Parental Guidance Required

When it’s time to take over the reins

Over a decade ago, my 86 year old dad died in his beloved garden. There’d been no warning. One minute, he was taking life in his super-active stride, pruning trees, doing chores for ‘old people’ (who were younger than him), going to jazz clubs and lamenting or hailing Arsenal’s performance. The next, he was gone. 

I dashed to my parents’ home from London to find a policeman guarding his body at the spot where my childhood swing used to stand. Apparently, as dad had rarely been to the doctor and wasn’t registered as suffering from any illnesses, they had to treat his sudden demise as ‘suspicious’ until it was confirmed otherwise. Later, we learned he’d had a heart attack. 

This swift exit would have been my dad’s preference. He was perpetually cracking jokes and revelling in his self-appointed role as Mr Limelight, so it was as if he’d simply announced, ‘You’ve been a great audience, good night'. Then he dropped the mic.

Little did I know at that moment, a baton was passed to me. He’d been covering for my mother who had stopped going out, retreating from life. As the only child, I had to jump straight into the driving seat, running her household, sorting out finances, ordering her food, while juggling my own home and job.

It’s a saddening, unsettling time when you become your parent’s parent. In my childhood, mum and dad had always held the reins. Later, they were the safe harbour to which I could always return. Suddenly, I had to reinvent myself as the wise elder, a role I’d never limbered up to play. Many mid-lifers who are caring for aged parents, often have children to worry about too, while holding down a busy job. The multi-directional pulling can sometimes feel overwhelming.

‘It’s an unsettling time when you become your parent’s parent’

After a couple of years of limping along, finding and funding carers, I knew the funny, philosophical mum was disappearing. Fast. She had become more and more confused and there was no question in my mind she had dementia. However, the GPs, on the isolated occasions I could get them to visit, decided that on that score, she was fine. This seemed to hinge on the basis she knew (just about) that David Cameron was (just about) the prime minister.

When social workers visited, they agreed with the medical professionals that mum still had ‘capacity’, despite my observations to the contrary - trying to dial a phone number on a large radio was just one of numerous clues. However, this decree meant I couldn’t make any serious decisions on mum’s behalf. Instead, suggested solutions included meals on wheels.

A while after, because I knew we were way beyond the reach of what a lunchtime cauliflower cheese could achieve, we called an ambulance. Skeletally frail and frightened, it was in A&E that we got the help mum needed. Not just because she was very ill and clearly in no state to go home, but because she knew for a fact that the current prime minister was Jim Callaghan. I’m not proud to say this but as I heard her whisper Jim’s name, mentally, I punched the air. Surely now, there’d be some consensus.

There was. She was admitted to a high dependency unit and as I was released from my role as chief of staff, I could start loving her properly, not in a drained, distraught and distracted way. What was hard to bear, though, was hearing her cry out for her mum. The poignancy of someone of 89 calling for a long-gone parent was unbelievably heart-breaking.

Three weeks later, she died. Registered cause? Dementia. I learned many things during that time. That those close to an elderly relative know when something is not right, even if that person is incredibly firm mates with the current PM. Another is that at different times in our lives, we are all children, regardless of age, and we are also likely to be parents of some kind, even if we’ve never had babies of our own. But when aged, gravely ill mums and dads pass away, perhaps then, we can start to revert to being children again. Because gradually, very gradually, the memories of mum in her prime returned.

She used to wave a yellow duster out of the landing window when it was playtime at my nearby school, just to say, ‘Hello, I’m here’. I remember her scooping me up every time I got dumped by a boyfriend. Laughing ourselves silly when I got sacked from a terrible job. Embracing me with the words, ‘Nothing is the end of the world,’ before adding, ‘well, except the end of the world’, an unexpected adjunct that made snot fly out my nose. So if, when I’m shuffling off my own mortal coil, I cry out for her, these will be a few of the many reasons why.