struck by a stroke

It's been a funny week. Last year, every day was dominated by my mum's stroke - either in the practical arrangements of travelling constantly to Belfast with a newborn and two children, or the emotional - the sheer pain and weight of missing her. But this year has brought an acceptance, an ability to take the weight off my shoulders occassionally and live my life, even enjoy it. Her stroke has melded into our lives instead of dominating it - and living with it has become a way of life.
But there are moments when it flares again, a reminder of what is, and what was.
Yesterday my brother was over seeing my mum. He decided to wheel her round to one of her friends for a change of scenery. On the phone to him earlier, I had begged him to put something decent on her, brush her hair and put on a bit of lippy. My brother and dad are great with my mum, but let's face it, they're men. She has a tendency to look like the Wild Woman of the West in their care. An hour later he called back. He needed guidance. He had made sure she had some good clothes on and now he stood opposite her, staring into the mystical abyss that was a woman's make-up bag and he needed me to tell him what to do. So I found myself standing in my kitchen, phone in hand, directing my 46 year old brother on powder blush and lipstick.
"Is it meant to leave a brown ring around her face?" he enquired dubiously.
I'm not sure how she looked in the end, but he tried. And I love him even more for it.
And today, one of my articles appeared in the Irish Times. I had written it a couple of months ago, and I HAD written it. But still. It was a shock. To see our story in print. To see my account of my mum's stroke in a national newspaper. I link it here. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2012/0306/1224312843616.html
The impact of a stroke can strike at any time.

Sliding doors of life....

Even before the film Sliding Doors appeared, I often lived parallel lives. As a child, at unhappy times, I would literally live another life in my head, while my real life carried on. (Often this other life involved lots of interaction with Michael J Fox, but that's a whole different blog!).

Then, for many years, my sliding door to a different world stayed shut, the reality of my life good enough to experience in and outside my head - only occassionally would I become an intrepid traveller again as I washed the dishes, or rescued orang utans from the wild as I read The Tiger Who Came to Tea for the 63,839,586th time.

But now, I find myself living parallell lives every day. Not some wild escapism, not some far flung adventure, but simply the imaginings of what would have been, to soften the blow of what is. Three months ago my life changed for ever, for the worse. Since then I have tried to come to terms with loosing the mum I knew and adored, while learning to deal with the reality of a mum who barely knows my name and who will never share my life again. From the second hubby came into my hospital room in the dead of night to tell me my mum had had a massive stroke, my life split into two - the life I was planning and the life I am being forced to live. The last three months as I struggled with a new baby, I have dealt with the reality of waiting to see if my mum would pull through and then deal with having her settled at home, incapable of rational speech, thought or action. In my head though, I have lived through daily phonecalls, regular visits where she would hold my baby in her arms adoring her with song and praise, while sending me off to bed. I lived the experiences I knew we would have had, enjoying a cup of Earl Grey and a Butlers chocolate, showing off Ruby to strangers in the queue, reading stories to the girls. As I stood alone in my kitchen, the phone in my hand but no number to dial, I closed my eyes and pictured her coming off the Belfast train - 100 memories merged into one real moment, the smell of 'Beautiful' greeting me with her warm hug, tales of her conversations with strangers on the seat beside her keeping us company all the way home. As she walked through my front door she would say, "I love coming into this house, " and we would sit down with a cup of tea, children scurrying around us and she would be proclaiming Ruby to be the most beautiful baby she had ever seen. I lived every memory of the past to get me through the present.

And so it was at Christmas. Mum and dad were due to come down to us this year, and like every year, I was going to take Mum to the National Concert Hall, and on Christmas Eve we would all sit down to the Christmas Ham dinner and then wrap ourselves around the fire, wine glasses glistening in light of the flames, stuffing Santa sacks. In the morning, as the girls giddy with Santa surprises would be shouting "Nanna Look!" when her bed-bedraggled head curled round our bedroom door, she would sit on our bed and share their excitement. We would have a walk in the snow and then, a little drunk perhaps, try to produce a christmas dinner in the right order before finding just enough room for a couple of chocolates by the fire at the end of the night. Instead, their car did not arrive this year, bringing bags and bottles of goodies. I didn't book any tickets at the National Concert Hall. I hung up the lights and carefully placed decorations knowing they would never be seen by the person who would appreciate them the most. And when it hurt too much, I slid open the door and lived the version where their car drove up and they bundled into the house laden with love. I heard my mum say the house looked beautiful.

And on Christmas day, as my mum lay in her bed and we pretended to be merry the sliding door jammed and I could no longer soften the blow. This is how it is now. I have to organise our baby's christening knowing my mum won't be there. Plan a family holiday without her. Walk past the phone and not pick it up. But at least for a while yet, I can climb onto the bed beside her, the smell of my Beautiful rubbing onto her skin, and hold her hand. The past and the present still in tune.

my favourite photo

Thanks so much for Hot Cross Mum's tag - to show and tell my favourite photo. In this digital age when we have more photos than blades of grass in our garden, this was no mean feat. But I'm a great believer in instinct and not over-thinking, so the first picture that popped into my head when faced with the challenge is the one I'm going for (as opposed to the 254 subsequent ones that i picked after much thought).



This is me and my mum at Daisy's christening. I love this photo for so many reasons, the obvious one being the sheer joy and happiness and love we all share - three generations of smiles. But it also represents the beginning of so many things. A new relationship with my mum - one based on our love of my children, and her being needed once again, after years of being pushed away by an independent, cocky teenager and twenty-something. It represents the beginning of my life as a mum, an incredible journey that I am still only on the first tentative steps of. And finally, it represents the beginning of my writing career - this picture was included with my first ever published article called Mothers & Daughters (www.alanakirkgillham.com/Publishedarticles.html ) that began a new era for me and hopefully the stepping stones towards a lifetime of writing .


The future is impossible without the past, and often I have struggled with managing the two forceful elements of my life - the pre-children and post-children me.... and yet my mum has been the bridge between the two, keeping me sane and intact while while I often unravelled. Three generations of smiles are still smiling, and that makes me happier than pretty much anything else.