Mother II

Yesterday morning I made a visit to Ashley House Care Home to visit my mother. My sister and I have been concerned that too much visiting at this early stage might not help mother to settle into her new home so yesterday's visit was my first since last Friday. Mum was much calmer than she had been during my last visit but seemed very weary. She lay almost corpse like on her bed with closed eyes deeply sunk into darkened sockets but she roused herself well enough to shuffle along to the dining room for lunch. She was quite unaware that I had not visited since Friday or that my sister, who had visited on Sunday, had visited at all. To know that many people are ending their lives in this way disturbs me; to see my own mother in this condition is particularly distressing. I think I know what would make her happy but can do nothing to give it to her. I believe she dreams of going home to a place, filled with long dead friends and family, somewhere between where she lived with her parents and siblings and the place in which she lived with our father when my sister and I were children.