After Oma took off again the other day and two neighbours kindly interrupted their afternoon of drinking nice wine to help me find her, the old nursing home issue came up again.
You can’t keep doing this, both women said, she needs to go into a home.
The neighbours both had mothers who had the good manners to die via the time worn method of old age and cancer. You can’t argue with that. Everyone dies, old age is a fact of life and perhaps a privilege which can end abruptly at any time, especially if illness comes along.
The dying process might be painful and ugly, but there is a beginning and an end and a time to grieve.
My mother, whom everyone calls Oma because it kind of means grandmother, has dementia and there is no end in sight. Her brain might be mush but she can touch her toes, walk several kilometres and clean out the fridge of all things edible without raising a burp.
She is driving me nuts but I don’t have the guts to organise a nursing home. Although she is not sure exactly who I am she remembers my name (most of the time) and is aware that I'm someone important in her life. I think this is mainly self-interest on her part because I prepare the meals she loves to eat. Thank you so much, she says ever so politely, you are the best cook.
Sometimes she says I am her sister and at other times she insists I am her auntie, but obviously she thinks the relationship is close. And if we are out with other people she constantly looks around to make sure I am still there — as if she is afraid that I will dump her at a busy farmers market and disappear back into my own life.
Sure, I long for my own life without the demented one’s endless annoyances, but I wouldn’t have the courage to look her in the face if I were to leave her in a facility with strangers.
She would feel abandoned and sold out and I would feel endlessly guilty. At least that is what I think now. Perhaps it will all change next week. Perhaps she would love the company of strangers because she has no idea who anyone is anyhow. But how would you know if you were doing the right thing?
Most people favour a care facility for obvious reasons. Caring for someone deteriorating through dementia is bloody hard and sometimes you want to kill the person you are caring for — or at least you want them to die in their sleep, happily after a good dinner. Also, I have heard not-so-nice things about dementia wards and how people deteriorate quickly. I remember a friend’s mother in a fetal position waiting to die. I assume she was waiting to die but who knows what goes on in what’s left of the mind of a demented person.
I know Oma is still smart enough to scam.
On that Sunday afternoon when she took off she went to great lengths to make sure I did not notice. Although she has run away from home several times this was the first time she did it under my nose, so to speak.
It started with the usual demand: I want to go home now. She thinks that her home in Croatia is just around the corner. Her parents and grandparents live there and they are waiting for her to help with the harvesting — or whatever. Sometimes I feel as if I am her jailer and wish the grandparents would hurry up and take her home. (Perhaps they are already lurking because she keeps talking to somebody in the mirror.)
No you can’t go home today, I say, we’ll talk about it tomorrow. Usually she accepts that and goes back to her knitting. For some reason — probably because I have become a control freak about my physical environment to counteract the chaos that living with demented person has brought into my emotional life — I was cleaning out the kitchen cupboards and not paying much attention to the demented one.
She walked right past me and out of the very noisy front gate which always announces comings and going with a loud squeal. This time it didn’t make a sound because she was so careful in lifting the latch.
The neighbours and I couldn’t find her and neither did the police.
A couple of hours later, just as it was beginning to get dark, there was a phone call to say ‘‘we’ve got your sister here’’.
Luckily she had taken her handbag, bulging with essentials like knickers and socks, and the necessary identifying information.
She had crossed a highway overcrowded with manic Sunday drivers and wandered into a nearby industrial area. She could have remained lost indefinitely as it was a Sunday, but for the fact that some Inner West musicians had a rehearsal space there. Luckily one of them had the sense to pull up an old lady with a brown Princess Grace handbag under her arm.
When I came to pick her up she was having a cup of tea among the musical instruments, telling her story and how she needed to go home to Croatia. ‘‘Here is my sister,’’ she said when she saw me.
