9th May 2007 - Cbeebies

I found a calendar the home had given me - just after New Year - today. It's like one your pre-school child would make for you - a big photo of them and one of those little two inch by one inch date calendars glued onto a piece of card. It's tragic. It's hideous. My Dad's gaunt, worn, confused face, so scared, so sad, and below that the days of the next year of his life. Will he get to the end of this calendar? What, in the name of any fucking deity in the Uni-fucking-verse, would make anyone think that it was a good idea to make these things for relatives?

Just now I can't go in to see Dad. Ellie's been ill, contagiously so, and even when she sleeps, I'm not sure that I might not be carrying germs that would be unwise to introduce into a hothouse full of very vulnerable lives, a big draft of germy cold air into an orchid house. It's not a good idea. I've told him. But he won't remember. He'll feel deserted, he is deserted.

When I found the calendar I felt so sad. I want to go and see him but I can't. But the calendar made me so angry, and it did when I was given it. I can't understand why anyone trained to understand about dignity, about personal rights, about human decency would think that making a calendar with a photo of a shadow,a fragment of a living ghost would be a "nice wee gift for one of the family".

There's a corridor in the home where the walls are adorned with pictures painted by the residents. Or at least the residents of about 2 years ago. They are framed. Someone else has written on what the painter had given as a title. Some of the painters are dead. Most of the paintings are colourful splodges, but even with artistic license, look like the scrawls of a child younger than Ellie. She can make a flower, she can make a house, she can make a person - with tummy button - and she can make a car. It's just horrible to look at them. I don't understand why they are there. Maybe I should the home administrators why they are there, because the only reason I can think of is that they are there so they can be pointed to, with a "we do painting for those that are interested" on the introductory walk round. The folk that painted them are either "deid" or "awa' tae the moon" and wouldn't even know their own picture. I'm annoyed that more isn't understood about dementia. I'm not annoyed, I'm furious, it's a huge and growing problem. And I'm feeling hugely guilty because I can't go and see him just now. And I'm feeling even guiltier for the slight relief that I feel for not having to go in to the home, for not having to smell, not see, not be there.