15th October – Dad in bed

Dad’s named carer took me aside when I arrived today. I’d just been looking round the room for him and was about to start searching the corridors for him as he often goes for a wander, variously tapping on doors, staring for up to an hour at a wall, trying to open doors that aren’t there and totally failing to be able to figure out how to work the doors that are there. She told me he’d had a fall this morning. My mind’s racing ahead of her words, and I’m desperately trying to shut my mind up so I can concentrate on what she’s saying and understand her accent. He went to sit down on an invisible chair and – not surprisingly really – fell on the floor. He got a fright - and a sore arse I’d imagine – but didn’t break anything. But after his lunch he’d got very clammy and grey looking and when she asked him if he’d like to go and lie on his bed he said yes, and that’s where he was. She was very nice, she was genuinely concerned, and I was touched. She spoke like she really knew him and I was pleased, pleased that someone knew him well enough to know that if he says no to a cup of tea then there really is something wrong.


As I walk down the corridors I look in the memory boxes that they have at each of the doors – they help the more able residents know which one is theirs. Staff and relatives have filled these A4 glass boxes with ornaments, photo’s and cards, pictures of the residents children, grandchildren, wedding photos, dogs, baby pictures and one thing which I suspect might be ashes. As I pass Amy’s I see her grinning happily with her husband by her side, both smoking, she looks only about a couple of years younger than she does now. How quickly to go from that happy holidaying couple to in here, him dead and her clueless and getting nastier by the day. About the length of time my Ellie’s been alive.

Dad’s memory box has a picture of Ellie as a baby, a wedding picture of me, Sean, Mark and Ellie, and a picture of Mum and Dad taken about 15 years ago. It’s a nice one of both of them, they are both smiling, both look happy, they are sitting on a bench, quite close to each other and Dad has his arms spread behind on the back of the bench. It’s a casual, cosy picture. They were obviously happy that day. They loved each other. I put my wedding picture in the box. I’d found it in his wastepaper bin – along with my graduation photo. Moira and Colin’s graduation photo’s still smile down from the walls, I took mine home, I had really bad 80’s hair in it anyway. It’s one for the loft if ever there was one.

I knock on the door, gently, thinking if he’s asleep I can just go to Tesco’s and get the shopping in, but I hear him say come in, so I do. The room is darkened and he’s lying on the bed, covered in a blue honeycomb blanket. I pull a footstool up, sit beside him and ask him how he is. “That’s a blinking silly question isn’t it? I fell from a horse this morning you know? You’ve taken you own sweet time getting here haven’t you? I told them I wasn’t much of a horseman but oh no, they knew better. Making me ride and 95 – no wonder I got thrown when we went over the fences”. Dad’s never been on a horse in his life – to my knowledge anyway. Another non-sequitur. His little outburst tired him and he drifts off to unconsciousness. Tortoise neck, flesh rippling away from his bones poking through the skin.

I watch him sleep, mouth open, rattling breath and wonder how difficult it’d be to hold a pillow over his face and hold it down, to end this for him, for me. Would he struggle? Or would he open his eyes and look at me and be thankful? Would he finally look at me and be pleased with my actions? I wonder if the old him would have wanted me to. The him he is now, still fights to cling to life. So maybe any life, no matter what, is better than none. Or is that the autonomic response in him? Is his body programmed to self preserve and he needs conscious thought to hot wire his hard coding to allow him to seek oblivion? His brain is no longer capable of knowing what's real and what's not, or remembering the signals he gets for hunger, for thirst, for needing the loo. Would he need conscious thought to take arms against his sea of troubles? Then it really would be murder wouldn't it, because the person that wouldn't have wanted to live like this, doesn't live like this, he doesn't exists anymore.

I need a drink.