Nothing is easy now. Dressing. Toileting. Moving. Moving is especially hard. She leans backwards. She wobbles as she walks, knees bent, feet tangling with every tread so that I must keep gently reminding her, ‘feet apart, ma, feet apart’. Oh yes, she will say and for a moment, the briefest moment, she is steadier. But sometimes you must make her move – to dress, to shower, to use the loo. And sometimes for no reason at all. Except to inject the tiniest bit of interest, an infusion of brief joy. And you must time these moments carefully, between whatever may hurt or haunt her. This evening is ..read more

When you look back, it’s like looking into the sun. I squint, to focus better. Or a dream: it’s like trying to reflect on pieces of a dream, the sequential elements that slotted into place jigsaw-style to form a picture of coherent shape and sense.  Already, though, I don’t recall exactly which bit goes where, what happened when, who said what, who laughed hardest? That’s the thing about holidays: they pass in a blur. A car going too fast so that the view slips past my window, a smear of colour, fingers through paint.  It’s the same every year. Every year since my children were gro ..read more

There is this hideous anomaly. With dementia. At their most vulnerable, sufferers, when they need you the most – when they cannot get up and down steps alone or walk safely unaided because their shuffling gait predisposes them to trips and falls, when they are incontinent, cannot use a phone or a tv remote or a shower without help for fear of scalding. When they would not eat if you did not prepare their meals for them, put food in front of them. When you do all these things because they are your mother or your father and this is your duty. Then, because their allegiance to you, their connect ..read more

We are sitting in the garden, wrapped up warm against a nipping evening wind, watching the sun sink in the West; it settles itself low in the saddle strung between mountains, cushioned in dust and veiled by a haze so that the twilight is smoked pink.  Mum observes it intently. She no longer understands the complicated relationship between sun and moon and earth and which revolves around which or whether one or the other revolves around its own axis and how long those revolutions take. She might as well be a sixteenth century explorer wondering at the sun falling off the edge of the earth ..read more

Every night, when I put Mum’s television on for her, I say, ‘Not sure if you’ve seen this one, Ma, it’s part of a series; I think you might have watched some of the episodes before and enjoyed them’. Oh OK, she says, settling down. She’s watched them all. Several times. Some many times. Over and over and over (Anne with an E a case in point). I am learning to stick with what she likes. I remember even if she doesn’t. A documentary about the Windsors is a current favourite. Is that the Queen? Where’s the Queen? Is she still alive? Is she married? Last night: Didn’t we watch this on the ship? I ..read more

Mum used to say, ‘Never put me in a place like this’. She said it as we stepped over the threshold and through a tall, imposing door into a nursing home – once a stately home, now a facility to care for those in a state of decrepitude.  The first thing you noticed was the smell; it assailed you as you closed the door, sanitised your hands before sanitizer was a thing. The air was saturated with the scent of whatever was for lunch – which always involved a boiled vegetable, boiled so that it was soft enough to be chewed between gums which meant it was so soft there was no discerning by the ..read more

When I brought the binoculars to my face and the elephants swam into near view, I imagined I could hear the sounds of slaking a thirst, a firehose gush, a filling of bucket-empty-bellies.  The smaller of the herd – and half were young – marked the depth of the dam; they waded out and used their trunks as snorkels, disappearing clean beneath the surface. But when I lowered the glasses to my lap, the sound was silenced as the view filled my vision. The valley spills away beneath me, tips towards the savannah which is scorched by drought; I can see the ribbon trails of the tread of game. So ..read more

Come. Come for a walk. We’ll go across the vlei and up to the reservoir and down the hill where they’re harvesting avocado so that Jip can pinch one for a snack. Jip begins nudging me out from lunchtime onwards. Tails me around the house. To my office, the kitchen, the loo. Watches hopefully for signs of shoes instead of slippers which I am forced to wear at this time of the year – in the south – for the chilly pinch of cement floors. Kilimanjaro looms into view as I ascend the small bluff behind the house. This is the best view of her. Today, this evening, when the air is cut glass clear, sh ..read more

Mum wakes in a foul mood. Drinks tea. Climbs back into bed so that she is a mound under blankets heaped over her. She looks like something in hibernation. She tells me she is too cold to get up. It isn’t cold.  This is either a marker of mood. Or a marker of a metabolism that is slowing to the point of stillness. When she walks now she is breathless. I urge her up. Get up. Get dressed. Get something into you. Cereal. Toast.  More hot sweet (sometimes three heaped teaspoons) tea. I have said these things to her many times, many years ago. But it’s easier now, to coax her up. It’s not ..read more

“I don’ know the answers”, says Mum. She looks crestfallen. I tell her, ‘it’s not a test, ma, it was just in case you were interested’. I have flagged the pages of a book with post-it notes and on each note I have scratched a comment, in an effort to guide her reading, lend context. Make it, I hoped, more interesting. The book I’ve leafed with notes so that the pages are feathered yellow is an old blue hardback that has been in my library for years – and before that, hers. It’s called They Made it Their Home and it describes, in dated lexicon – it was, after all, published in 1962 – the homest ..read more