This old house

I'm spending so much time in my childhood house these days as I care for mum, that it has that old familiar feel. I'm not the random visitor of that last 20 years, leaving my breath on the window pane on my way out. Instead, I leave my imprint in the bed, my things accumulating in bedside drawers and wardrobes once again.
As my mum lies in her dining-room-converted bedroom, I wander the rooms of my adolescence and remember the memories. Fights, laughs, chats. The front door opening and closing a thousand times as I went to and from school. The hours I spent standing in the hallway talking on the phone to friends and shy first boyfriends. The whispers my bedroom walls heard as I revised for exams, wrote secrets in my diary, gazed beyond my horizon and imagined my life ahead. Hours spent beside my mum, licking baking bowl spoons in the kitchen, sitting beside her on the sofa learning the lessons of my life.
These walls housed many family sagas before our own. When we moved here I wandered about then, touchng the walls and trying to listen to the whispers of other people's stories. Now I sit with my mum and go through old photos.... black and white characters no longer filled with the colour of life. Long lives, long lived, but over now. Now they are the ageless faces in aged albums. Like the people who once lived in this house.
And as our family sage comes slowly slowly to an end, I cannot help but wonder who will live here next. What fights, laughter, chats, hopes, dreams, heartache, pain, love will fill these walls.  But for now, we must still fill this hosue with the noise of our family. Until those memories too drain of colour.
Replaced in brick, but never in hearts.

A gift

I've been given a special gift this week, made all the more precious because it was unexpected, a still frame in the blur of life. For months, I knew I was coming up to care for mum for a week while my dad took a much needed break.  But my focus was on finding childcare (my gorgeous aunt-in-law came over from Uganda to help us out!!!), school pick ups (thank you Brid!), and making meals for every night so Aunt Judith didn't have to cook as well as looking after three young tearaways and change her first nappies at the age of 60+.

So when I arrived it was in the tailspin of planning, packing, and panicking. You do suddenly panick as you run out the door leaving three small children in the hands of a woman who has never had kids - my worry being for her, I hasten to add, not them!

But as squeals of delight greeted me down the phone every day, I began to relax into the week with my mum. When my mum had her stroke 19 months ago, I never thought I'd enjoy my time with her again. She was a shadow. And I was scared of her strangeness.

But this week was almost like days of old. I did her hair and make-up every day, and we laughed. Really laughed. She has made so much improvement, that at times I forgot the fear, and enjoyed the fun.  For the four hours a day that she is in a wheelchair, I took her out to the amazing Titanic Exhibition, to the shopping centre, and round the park in the sun. Her friends came round for lunch and stayed all afternoon. We watched and sang to the Sound of Music, and we went through old photos.  She still can't remember people or names, but she engaged none the less. Every morning, I brought a little table in beside her bed, and worked beside her on my laptop, chatting and drinking tea. And in the evenings, I would hop up on her bed and lie beside her while we watched TV. 

For a week, I've had my mum back........ one of the most precious gifts I've ever had.