Dad, a total bully all our lives, gave me all the responsibility for caring for mum. He was utterly unable to deal with her dementia and increasing mental health problems. 

Having been Sectioned, she was safe for six weeks while she was assessed; as soon as he could, my dad had her released from care and took her home again. On very strong tranquilizers and “zoned out” but smiley; dad knew the smiles meant she was happy to see him. Later he told me the next six weeks between Christmas and early February were “the happiest in our marriage.” 

She had a major stroke six weeks on; one evening, when dad left her to make another cup of tea and butter some rich tea biscuits, the massive stroke threw her off the settee and onto the floor. She never recovered. It took another 3 years for her to die.     

Dad meanwhile, did what he always did when thwarted; he found himself a girlfriend who could “understand him”; make him cups of tea. And more. 

This time, he outdid himself and found himself not one but two girlfriends. One in our home town and one in the USA. The home town one went with him and mum on outings in the special wheelchair adapted van he bought. The American one refused his offer of marriage saying “I am already married and he is in the adjoining bedroom.” 

When mum died, dad and I were there. Someone had told him there are 7 stages of grief. She died. He shouted “NO!” (shock) “She hasn’t gone!” (denial)  then he wailed “Why oh why?” (anger) “Oh…we’ll be so good if only ….” (bargaining) “How will I live?” (depression) “Has she really gone?” (testing as he prodded her) “Oh well; she is no longer suffering” (acceptance)….he wiped his face, smiled tremulously and said “Let’s go to the pub.”  

When he died, I sat on one side of him and his American girlfriend sat on the other side of his bed. An hour or so earlier, when he was still talking, he asked me why she was here. “Because she loves you.” He said “Get rid of her”. I said “She has travelled here from Washington DC to be with you. If you don’t want her here, you tell her.” He didn’t tell her. So we sat and looked at each other. While dad moaned and breathed his last. After his death, the girlfriend then went through the 7 stages of grief, just as he had a year or so earlier. Only she had a mobile, so she communicated her 7 stages via Facebook and Twitter. 

My parents were not nice people. They did not on the whole, like us, their children, and made it clear in oh, so many ways, that we were not opportunities but albatrosses around their necks; hindering rather than enhancing their lives. 

I imagine being magically restored to the age of 11 and somehow managing to change some outcomes. Fantasy, eh?

CMM

A Moodscope member