I don’t know when my relationship with my mother changed from companion to carer. I’ve been living with her for about 18 months now, the first 10 relatively uneventful, with me heading into the office each morning and her “pottering” around during the day, as she would describe it to me over dinner each evening. But nearly nine months on, everything feels different. She’s changed. Or has she? Is it simply that I’m working from home now and see more of her, and the difficulties she has with day-to-day life? Before, I was flitting in and out of the house between work, events and social life, like I had when I’d lived at home during university. Was she in decline last year, and I just didn’t notice it because I was too busy with my own life and my family was more focused on my Dad’s deteriorating health? Or is it the impact of my Dad’s death in January and the effect of lockdown and cocooning on a woman who has always needed people and some sort of social life, even if that’s just a cup of coffee with her neighbours.

Either way, the ageing process has sped up, or that’s what it feels like, and there are days when it’s emotionally draining and fraught – as I type this I’m yelling downstairs to check my mother is okay, as all I can hear are out-of-breath bursts of “Oh dear” and Oh no” as she brings the rubbish outside to the black bin. That’s something I should be doing of course. Instead, I’m upstairs working and holding my breath that there’ll be no disasters before I come downstairs at lunchtime. Two weeks ago we weren’t so lucky. When I walked into the kitchen at 1pm, the backdoor to the garage was open and outside sat my mother on the ground unable to get up after falling while trying to take her washing out of the machine (another thing I should have been doing). She’d been there for just over an hour. Calling me. But I didn’t hear her.

My mother no longer has the mobility or the agility to raise herself off the ground. She’s effectively a dead weight. So she and I try to manoeuvre her in such a way that I can raise her up to a standing position. She’s in pain while this is happening. Her knees hurt, her back aches, and if I grip her arm too tightly she winces with the soreness of it. When she’s finally standing, she hugs me ferociously – like a little girl grips a favourite teddy when she’s upset – thanking me profusely for being there (despite the fact that I was an hour late). It makes me ache with sorrow and pity and guilt.

But being completely honest, at other times it has just made me angry. On one occasion a few months ago when I returned home from a run to find her on the living room floor, I shouted at her. I was angry with her, partly for trying to clean out the fireplace grate (again, something I should have done), which she knew she shouldn’t do because her knees aren’t robust enough to take her weight when bent, but more so because she’d ruined the buzz of my run. I’d arrived home happy and full of adrenaline and within seconds my mood had sunk deeper than stilettos on wet grass. When living in your childhood home as an adult, you can’t help but revert to being a selfish teenager sometimes.

Last week’s fall was her fourth this year, her fifth was earlier this week, on the front driveway at the end of our short walk down to the bottom of the road and back (something I should do with her every day but don’t). I had my hand on her, but I turned briefly to close the gate and make sure my dog was inside, and when I swung back round she was hurtling to the ground. I had hold of her and then I didn’t. A kind neighbour came and helped us. My mother kept calling him Brendan even though he politely reminded her that his name is Barry. She was recently diagnosed with age-related memory loss, so she keeps putting things away “safely” and then can’t find them, like her bank card and her house keys. Yesterday, we went to Carrickmines so that she could finally order an orthopaedic chair that she desperately needs (she’s a WWII baby and she simply can’t spend money) and halfway there I realised she’d forgotten her walking stick and her face mask. Last week, she couldn’t find her Post Office book when we reached the service counter. I left her there, drove home, couldn’t find the book, drove back to the Post Office only to discover that it was in the pocket of her handbag all the time, just not the pocket she normally uses. Of course, I should have checked both times that she had everything she needed before we left the house.

Living with an ageing parent leaves you with a whole bunch of thorny “should haves” with which to whip yourself at the end of each day.

The traditional mother-daughter relationship turns on its axis when their health begins to decline. I now cook for her and make sure she has a different vegetable each night for nourishment. I bring her home little surprises from the supermarket – she loves almond fingers – the way she and my Dad did when I was a child. I cut her fingernails, blow-dry her hair, and help her to tie her shoelaces. But then suddenly the axis will shift back, if only for a moment. When I was made redundant and came home devastated and stressed, she held my hand and told me that everything would be okay because she was there and she would mind me. I don’t think you ever get too old to hear those words from a parent. And I don’t think it matters how old they are or how feeble, it’s the most comforting thing in the world.

At night, we have a little ritual whereby she comes into my bedroom and covers my dog Ruby with a blanket. It reminds me so much of how she used to tuck me in at night as a child, making sure that I felt snug and safe and loved. It always makes me smile watching her, and whatever battles we’ve been through that day I go to sleep thinking of her as the woman and mother she used to be, not the ageing, declining pensioner she is much of the time now. Our little rescue dog adores her (more than she does me), and puts a smile on my mother’s face several times a day, which I’m grateful for, because I worry that she has little to smile about these days – her husband of 57 years is gone, her friends must remain socially distant, she can no longer go anywhere by herself, and she’s riddled with osteo-arthritis.

The other night she sat on the sofa beside me so she could rest her head on my shoulder. She was tired and felt out of sorts, so I held her hand as she cuddled into me, the way I often had to her as a little girl. There’s something about seeing a parent in this regressive, almost child-like state that makes you feel as vulnerable as they do. And at times like this, I feel ashamed of my frustrations and of my impatience, and of those moments when I feel trapped, because sometimes I do. I reflect on the day that’s passed and how I should have coped better, how I should have been more organised, how I should have been able to manage her needs more easily. You see, there’s those “should haves” again. They just keep mounting up.

At least I went to bed that night with one less “should have” on my shoulders. At least I did something right; I gave my mother a hug when she really needed one. Sometimes that’s the most precious thing you can do for someone...or so I’m telling myself.

Marie Kelly, October 2020.

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