| This
year was tough. My mother's senility has turned
angry, agitated, and days are long here. Maureen
fidgets her life away in endless loops of
needless questions. "What day is it?"
"Have I been paid?" "Are you going
to the shops tomorrow?" "Did I give you
money?" At times she wanders, upstairs to
check on windows that were opened in her mind and
never closed or outside to unlock a gate for
imagined travellers. "They have some work to
do here today," she says.
The mornings are the worst, when in between
her medications, a surly, hateful manner rises,
cursing my father and me. On those days, Valium
calms her a little. She turns fretful, depressed,
complaining about the hardships of housework she's
not tackled for eight or nine years now. "I
wish I was dead," she'll say, then she'll
find a bag of sweets, or a lone toffee, and move
along watching television with the volume turned
low.
Her purse wanders like she does. She has no
need of cash, but worries that she might not have
some. So she leafs through old tickets, cards for
appointments she wouldn't keep, grocery lists and
used lottery slips to find and count her money.
Apparently satisfied, she hides her purse away,
each time in a new location forgotten in a moment.
"I've lost my purse," she'll say.
Maureen likes photos, especially on the
computer screen. She gets good value from them.
"I never saw that one before" she'll
say of her wedding photo. Then she'll name most
of her sisters, gazing blankly at me as I remind
her who so-and-so was, unsure whether to believe
me or not.
"Why would I lie to you?" I ask. She
curses me. Stalks about the house muttering. I
say: "Everything is under control. You don't
have to worry." Almost, I think, to spite me,
she starts again with the purse.
The services are helpful. A home help, Marie,
visits twice a week and battles her politely.
"How much should I pay the lady?"
Maureen whispers, and for the millionth time I
inform her that the State pays. "It's what
you're entitled to at your age," I say.
"All those years working in Reckitts, paying
taxes."
To look at her, she's fine. It isn't like she's
immobile. The nurse that calls every few months
looks her over appraisingly. "Do you do a
bit of cooking?" she asks. "Oh, yes,"
she answers. "Occasionally William might
make a dinner, but I do the rest." I shake
my head behind her; the nurse knows.
Evenings are a dread to me now. I get ready to
leave about seven, and the pantomime begins again.
Money; shopping; keys; times; days of the week.
She'll grill me for whatever time Brig needs to
get here from her job to come and pick me up.
Half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes of
interrogation, tears, pleading for me to come
tomorrow.
"I may stay in bed in the morning,"
she says. "Most mornings I make the
breakfast for your father, but tomorrow I may
stay in bed."
My sister says I shouldn't try to reason with
her, but the affront to reality is sometimes too
strong not to contradict. "Mother, when
did I punch the insurance man and chase him down
the street?" She'll deny having said it.
"There's something wrong with you," she
sulks. "Why are you always in bad humour?
What do you do here, anyway?"
It's a struggle for us both. She to keep her
dignity, especially when a glimmer tells her she's
not as sound as she might be. Me, to step back
and see the struggle between us and to disengage
if I can. But as she leans on me I feel the
burden, and it's heavy. In October, she didn't
recognise me for the first time. "Where's
Willie?" she asked, in a little girl's
frightened voice. The struggle evaporated in my
sorrow for her.
You look for signs of reason, maybe not in her,
but in the world around you. Why is she this way?
I've cursed God. I've told people that I'll want
an explanation of some things if I ever meet him.
God, in his supposed wisdom, has a very strange
sense of humour, I think.
Christmas Eve, I was sitting with her, a carol
service on the television. Out of the blue, the
woman who can't remember what day it is began
singing in a high, quavering voice.
- "Hark the herald angel sing
- Glory to the new born king
- Peace on Earth and Mercy mild
- God and sinners reconciled..."
"We learned that when I was young",
she said, smiling.
- -- Willie Walsh
- December, 2000
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