Without diving into a deep explanation of how this dreadful affliction has cropped up in our little gang, I’ll simply say my mum, otherwise known as Big Mama, has been living in a care facility now for a little over a year.
How she got there is a story for another time. Right now, I’m going to tell you about my visit to see her just last week.
Circumstances dictate the stars and planets must align correctly for me to be able to visit Big Mama and last week while Mrs P and I were in Wellington, a brief window of opportunity opened up.
Naturally, I took full advantage of this and was soon on a plane headed for a reunion with Big Mama, who I hadn’t seen in six months.
Now those who have had some experience with sufferers will know that the deterioration phase can be all over the place, I have been fully aware that each time I see my lovely octogenarian mum, it may be the last time she knows who I am.
Sadly, I have to report, on this visit the deterioration was markedly greater than I’d expected and she didn’t know me.
In such circumstances, I have learned there is little point trying to drag the patient back to where you want them to be.
It’s far easier to live, if you like, in their world. Sort of just going with the flow. And that’s what I did.
Even though I was introduced by one of her carers as her son, I’m thinking she assumed I was some sort of support worker just in for an afternoon visit.
So we sat and chatted and she told me she was well, comfortable and liked the staff.
Mostly, she said, she enjoyed the singing she and the other residents were involved with most afternoons.
As luck would have it, there was going to be some singing that afternoon. I was welcome to join in, she said. So I did.
Within 10 minutes, a group of us were sitting round the sides of a small lounge as a fellow from the outside world strummed away on his guitar.
I am proud to say my mum was lustily singing along with him.
“I’ve sung at the Royal Albert Hall you know,” she said proudly.
I didn’t bother to clarify the point. She wasn’t hurting anyone. Besides, she may have actually done just that as a member of a London school choir or something like that.
On that basis, I can claim to have sung at the Sydney Opera House.
Technically, I just sang a few bars of God Defend New Zealand on the front steps while a bit tiddly on a golf trip but I think it still counts.
“Come on, sing,” Mum demanded of me as I sat beside her in the lounge, slipping off the pace.
Naturally, when your mum tells you to do something – even when you are 62 and have not long had a hip replaced – you do it, don’t you? So I got stuck in.
But there was a bit of a problem.
I didn’t know the song the bloke was singing. Nor, I’m pretty sure, did my mum.
So now we’ve got a singalong going where the bloke is singing one song, my mum is singing, well, basically whatever she wants at the top of her voice, and I’m trying to be a good boy and not let the side down.
In the end, I just started singing: “I don’t know the words, dah, dah, dah but I’m singing with my mum, daha dah dah.”
She heard me and started to laugh, a big deep belly laugh no less, which was no mean feat considering her own vocal performance seemed to continue unabated at the same time.
Eventually, the cacophony, er, I mean, the sweet, melodic symphony, came to an end, and Mum led the applause for the completely perplexed guitarist who must have wondered what on earth had just happened.
All too soon, it was time for me to leave. My mum shook my hand and said it was nice to have met me.
I watched her steer her walking frame back down the hallway to her room, singing loudly as she went.
It hurt she didn’t know who I was but at least I can take some comfort in the knowledge that if that turns out to be the last time I see her she was happy and content.
And, even though the dementia seems to be really taking hold now, we had a good laugh. Can’t ask for more than that.
