water, so I go to the boiler room to find that there's no pressure in the system at all. No wonder the pump has been straining so noisily! I get the system filled up again, but the pressure gauge shows the pressure dropping rapidly again. There must be a leak in the central heating system. Mum goes rapidly into a diatribe about all sorts of things, how she's going to sell the house, but first she'll have to get it painted. Later, she says that she'd like to move to the South of France. I question the feasibility of this, when she is unable to drive anywhere she is not familiar (she won't read signposts). I question the wisdom of her moving somewhere where she doesn't speak the language and wouldn't understand bills etc (tactfully avoiding criticising her for not understanding bills in English). Though I couch these as worries about her, she is terribly offended, and reels off a list of people who have expressed their admiration for how well she is coping with her affairs since Dad died. She is now going to sell the house, move to a smaller one and use the difference to buy "all new furniture."

I have not managed to convey a hundredth of the frustrations of the weekend, but I'm already too upset to continue. She does have a lot of annoying habits and ways of speaking, and she is supremely selfish at times, but I have to admit that the real problem is with me. I am like a coiled spring with her, and I'm constantly waiting for her to say something (she never fails) which is annoying or wrong, so that I can contradict her. I spend the whole time not meeting her gaze for fear that she'll see the hostility in my eyes. Where does this all come from? How has she managed to produce two children who are so angry with her?

christmas

I just had a very annoying call from Mum.

Ostensibly the call was in order to sympathise with me about having to get to Gatwick so early on Christmas day. Actually, the call was to let me know that she didn't want to drive the 15 miles to pick me up from the airport that morning, although it was said in other ways. I hadn't intended to ask her anyway - there's a train. What upsets me about this is that her motives and thinking are so blatantly obvious, but she won't admit it. I've accepted for a long time that her dishonesty is unconscious, but it's dishonesty all the same and it's so obvious that even she should be able to see it.

In order to start her argument, Mum actually managed to say what a pity it was that I was coming down at all, as she was planning to stay with a friend from Saturday onwards over Christmas. Here I was going OUT OF MY WAY TO SEE HER THIS Christmas AT HER REQUEST. I booked this holiday on the 4th November, way before she'd made any plans with any friend. She even suggested that I check into a hotel at Gatwick for Christmas eve. Fantastic!

promotion

Mum rang on Monday night to tell me that she'd told her friend about my promotion and how her friend had asked why I hadn't sent Mum a bunch of flowers. Mum asked me to send a bunch and offered to give me the number of a firm who would deliver chrysanthemums from Jersey and told me how she'd sent some to someone else from this firm and she had said that they were very nice.

I was at a loss for words.

I spent the rest of the week working hard and grateful that I wasn't home early enough to answer any phone calls. Today I arranged for some flowers to be sent, because after all she has had a hard year, but am I wrong to find the request a bit odd? I mean, shouldn't I be the one to get the gift?

books and memories

So a few weeks ago Mum's complaining about the books from the living room which are "strewn" in the back hall. I suggest she puts them into my room if they're getting in the way. She says that she's thinking about getting rid of them, to which I quickly say: "Please don't get rid of any before I get a chance to look through them. I know that there's lots in the living room that I'd like to take!" She agrees.

Today Mum mentions in passing that she had a man come down from the second-hand bookshop and that he took away quite a few of the books that were (still) "strewn" in the back hall. I get really upset at this - these are my memories, books on the countries we lived in during my childhood, plus books that I've always read or wanted to read and always expected to be around, books I expected to inherit and wouldn't have dreamt of taking away unasked. She actually said sorry (most unusual). I'd been trying to lift her mood, which was pretty low, but I couldn't help myself telling her how upset I was by what she'd done and I made her look up the number of the bookshop so that I can ring them tomorrow. She says, in mitigation that having them reminds her of Japan and Dad and that she doesn't want to be reminded. What's next, then, the furniture? The pictures? Why is she spending another £5000 on work a house that will also inevitably remind her of these things, and which will get progressively empty as she sells off our memories?

I am a little peeved, to say the least. Most of those books are priceless to me - totally irreplaceable.

money worries

Mum's been a bit worrying recently: we had a conversation where her personal wealth veered from £20,000 down to £200 within a couple of sentences. She kept stopping and saying: "no...let's see..." and sounding like she was covering up. I think that she wants to present a competent front to me so that I don't get stressed, but she just can't manage it. I was concerned that she said she was still getting "handouts" from her Solicitor, 8 months after Dad died, when I thought everything was done and dusted, so I suggested that I rang S to ask for some sort of account of how Mum stood. She was adamant that I shouldn't ring S. As Executor, though, I felt I should talk to her. S said that Mum has been in to see her every single day asking questions.... often the same ones over and over.

Welcome

I've begun this blog because I can't keep troubling my brother-in-law with emails about my Mother, who I believe is declining mentally. I am her only relative in this country (my Sister has severed contact with us both and lives abroad). It's my hope to blow off steam by recording conversations I've had with Mum which illustrate her current state of mind. I recognise that some of the stories will paint me in a poor light. The fact is that almost every incident, serious or trivial, leaves me paralysed with doubts and fears for the future and what may come. It is especially hard for me to intervene on Mum's behalf when I live 300 miles away. Please be constructive with your comments, if you have any. I am alone with this and a bit slow to learn and understand from situations (I'm a guy).

The posts will begin with a selection of emails spanning the last seven years, since my Father's death. Throughout their married life, Dad shielded Mum from the practicalities of the world, so it was only when he was gone that it became apparent how dependent she was. I remember her handing me a bank statement and saying, "I don't know how I'm going to pay this bill." That was simply ignorance but, later when I got anguished phone calls from her worrying that she had only £50 in her account, I realised that something was wrong. The next day she'd be adamant her account held £500,000. It was more than a problem with decimal places, though. It took me seven years to find out that she was meantime responding to every charity envelope that came through her door, giving away more than three times her income every month until she had donated almost all her savings, including the money she made selling our family home.

Actually, now that I write this out, I can't imagine who would want to read all this angst, bile and woe... I was worried about how I looked complaining about a poor defenceless old lady, but now I'm worried about who my readers will be! All I can do is go ahead and post this stuff. When I get to the present day, I hope I will derive some benefit from just putting my irritations out there. But if anyone has been through something similar and has advice on available services or methods of coping, please please leave a comment.

G

13th October 2006