Tag dementia

The last bedroom on the right

Exterior view of Ridgeway Lodge care home in Dunstable

There is no pastRememberedOr futureImagined.Just the present.Tense.A singularity.You live in the moment. Very on point as they say.Content (or so I hope) sucking tea from a sippy cupOr shredding tissues in your lapWhile I am walking an imaginary dog (the…

Death is only the beginning

A photo of mum at the helm on a family boating holiday

I’m not a big fan of anniversaries. The ones you want to forget, you remember. The ones you want to remember, you forget.  And so it was I found myself wide awake early this morning exactly a year to the…

Black Hole

Bloodless skin too tightly drawn for lips. White. Like supermarket chicken. A row of teeth along the bottom curve. None along the top. (You lost those long ago.) And that moustache that grandmas get And tickle when you kiss. It’s…

Foz

Foz is from Somalia.  She steers my mother slowly across the care home lawn. A ship of state adrift on a sea of green.  “Here are my two favourite girls,” I call from the shade of the arbour. Because if…

Still Life

Shackled by time slippers shuffledStooped to the high-backed seatQueen throned, grey crown ruffledPrince and Princess at her feet  The Prince takes a marbled handBut a child’s touch cannot reach beyondTheir birth to a foreign land To retrieve lost memories fond In…

Mother’s Day

Dear Mum  You didn’t like people making a fuss of you. So you weren’t a big fan of Mother’s Day.  Before it all became what you disdainfully called Americanised, I do remember me and my sister bringing you breakfast in bed.…