| Visiting |
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The other week, I took my mother to Cardiff to see an old friend of hers. Her son had written to my mother to tell her that her old friend Doreen had gone to live in a residential home as she had fallen several times and could no longer manage on her own. My mother and Doreen had been friends when they were in their late teens and twenties. For many years they went to the same Chapel, gave out tracts together and for several years, they worked in the same ladies clothes shop - Peacocks, in Cardiff - and vividly remembered the son-in-law of the owners, a man with an eye for the ladies. The stock-room was not the place to go with him if you could avoid it. One of the other assistants went away with him, ostensibly to do some stock-buying and came back with more than she bargained for. Doreen and my mother met two young men when they were at a revivalist meeting together: Doreen married the one and my mother married the other, my father. They each had their first children, both sons, in 1944. Their paths had separated, however, and for forty years virtually their only contact had been by way of Christmas cards. There was though still one more parallel to come - the two sons born in 1944 both died in 2001. Doreen's daughter also died in that same year of the same wasting disease as her brother. Doreen and my mother had both been very active in their youth - they often used to go rowing on Roath Park lake at 7 o'clock in the morning before going to work. Now of course, they are both in their early nineties and so rowing is not really an option. My mother is though still able at 92 to look after herself, albeit with some help, but when we arrived at the home, we found that Doreen was unable even to get up out of her chair unaided and certainly could not walk. She has osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. I have invariably found care homes to be depressing places. This was no exception. The carpet has not been seen in sample books for at least 20 years and whilst apparently clean, the whole place had a faded air to it. That was not really the problem, however as her eyesight is not very good. The problem is that Doreen is very alone. Doreen is by nature a cheerful person, but between reminiscences, she told us what her day now consisted of. Having partly dressed herself she sits on the bed and waits until a carer comes, sometime between 8 am and 10:30 am, to help her finish the process and to take her in a wheelchair down three floors in the lift for breakfast. That done, she is taken to the ‘quiet room' in the home. There are two other common rooms - one which doubles as the dining room and another which has the television blaring in it. She does not feel able to ask the carers to take her back to her room until the night-time as ‘they have enough to do'. Several carers are leaving shortly and will not be replaced, she told us. The TV put in her room by her surviving son does not in any event work. He has given her a digital radio, but she does not understand how it works. Because of her eyesight, she cannot easily read. What is worse, however, is that of all the women in the Home, there is literally only one other who does not have Alzheimer's disease and she spends most of her time in her own room. To visit Doreen, we had to go past most of the other residents. It was like watching the living dead. They barely reacted to the fact that someone else was walking past them, even when we said ‘hello'. People from her chapel do visit Doreen from time to time - for some reason she cannot go there, although I was at a loss to know why. There are no outings from the Home and no activities are organised. Unsurprisingly, Doreen said that her faith had been affected by all that had happened over the years. My mother tried to encourage her but then Doreen expressed her concern for the fact that she could not attempt to bring the Gospel to the other residents, as, although they were alive, they were past understanding what she might say. There could be no 11th hour conversion for them. This obviously upset her and so my mother said that it was not now her responsibility: she had done more than enough by way of evangelism during her many active years as a Christian. The drive back to Birmingham with my mother was a somewhat reflective couple of hours. |