1st December 2006 - Secret love

I must have been in a bad mood because the cheery woman that visits her Mum and is so relentlessly chirpy really, really irritated me today. "I'll git 'em singing, you jist watch me" is always her motto. No matter what the problem is she seems to think that a few choruses of a Doris Day and everything is fine. And maybe she's right, maybe frog-marching their memories into a sing-song is better than where they are. But I watched her with Bertha today, she bullied her into singing "Once I had a secret love". Just because she knows the words and sings it doesn't mean it's a song she loves does it? It's maybe a horrible memory, linked with a lost love, with a heartbreak only bearable occasionally to revisit and dip a toe into it's cold water. Maybe she doesn't want to sing it. She stood over her, bent, just inches from her face and sang at her, sang her into submission, secret loved her into singing - which Bertha did, she sang several verses and when she'd stopped she was crying and still poking Nina beside her, making Nina squeal.

I suppose I was annoyed, too, because the louder she gets her to sing, the less likely I am to catch the few words that my Dad says that make sense. Her own Mum doesn't speak - not words - she sits quiet straight - not slumped like some of the residents and sometimes gabbles, but not words just sounds. She has one foot and leg bandaged, Mummy-like in grubby crepe. You know within seconds that her daughter is here to visit her, she comes in a cloud of cheery noise. Cheery in that way you know would turn to shouting if you crossed her. She has one of those righteously indignant, "I know better" airs that I'm begining to intensely dislike. But then I'm not in a good mood.

So what I could hear from Dad, he's worried because he's not got a house any more. Apparently Jeannette - me - has "really made a mess with the money. It's just like her too, I should have known better, she's always been untrustworthy with money. " And I have, I'm useless with money. So he thinks he hasn't got a bed for the night. He seems to think he's homeless - a tramp - only got the clothes he's got on. I try and convince him he's got plenty of money and that he has a nice room down the corridor that's his, his own bed, own room, own clothes. He's not in a mood to be consoled and he glowers at me, especially when I try to change the subject. "It'll be Christmas soon, Dad. I'll bring you in some cards if you like and we can send them out to people." His withering look speaks for him. "It's Mark's birthday party tomorrow Dad, so I might not get in to visit you, but I'll come in the day after". "Och well, if you've got something more important on".

He's looking very dishevelled, so I ask Karen how he is. She says she's noticed a change in his confusion and has sent off a sample to see if he has a urine infection. He's not able to find or remember there's a toilet in his room at night and he's getting the night staff up 4 or 5 times a night. I fight the urge to say "Tough, that's what they are there for" and once again realise I'm in a bad mood. Last week one of the staff mentioned that he sometime thinks the pressure mat by the side of his bed is part if the bed. Karen says he's been found lying on that, on the floor, pulling a cover down onto himself. I find this image particularly upsetting, Dad, lying on the cold, hard, linoleum covered floor, trying to go to sleep. No wonder he thinks he's homeless. No wonder he's depressed - in his mind he's worked all his life to end up penniless, homeless and ignored by the family he worked so hard for. I hope he's got a uti, that something can help to get him out of the mental place he's in just now. I wonder if the staff would have bothered if he wasn't making their jobs more difficult, if he didn't his bed and clothes changed several times a night, if he wasn't lying on the pressure mat making his alarm sound. Doesn't matter I suppose, he's getting attention. And it makes me realise again, reminds me, that I couldn't have him at home. I couldn't cope with having to change him several times a night. I think I could cope with the days, at the expense of Ellie and Mark, but I couldn't cope with the nights.

Sorry Dad.