I am living with a demented woman and feeling somewhat sorry for myself.
When she packed her Bonds singlets and cottontails, her hand-knitted vests, drip-dry pants and an apron or two into an overnight bag, I thought she was bluffing. I hoped she was bluffing.
The rest of the family couldn’t believe it either and put her decision to move to Sydney to another weird dementia episode. It had become difficult to get her out of the house for a pub meal so the idea that she would willingly leave her home of 50 years hadn’t crossed anyone’s mind.
We were in Wodonga, the family seat since 1960, when the young pa and ma — he, keen for a new life, she, frightened and resentful — hopped off the boat, with two children, in Port Melbourne.
Anyhow, chewing leftover Christmas ham with Brother — her guardian — we discuss her deteriorating condition while pretending we aren’t talking about her.
Something needs to happen soon as she is living on Coca Cola and family assorted biscuits while insisting there is nothing wrong.
The ham is barely eaten when she starts with the pleading: stay here and live with me, I don’t want to be alone.
I should say at the outset that she and I have never been particularly close —just because you are related by birth does not automatically mean that your star signs will be compatible.
Also she has thrown me out of her house on several occasions during her dementia journey and I’d comfortably assumed I would be the last person she would want to live with.
No, I say, I can’t stay here — you know I have a job and a house and garden to maintain.
Looking after a house and garden — along with having to be home for the milkman and the postman — have been standard excuses for not wanting to visit me in Sydney. It was the language she understood. But not anymore.
OK, she says, I’ll come and live with you.
Sure, I say, you can do that, believing it would never happen. House, milkman, garden etc ...
She gets up, collects the aforementioned clothes and starts packing.
I see a little gleam of hope creeping into Brother’s eye. He and his wife need a break. They don’t live with her but they visit twice a day.
Yes, but will she hop into the car in the morning?
I’m banking on her deep connection to a familiar place but I play nice. Of course she can live with me, I say to sceptical sister-in-law, niece and nephew.
Daughter, who is home from England for a few weeks and does not count, raises her eyebrows. She knows I am lying and that I am petrified.
The morrow arrives. Daughter and her boyfriend pull up in his shiny black car and various relatives come to see Oma off. Or not.
The gleam of hope is spreading in Brother’s eye but he remains noncommittal. Just in case.
Out comes Oma with her overnight case, clutching her Princess Grace imitation handbag. No one says a word.
She takes her case to the back of the car where Daughter’s boyfriend dutifully finds a place for it in the boot and she squeezes in the back seat next to Dog. Oh god, she’s really coming.
You probably won’t get past Holbrook before she insists on coming home, says Brother, but it would be good if you could keep her for a month or two.
Nephew, who was close to his grandmother before she became a demented person, looks shocked.
His partner, a lovely girl, says they wouldn’t mind a road trip to pick her up if things go wrong.
I’m still hoping for a reprieve.
Brother’s hopes are in conflict with mine and he is backing away from the car just in case she gets emotional about her boy and changes her mind.
Dog keeps looking at her as if to say ‘‘why is she coming, haven’t we had enough?’’
Dog and Oma have been mutually antagonistic for 10 years.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Dog hates her.
Holbrook comes and goes, as does Gundagai. Still clutching her Princess Grace bag, Oma shows no sign of wanting to go home.
Dog sighs. I sigh.
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