Tag: house

MIXED EMOTIONS (AND POTTING UP GERANIUMS)

elderly woman gardening

(Photo credit: http://www.healthtap.com)

Ok – so this isn’t a picture of my Mum and those plants aren’t actually geraniums, but to all intents and purposes, both of those things could have been facts as that’s exactly what my Mum would have been doing at this time of year if she were still here. She loved geraniums of all colours and would have been repotting them all into bigger pots as they would have grown after their dormant period in the dark and damp basement of the house. They would have all been neatly arranged on the patio outside the kitchen, making a huge splash of colour in the garden.

In fact, this was actually what she was doing along with mowing the grass, cutting the hedge and tying up raspberry canes just two weeks before she had her stroke last year. She remained in hospital from then until the day she passed away just before the New Year this year.

I miss my Mum. I hurt. I’m still hurting. I don’t when or if the hurting ever stops. I have photos of her in my living room and by my bed and yet, believe it or not, I can’t look at them. I cannot look at my Mum. I just am not able to ‘make eye-contact’ with her. Perhaps, it’s too early. Perhaps it’s the pain of not having her here anymore. Maybe, it’s the shame. Perhaps, the guilt that I wrote about in a previous post is telling me that she would be ashamed of me.

I can vaguely scan past the photos. I know the one on my desk in front of me so well. It was a photo I had which was taken only weeks before Mum had her stroke. It’s a picture of her in the garden which was always a sanctuary for her, with the big honeysuckle rambling up a large trellis covering part of the brickwork of the house behind her and next to that are the peach-coloured, climbing roses clambering up the wooden fence. The patio in front of her, adorned with pots, large and small of her favourite geraniums, orange, white and red, all in full bloom.

But, every time my eyes catch the slightest glimpse of her face or her eyes or smile in the photos, my heart is wrenched from my chest, and my mind is screaming, “Noooooo ….”  I cannot cry – I really can’t. My eyes are prickling from the sheer pressure of my tears building up behind my eyelids and fighting to get out. Maybe, I can’t can’t cry because I’m afraid that if I start, I won’t ever be able to stop. I want to go and visit her grave and lay fresh flowers there, but it’s 50 miles away with no public transport with wheelchair access so impossible. Sometimes, I still feel so close to her and almost forget for a second that she has gone. At other times, she seems so very far away.

All the legalities regarding the will, probate and selling the house are continuing to go on in the background. It’s so hard to think of my childhood home being taken over by someone else. Who knows what will happen to it … maybe, it will house another family for many more years although there is also the possibility that it will be completely gutted and turned into several flats and that’s much harder to stomach. Moving on, emotionally, isn’t easy but I have to remember too, that it was only five months ago that Mum was with us and living in that house.

Mum was a great one for ‘keeping things’, usually followed by, “It’ll come in useful for something”, a trait that I’ve inherited. Amongst all the ‘useful somethings’, we’ve unearthed photo albums, not just of our childhoods but also of Mum when she was growing up and even some of my great-grandmother in the 1800’s … real treasure … a pictorial history of my family on my Mum’s side … fascinating. It’s going to take me forever to sort through all of those photos and distribute them to our remaining family. They’ll certainly provide me with lots of happy and no doubt, funny memories too which will probably eventually get passed down to my grandchildren and who knows, perhaps their grandchildren one day? Actual history in the making. Mum would be pleased.

THE BUSYNESS OF GRIEF

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The funeral was beautiful in as far as a funeral can be thought of as ‘beautiful’. White poppies adorned the wicker casket which was interwoven with daisies and wildflowers and not the sombre, traditional dark wooden coffin that many people have. Mum was a great lover of flowers and plants, and she tended her little patch of garden so carefully over her 86 years. It’s sad to think of it being so neglected now as is the old and empty house which was my home for many decades.

It’s been six weeks since my precious Mum passed away. The sadness and loss will never leave us all, but it’s strange how people differ so much in their ways of dealing with grief. My youngest sister is very tearful and is deeply mourning the loss of my Mum. She’s unable to concentrate on her studies, nor cope with her part-time job. My other sister has travelled home again and has thrown herself into her work. However, she is frequently prone to breaking down in racking sobs and is in need of much consolation from her colleagues.

As for me, it’s as if nothing has happened. I think, if anything, I only feel numb and apart from weeping briefly at the first news of my Mum’s death (and I haven’t cried since that day), I am carrying on with life much as usual. I’m keeping myself very occupied and haven’t really stopped since the funeral. My life is as busy as ever and with assistance, I’ve been concentrating on sorting my house out as much as I physically can.

In fact, over the last two weeks, the whole of the downstairs of my house has been decorated. The builders have only just left and there is a huge mountain of mess to clear up. The smell of paint is lingering and I haven’t quite got used the new colour scheme yet. The new curtains are being put up tomorrow along with the new ceiling lights. It’s been ‘all go’ for a few weeks now and I’ve felt quite excited by it all but somehow, also exhausted in equal measure.

I know in my heart that my frantic busyness is just a way of coping, or perhaps, rather a way of not coping or not wanting to face reality because it is all too painful. However, reality has a way of kicking us in the ribs when we try to avoid it. There are Mum’s possessions to deal with and the house to sell. There is so much of everything to be sorted into heaps of ‘deal with now’ or ‘deal with later’.

There are so many practical issues to deal with that I haven’t had time for emotions. Emotions are something of which I’ve had far too many of in my life and I’m not welcoming these new and painful feeling that are threatening to engulf me. I have been fighting them off for weeks but I know, or at least I think I know that as soon as I stop rushing around, those emotions will not only wash over me but quite possibly drown me.

Frighteningly, this seems a distinct possibility and I find myself desperately looking for the person that can ‘save’ me. But then, I realise that very person is the one no longer with me other than in spirit and spirit doesn’t seem enough now. I’m not a child anymore and yet right now, I need my Mum more than ever and she isn’t there, and I have to face the painful fact that she will never be here again. Rest in Peace, Mum. Rest in Peace.

 

 

 

MY MUM IS SICK

This isn’t going to be a clever or intelligent or even vaguely interesting post. It will probably be full of uncorrected spelling and grammatical mistakes but right now I DON’T CARE. I CAN’T. I CAN’T EVEN THINK. This is purely a self-preservation act. I am so stressed that I could almost ask to be admitted into my local psychiatric hospital (which I hate really) but just to get some respite, get away from this world, get relief from my problems and responsibilities and most of all to get away from my feelings. I pray in desperation to my Father who is my rock in times of trouble, (Psalm 6:2  I am worn out, O Lord; have pity on me!  Give me strength; I am completely exhausted).

My Mum is very sick. She is in a hospital 45 miles from me and I have no way of getting there to see her or be able to help her. All I can do is to phone and see how she is doing every day, and wait and pray that the Lord heals her (Matthew 4:23   Jesus went all over Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the Good News about the Kingdom, and healing people who had all kinds of disease and sickness).

Mum is 85; she has double pneumonia and kidney failure and we don’t know whether she is going to make it.She has been put on a ward where there are five other elderly patients, three of whom have Alzheimers and are continually shouting and calling out. I know that they are ill too and I so feel for them but Mum is used to living quietly on her own and is so distressed by these disturbances.

I feel so powerless to be of any help to other than to be a listening ear at the end of the phone when she is well enough to speak and then it is difficult to understand her as she is so breathless when she tries to talk. Mostly, she is too poorly to chat and then I ring the nurse’s station and ask the nurse in charge of Mum’s care how she is doing. I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on anything much as Mum is constantly on my mind. I couldn’t bare to lose her. We are so close, in heart at least, not miles which means I don’t see her much.

Mum lives in an old Victorian terraced house that’s getting pretty tumbledown with age. It has four concrete steps up to the front door which I cannot access in my wheelchair which means I can no longer going into her house. If she makes it through this illness (and I pray she does), she may never be able to manage those steps again as her walking has been affected. That means she she will be unable to come out and I will be unable to go in. How will I ever see her again? Will I be able to see her again? I feel distraught.

MY MUM AND LADDERS!!

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My mum never ceases to amaze me!

Having written about my offspring who are so cruel and negative, I have to say that I think my mum has got to be the human being I love most in all this world, (running in equal place, I think, with my sister J). Over the years she has gone out of her way to help me, give me guidance and wisdom too. She’s the first one I pick up the phone to if I’m upset or especially happy. She can read me like a book, and me, her too. She has got me out of financial trouble, propped me up through failing and broken relationships and picked up the pieces when I’ve laid shattered to smithereens at basement level. She puts up with my crazy Borderline Personality Disorder, all my disabilities, my waxing and waning anorexia and every flaw I have (of which there are many!).

We weren’t always this close…as a child, she was quite cruel and unkind to me at times. She suffered a mental health problem which rendered her a less capable mum than she could have been. but she is a million miles away from all that now. I guess we’ve both ‘mellowed’, like a good red wine. We talk on the phone every day though we can rarely see each other as we live in different parts of the country and neither of us can get to the other on our own.

I have so much admiration for her – she packs more into a day than I could pack into a very large suitcase, and she’s 84 so ‘getting on a bit’, not that she lets that affect her one bit although she’s not so sprightly on her pins as she used to be. She does her own shopping, thorough housework (puts me to shame!), gardening and even still lugs the old lawnmower up from the basement steps to mow her lawn.

Her mind is as sharp as a pin – she does The Times crossword everyday and finishes it and can even do the cryptic one which has always defeated me! She remembers all the documentaries she’s ever seen; refuses point blank to watch ‘soaps’ (but then I agree on that one).

She lives alone, having divorced my evil and very cruel father who sexually abused and raped me all through my childhood. He has now passed on (thank the Lord). I forgave briefly before he died, as a Christian because I believe that is what is right (for me, anyway). Mum’s humble abode is a somewhat ramshackle, ancient house which she keeps spotless.

You may be asking yourself, “Well, what has all this got to do with ladders?”  Well, she has a habit of not thinking about the risks when she’s climbing ladders which is quite an odd but frequent task for her. The living room ceiling is 10 ft high and has a light fitting with five bulbs in it which are forever blowing. She thinks nothing of climbing a ladder which reaches this ceiling at regular intervals, whether it be to change a bulb, hang a curtain (or dangle from the chandeliers!). well, perhaps not the latter but I wouldn’t put it past her! She’s the same in her garden, pruning high bushes or cutting hedges and in the kitchen, searching for lost items in the top cupboards, then forgetting what she went up there for! I think we’ve all done that to some degree. when I try to tactfully tell that it is a tad dangerous at her age, she carries on regardless!

So, I worry about her all the time.. I’ve tried to talk her into wearing an alert alarm on a pendant like mine or as a wrist strap for my peace of mind if nothing else. But no, she steadfastly and stubbornly refuses. I dread the days when I get no reply on the phone. The worst case scenario plays over and over in my mind and then when i finally reach her she nonchalantly says “Oh, I was in the top room/basement/garden” and there’s me having ‘kittens’!

So all things considered i.e. a hearing aid in each ear, strong glasses, severe cataracts, a stick for walking as her legs have never been the same since she got hypothermia while up a ladder in the freezing cold, pruning the Pyracantha bush which is 8 ft high! She has so much grit and determination! (I wondered where I got that from!!).

I can’t imagine surviving my life without her, and I know it is inevitable eventually and I know my world will fall apart; I will have lost my best friend and the greatest Mum ever!

THE CONTINUING SAGA OF MY BUILDING WORKS…

First thing this morning, a massive stack of bricks arrived along with an enormous sack of cement mix, all plonked on my front lawn beside the skip. two hours later, five scruffy workmen turned up and five minutes later, three had buggered off! They stood, looking up at my gable end, scratching their chins. They were supposed to be taking down the brickwork on the side of my house. They then informed me that they didn’t have the polytunnel with which to shoot the bricks from the roof down to the skip so Fred said he’d have to go back to the yard and fetch one. He was gone two hours and came back without one so it was scratching chins again! They stopped for their first tea break. Then after much “mmm…ing and aah…ing”, they decided they build one out of planks of wood (somewhat primitive!). Eventually they’d got it made and lifted up the side of the scaffolding and climbed up there too.

Bit by bit, they started to demolish the wall, chipping away at the cement and dropping one brick after another down the wooden chute, crashing into the skip. (Oh, I must have been so popular with the neighbours!) The noise ran right through the house and right through my head too. Soon, it was time to climb into the cab of their truck for another tea break. Back to work it was, then. The skip was getting full and such a glorious sight on a sunny morning…not! There it was, sitting there with half my house piled up in it.

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(image credit – http://www.crestock.com)

I couldn’t get outside so could only imagine what a mess it was up at the gable end. They announced that they’d got down to the breeze-blocks or the inside wall of the house. They took a couple of tiles off the roof and stated that there was no ‘bracing’ up there,  tying the bricks to the rafters of the house which was potentially dangerous. It had to be done and they informed me that bit wasn’t covered by the insurance and would cost yours truly, £200, which I haven’t got. They assured me that if this bracing was not fitted, and the gable end to come down again, it wouldn’t be covered by insurance as it would be classified as neglect. Then, followed a frantic phone call to my Mum asking if she could lend me the money to which she kindly agreed (phew!!).

One of the builders then went to fetch the bracing from a building yard or maybe even B&Q for all I know! Tea break time again, back at the ranch! The wanderer returned with said bracing. They should have ordered that the week before but obviously didn’t. . Another tea and fag break, after which they decided to call it a day and left saying the brickies would be here shortly to start rebuilding and bracing the wall.

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(image credit: radharc images)

A welcome peace reigned until an hour later when the phone rang….It was the brickies saying they wouldn’t be able to come on account of the weather!! The weather?! The sun was shining and no rain was forecast till next week. I told them so and they replied that it was raining where they were! (a tropical monsoon, I thought?!). Well that was their excuse and they were sticking to it, never mind the fact that rain is forecast here for most of next week. This was hopeless…It was rapidly turning into….a ‘Right said Fred…’ job (for those of you old enough to remember the song)….it goes like this: