Wonderfully Terrified : Today I visited my Mother

I've been staring at this blank page for some time now. I wonder if I'll even publish this post. I visited my Mum today. For those who don't know, my Mum suffers from picks disease, which in a nut she'll, is early onset dementia. My mum is 58 years old.

She won't see her grandchildren grow up, that privilege has been creully taken from her. I have to write my children's names, my brother's name (my autistic brother who she spent pretty much every moment with) and my name on photos I give to her to help her remember who we are. I'm not sure she can even read anymore though as she kept asking me who people were in photos today. She doesn't even try and hide the fact she didn't know anymore.

I get so angry thinking that I've lost the chance to grow up with, to become a mum and learn from my mum. She started getting ill around the time, or showing it at least, I was pregnant with Danny. I would get so angry with her for forgetting things and getting muddled up. I blamed her for a lot, which in hindsight (isn't that a wonderful thing...) I shouldn't have.

Her speech is terrible now. She can't string a sentence together, just have to try and piece together what she means by the few audible words she says. She took a good few seconds to recognise me today, just stared at me blankly until she saw I was holding Evelyn.

It's hard to get it to make sense in my head. I'll be telling myself, this lady isn't my Mum anymore, she's gone. But, every now and again there's a glimpse of my Mum and everything I've been telling myself gets flipped upside down. She wanted to show Evelyn to every member of staff, which was a little worrying but also lovely. As, if all was well she would have been so proud of all four of her grandsons, and she would have adored her grand daughter. Evelyn would have been held in the same light I was as the only girl after so many miscarriages. My mum had 6 before me. How I would have loved to have had her around to support me when I was going through the same hell before Evelyn arrived! Later, we were kind of sitting in silence, what can we really talk about? It's not like we can even talk weather or news because she just has no idea. She was staring at my shoes. My awful red leather, wooly pannel reiker boots that no one could really love other than myself, and my Mum. She said I'll have to get a pair of those! Then, quick as she arrived she's gone again and mumbling nonsense at Evelyn who is purely and innocently smiling and cooing away at her Nanny. I've taken photos today of them together, photos I won't share as the old Jacky would have been furious with me for posting photos when she hasn't got her make up done, her hair done, her eyebrows tattooed or her botox!

Evelyn, and the boys, will know that their Nanny loved them in her own way, just that "her heads a bit funny" and she gets so confused. She forgets their names and just keeps trying to hug them. They get a little scared, which is understandable. Standing in a room full of elderly people sitting all around you calling out to you with Elvis on in the background whilst visiting her is a pretty rubbish experience for me, nevermind the boys.

Sometimes I wonder if that's why I'm so post happy. I post pics of my life, kids all the time, this blog,their record books. All because I'd hate for them to get to my age, and like me, have nothing but a handful of baby pictures and memories of times with me. I can't say, growing up I had the best time with my Mum. We never really saw eye to eye and there are things I can't forget, but they are not important anymore. It just sucks that just as I'd started to understand some things and build a meaningful relationship with her, she began getting ill.

I hope my children are totally sick of me and look back and know I was always there and have so many memories of us they don't even know where to start. It's too late for Jacky and me, but I'll make sure my three are totally sick of me for sure!

I don't mean to be so gloomy, but it's a crap situation. Sometimes I just need to get it out to stop myself going crazy. I'm quite a chilled and strong person, but my Mum is a real chink in my armour, every visit feels like a real gut punch. I hate visiting her, I don't want to remember her the way she is now. I want to remember her as my nutty Mum, who had a filthy sense of humour, who would try to help whoever and wherever she could, even if at the time it wasn't the right thing to so. Who I used to laugh at for her Buddha obsession I've inherited. Who changed her hair monthly, had spray tans even though she always made me look like a milk bottle in comparison. She loved her red wine almost as much as her animals (she always had too many cats and dogs, but loved the bones of them) and lived in her awful flip flops.