‘Sometimes you think I am Mum, who died when she was roughly the age I am now’: the letter you always wanted to write

I came to see you yesterday, though you would have already forgotten my visit by the time I got back home. We looked at the photo albums together, as we often do. I am sorry I put that confusing one of me and my girls, taken when the younger one was a baby, on the same page as the picture of that baby, grown up now, with her own baby. That really was hard to fathom, wasn’t it?

You also looked puzzled at my wedding photo, with you and Mum standing beside me, because sometimes you think I am Mum, who died when she was roughly the age I am now. I gave you a bar of chocolate and separated the squares. You saved two for me, indicating that they were mine. I like the way your sense of fair shares has not completely vanished.

When I got up to leave, you asked if I was all right for money. I assured you I was fine and you said to let you know if I needed any help. You would be horrified if you knew the nursing home fees. Luckily, you don’t remember the house we sold to pay for them.

The head nurse told me that you were getting less steady on your feet and warned me that you would eventually forget how to walk. I have mixed feelings about this, because at least there will be less risk of a fall if you are obliged to sit and be transported in a wheelchair.

You have been there two years now. Who knows how much longer you will last? You still have a good appetite but you’re very restless at night. Your body clock is shot to pieces so you sleep a lot during the day. How long before you take to your bed all the time? How long before you succumb to a chest infection?

I wonder what you would have said if you had known that your final years would be spent like this. Would you have begged to be put out of your misery? I couldn’t do it, so I couldn’t ask the doctor to do it either. “Thou shalt not kill” is ingrained in me. But it doesn’t stop me feeling angry that God has not let you be with your beloved wife before now.

Once, when you could still talk coherently, I asked you how you had met Mum. I knew the answer, but liked to hear the story. “I didn’t meet her,” you replied. “She drew me towards her whole being.” Now, isn’t it time she did that again?

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