11th September 2007 - Are you dying?

Cecily sat with us today. Lily too, and Amy almost joined us. She pulled out the chair from the table, angled it and squatted to sit but her compulsion to move on kicked in before her arse even hit the cushion and she was off on another circuit. It's no wonder she's thin. As she was leaving I noticed two rice crispies stuck to her chin. Yesterday there was one rice crispie. I wondered absently if tomorrow there would be three and that one of the two was yesterday's.

I was surprised by Cecily - for months now I hadn't seen her walk of her own accord. She's been sat in an easy chair and then hoisted into wheelchairs and wheeled to 'the lav' or sometimes to the hairdressers, only to return with a glistening grey silver helmet of set curls. All the women come back looking exactly the same. Cecily used to be a doctor. Her flashes of self bring with them a deeper realization of what's happening to her than most. Her husband used to come to see her. He was in a wheelchair and cranky as hell. He used to get cross with her because she couldn't understand or wasn't communicating with him. She'd be so pleased to see him, she'd pat her hair into place and smile like the sun rising. He doesn't come any more. I don't know if he's alive or what. She still smiles these days but is a rigor smile - a demented smile that isn't warm, it's a baring of teeth and it's fixed. It doesn't reach her eyes. She's very difficult. Screams and shouts at the carers and 'batters them black and blue' according to Tweedle. But today she was using her zimmer. Walking round the residents having what looked like a nice wee chat with each of the waking ones. When she reached our table she sat down and asked Dad, Lily, Ellie and I "Are you dying? I'm not dying. I've got a wheelchair. I'm not dying. Don't believe them. I'm not dying. Are you dying". Ellie didn't like this - she's tenatively over the last few weeks been trying to get her head round death and what it means. "I'm not dying - am I Mum? And you're not dying are you? You're not going to die ever are you?" Thanks Cecily. "No, Mummy's not dying and neither are you. Nobody here is dying and we're not going to" I tried to reassure her. Dad's brain decided that this was an appropriate time to have his lucid 5 minutes and ventured him into the exchange with a blustery scoff "Of course you're going to die. Every one dies. Even you". Thanks Dad. Today couldn't be a day when he said nothing but elephants could it. Today couldn't have been a "We're on the Queen Mary sailing to Largs" day could it?

Lily diverted us with an enormous belch, one which shook her tiny bent frame. "Oh, pardon me hen, that's awfy rude of me - and infront of the bairn too. Canny take me anywhere eh? Still, I'm glad that came up the way - would of be a bastart if it came oot my ither end".

Ellie giggled at the burp - she does appreciate a burp - and was cheered for the while but she won't forget what Dad said. She forgets nothing.