Saturday 6/Sunday 7: That we love our mother is not in doubt. Whether the voices let her love us is moot. If she is not harrying me to take her `home´, it is one of the other NandDs -and it is human nature to `pass the problem´, so round and round it goes.
Yet when I ask her to think about who will feed and look after her down there, it washes right over her head, as does my request to think about us for a change. After a lifetime of her mental health issues, surely it is not a lot for us to ask now that she has increasing physical challenges too?
When I bring up God, she stops but, like a broken record, it re-starts and then stops when her health plagues her again (nausea, feeling giddy). Her tack then is for us to take her back so she can die in her own bed, except she is not yet at death´s door.
Yesterday, when I went to see her, she seemed quiet and contained, only once asking, almostly plaintively, `are we going home now?´ Yet when I telephoned later, the old Ma returned, laughing and considerate, thinking about us again.
Of course there is concern that she might slip into nursing home syndrome but is that so bad when the rest of the time her life is devoted to unseen entities who take it in turns to either amuse or pester her.
If or rather when she dies, will I feel guilty? Probably. But only a little bit as I firmly believe in the continuing life of the soul. And hers will at least be freed of its spiritual parasites.
On a more prosaic level, vegetarians get a raw deal with carnivores, mostly because carnivores have zero imagination. If it isn´t lentils, it is jacket potato and cheese or a pasta dish. Yuk, three times.
When I questioned why she was getting the same thing, they suggested seeing the chef and he made her a nice salad - which is actually what she had asked for. I gather he had a separate menu from somewhere which seemed to be predominantly jacket potatoes and cheese.
When I got home, I was utterly exhausted and do not feel much bonnier today either.
