A Sensational Banquet

A cold north-easterly air stream had swept away latterly persistent grey clouds. The sun shone from a clear blue sky. In leaf-dappled sunlight, sheltered from a brisk cold breeze, I felt deliciously sharp contrasts between pools of dark cool shade and brilliant warm sunlight.
I rested on the moss softened bole of a long-fallen tree to listen to the music of the place, sounds as old as time; the occasional buzzing of a bee; the babbling of the stream, audible dynamics of wing beat and fettered water flow. Above and around me phrases of birdsong orchestrated with a rhythmic soughing of treetop breezes and with more distant sounds; caws of crows and ravens, buzzards meows.
Near to the stream, the redolence of desuetude and decay familiar in damp shady places vied with the more potent aroma of wild garlic. Away from the water, fragrances percolated from myriad flower and tree blossoms, subtly scenting the air. Contrasting odours, foetid and sweet, confirming the the truth of all life depending on a perpetual cycle of death and regeneration.
A canopy of translucent fresh leaves dappled viridescent sunlight falling into mossy shade. Transient highlights on the ripples and splashes of the stream flashed shafts of prismatic colour, a vision of reflections from a flow of innumerable diamonds. Intense light, deep shade, colour, form – essences of of being.
I had felt, heard, smelt and viewed the quiddity of a flake of time in Dollar Glen. My lunch, a tasty soup of wild garlic and nettle leaves gathered there, completed the feast.

Mother IX

Shortly before lunchtime yesterday a call came from St Margaret's to tell my sister and I to go there at once. Together with our respective partners we arrived at the Hospital to find mother awake, aware and relatively communicative. Connected in one way or another to a plethora of gadgets; electronic controls for drip feeding saline and blood, automatic blood pressure and pulse rate readers, a pneumatic bedsore preventing mattress and a device that warms air and circulates it under a plastic cover to keep body temperature stable, she appeared nonetheless to be comfortable. A nurse fed her with ice cream, of which she ate a full tub, and tea.
We spent the afternoon taking it in turns to sit by her bed, visit the hospital café and take a little exercise strolling around the hospital car parks (There are five!). As the afternoon dragged on into evening with no obvious deterioration in mother's condition – she was by now sleeping peacefully - we decided to return to Dollar.
Expecting to be summoned back to the hospital at any time we had dinner and turned in for a less than settled night. At nine o'clock this morning – post the doctors' rounds – my sister phoned the hospital and learned that mother had spent a quiet night and that shortly she would be offered breakfast and given a wash. If we hear no more from the hospital this morning we shall go there this afternoon at two-thirty, normal visiting time.
The peaks of this emotional roller-coaster sharpen!

After watching coverage of rioting in Athens

‘Few men realise,’ wrote Joseph Conrad in 1896, ‘that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.’

Mother VIII

When I left the hospital yesterday afternoon I did not expect to see my mother again. Since I first arrived here I have doubted that she has known me as who I am but she has seemed to recognise my presence and, to a degree, responded to my attempts to make simple conversation. Yesterday however she appeared to be oblivious of even my presence or of anything else around her. She moved her head a little and with an emaciated hand tried pathetically to adjust her counterpane. Her arms are a patchwork of black, blue and purple a consequence of several intravenous invasions for drugs and nutrients; I can only wonder at the colours of the parts of her body that are covered. During my visit I was interviewed by a senior member of her team of doctors. He told me that she has been having transfusions because she is losing blood somewhere internally and that he would like to perform an endoscopy to 'see what is going on'; to do this he must have my permission. Reluctant to have mother subjected to further distress I refused, for the time being, to give my permission. I would wait to make a decision, I told the doctor, until this morning.
When I phoned the hospital this morning I was told that mum had had a peaceful night and that this morning I would not recognise her as the person I had left yesterday afternoon; she was sitting up in bed and 'chatting' to her nurses.
The roller-coaster we are riding runs on!

Sound advice

"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted. And human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect.…"
-E.M. Forster, Howard's End

Mother VII

Through the nine days that have passed since mother was taken to Hospital, I have driven several of the many possible routes from Dollar to Dunfermline, all of which have been pleasant forty-five minute rural rides. Attractive at all times, presently the scenery has been made more so with fresh spring dressings of blossom and new leaf. Exciting plays of light on steeply undulating, now shower-soaked, now sun-drenched landscape emphasise colour and form under chaotically dynamic skies. The journeys to and from the hospital have provided something of a healing unguent to their purpose.
For several days, post the operation to mend her hip, I have wondered why the professionals at the hospital thought it appropriate to put my mother through the rigours of an operation. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday she was insensible, still affected by anaesthetic; on both Wednesday and Thursday she slept through my visits. I quite expected that each time I parted from her would be the last time I would see her alive. Yesterday I found her awake and sitting up in bed. As well as the intravenous saline drip she has had since she arrived at the hospital, she is now being fed nutritious drinks through a feed pipe into her stomach which her doctors, one senior and two junior, and her dietician hope will help to strengthen her enough for her to be able to resume normal feeding. I had a meeting with the two junior doctors who appeared to believe that a full physical recovery is possible. They also told me that mother has had no painkilling drugs for four days; as she feels no pain she has no need of them! The evidence of my - admittedly layman's - eyes causes me to dispute the doctors' optimism. If they are proved to be correct I shall be amazed but, if nothing can reverse her dementia, I wonder what is to be gained for mother by her making a full physical recovery. Restored to full physical health she will be in excellent condition to meet with yet another accident and begin over a painful process of hospitalisation and repair. Alternatively she will be condemned to a life so physically restricted as to make the care and attention she is presently receiving rather pointless.
In solving so many of the problems of how to keep us alive, our technically-more-capable-than-ever-before society seems to have created some interesting moral difficulties. I quite understand that if the means are available they will be, perhaps must be, employed but I do but question, in many cases, to what ends?

Mother VI

Last Saturday morning my mother had an operation to replace 'half of her hip'. The operation is normally effected with epidural anaesthetic but because mother was 'too fidgety' the epidural had to be supplemented with a general anaesthetic. She remained semi-conscious for the remainder of the day so I did not visit the hospital on Saturday. I visited her on Sunday afternoon when, although she seemed to be comfortable and was able to communicate with me, she was still very drowsy. Today she seems to be clear of anaesthetic and although making no sense she was speaking clearly throughout the visit.
This most recent fall and subsequent surgery has considerably altered mother's circumstances. For the time being there is no apparent reason why she should not make a full recovery from her operation but I now doubt that 'Ashley House' have the necessary facilities to serve her future needs which, I believe, will need a bigger nursing element than a non-nursing care home can offer. As far as getting mother satisfactorily settled the position seems not to have altered from that of eight weeks ago.