57 years!

My Dad came to dinner today...first time he has ever spent Christmas apart from his darling wife (Mum) in 57 years. Mum has been ill for a long long time now with vascular senile dementia. She's had it for 8 years now, I can even remember when it first started, it was my eldest daughters wedding, and she just kept on going up to total strangers and just standing and looking and Mum had started to shuffle slightly. Diagnosis came about 8 months later. It has been a tragic disease and a very unfair one. Dad has looked after her at home until about 3 months ago, the last 3 years she has been bed ridden, with loss of all bodily functions including speech. It pains her to swallow but even though the Nursing Home gives her paliative care and very small things (all liquidsised to eat)...Dad still feels that the longer he puts food in, the longer he keeps her alive, he doesn't realize that the pure effort of even swallowing is hard for her and to see her try to drink from a straw, well...it takes all her effort. He just doesn't see the deterioration, my darling Mum is even more of a living skeleton than before, her hair is so thin, her frail hands all now knarled and closed, her sunken eyes. Her torso is square and has been for a long long time, she is and has been stuck at right angles for a couple of years. She sleeps most of the time now and will occasional manage to open her tired eyes and peep out, she hasn't known me for years now but sometimes just sometimes there is a momentary glance and a weak smile, that if I were to blink I would miss it...when it does happen I cherish it. When I go to visit her I cannot bear it if she is awake and watch me walk out of the room....I have said "goodbye" so many times now. Three times when Mum was in hospital when I was taken in the "small" room but she rallied. She must have a very strong heart. Going back to the saying "cheerio"...I always go back and stroke her back to sleep, kiss her and whisper in her ear "I love you Mum, thank you for being my Mummy".

So with Dad sitting at the dinner table today, it felt very strange, as even though she hasn't sat there for years, she's always been at home with darling Dad. I could see he was struggling, so we spoke about lots of nice things, spoilt him with dinner, mince pies, tea/coffee, sweets galore, he fell asleep for a while and then we watched an old Some Mothers Do Have Em!.....I nearly wee'ed myself laughing, sometimes they are so much better when you've seen them a few times before, and then Dad left to go and spend the evening by the bed of his darling wife, where he will sit for a few hours, holding her hand, wiping her mouth, giving her juice and generally loving her.......

My Christmas Day was filled with DD...SIL and twin grandbubs.....absolutely magic and magical, I so treasure the times.....hope yours was good too.