As most of you know I went to visit my Mum just before lockdown. Me and my brother try to take it in turns to fly out every three months, especially whilst she still remembers who the fuck we are but also to help my Step Dad. Mum doesn’t really get excited anymore as she has no clue when she saw us last. Mostly she thinks we actually live there so is like ‘yeah come, I’m here, you don’t have to announce it’ jeez loving the enthusiasm here Ma! Gone are the days she’d be ecstatic when I announced my imminent arrival . Rude mum, just rude!
Every time I go , mum changes a little bit more. She flitters in and out of a 3 minute reality to her reality where there is a house full of people and animals everywhere. It’s when she makes you start looking for her dog then gets annoyed as to where the fuck it has gone do you think, yep, this shit is really happening , then you find yourself walking round her garden looking for the bloody dog eventually convincing her that he’s asleep inside. Thankfully by the time we’ve walked back into the house she’s forgotten all about the dog. Thank god for alzheimers.
Luckily I managed to escape my mums cooking this time round, phew, her latest invention was a ham salad with raison oatmeal cookies. Seriously this cooking malarkey has got way out of hand. I still would have eaten tho if I'm honest, and thats purely because Im a gluttonous pig :)
Mum now paints everything blue, white was the preferred colour of late but then she got angry with the white paint and why was everything bloody white, so now its all blue. I fear if my step Dad stays still for too long he too will be blue and we can call him Papa Smurf, He needs to keep moving around for his own safety, you know just incase....blue!
So, whilst I was there this time I noticed Mum needed a pedicure. She has always been so meticulous about her appearance, so glamorous (clearly skipped a generation) and I know she would hate everything about what this disease is doing to that part of her, so I managed to talk her into us having a girlie day at the spa both getting pedicures. Now anyone who knows me knows I hate anyone coming near my feet, my feet barely see the light of day, always safely tucked away in fluffy socks and boots!!! So this was gonna be an experience for both of us! After reminding my mum 873 times where we were going and why we were going, we finally reached the spa after a very eventful car journey . I bloody hate driving in Florida, everything is the wrong way round , I mean look at the steering wheel for starters, and you can even turn right on a red light, ludicrous I tell you. Mum kept offering to drive but I figured seeing as she hasn’t driven in nearly 5 years, gets confused what the pedals are for, doesn't know which is left or right and gets lost in her bedroom I thought there’s a strong possibility here that we would die pre pedicure! So I screamed all the way whilst mum hysterically laughed all the way.
Once we were inside and settled,(thankful we had survived the journey) I was a bit panicked about how mum would react but she was loving all the red nail varnish she could choose from. Result! She was totally enamoured with the lady in charge of her and continuously told her so, so much so that the lady turned to me and said, ‘wow, I bet you didn’t have any self confidence issues when you were growing up’ well no actually, I didn’t, I was the golden child, the miracle baby, the youngest and the only girl, I was a goddamn princess 🤣.
So here we were, a relaxing afternoon, chilling being pampered, or so I thought , what was meant to be relaxing turned out to be a complete insight into my mums world. Sitting there in her element, chatting away about how busy she is, I learnt my mum jogs, daily, she had even jogged there. Fuck know who was in the car with me then giving me directions to god knows where. She's never jogged in her life, yes she was extremely fit, played squash, went swimming, did aerobics and walked everywhere, but never jogged, no one in my family jogs, we are far too short for that! Mum also has teenage kids, wait what, how? I'm the one who has teenage kids, who am I meant to be? Pretty sure she introduced me as her sister at one point, ok, I'll play along I thought, so we started slagging of those annoying teenage kids of hers, well not the girl one, coz we've already established she's a mother fucking princess. So I had great joy in talking about my younger self in the 3rd person, I was amazing, such a lovely kid. We confused the actual fuck out of the therapists, to be honest by the end of the session I had no idea who I was anymore, and why did we leave the bloody dog in the car? how irresponsible!! Come on Mum, sister, whoever the fuck you are for the next ten minutes, I'll go with it, now lets go home and drink beer!
We get home and Mums all happy and had the best day ever spending it with me doing girly stuff, it was actually a great day and one I'll remember for ever. An hour later I comment on her pretty little feet when she replies, 'Yes I Ev I always paint my toenails and give myself a little pedicure, you should too' Seriously Mum, WTAF! Well at least the memory lasted an hour, thats epic....but seriously Mum???
We had a great night that night, Me and my step Dad put a rather large dent in the beer and my mum had a glass of wine whilst watering her newly painted blue pant with coffee. We laughed about ridiculous shit, and Mum laughed about her failing memory, occasionally pointing out the monkeys in the garden, (just go with it Ev, just go with it) My Mum spends a large part of her day walking around the house, muttering to herself and the various people she has with her at the time, mostly her parents are there, then she gets upset all over again when she realises they died....then 5 minutes later that are back in the room, its like magic! She continuously does laps of the house because she's always looking for things, like the bathroom, the kitchen, her never ending packed cases ready for when she leaves everyday at 4pm to come home to cook for us. I love how she walks up and down swinging her arms, often with a mug of coffee in her hand, also being swung, swing, swing, swing goes that arm and the coffee, all over the fucking place, then she turns round to walk back and says, who the fuck has spilt all this shit on my carpet? Often Doug and 'the other Doug' get the blame.
Its hard watching someone love , your idol, fade away bit by bit. Some might say I'm lucky I don't have to deal with it 24/7 but I feel robbed that I cant look after my mum like only I can, the way she looked after me like only she could. I feel robbed I'm missing precious moments , moments that are disappearing so very quickly. Im no use to my step Dad here, miles away when if we were nearer we could all hep. I was robbed of having a Mum around when I had kids, my kids were robbed of having grandparents around as they were growing up, basically Life is a robbing son of a bitch mother fucker. thats run of with my Mums memory , I mean why couldn't it run off with my fat fuck of a stomach, or the extra chins that have moved into my face, why why why?? Life is so unfair. Rude, just plain rude.
So, until I get to see you again my crazy Ma, coz god knows when that will be, bloody Rona... just try and stay safe, don't poison the Dougs, don't paint them blue either, keep that dog on a lead and stop using nail varnish as lipstick and lipstick as nail varnish, its the other way round ffs...and remember you favourite child is Eva :)
So sad ❤️❤️❤️