Feeling Foolish

My mother did a little eating and drinking yesterday. The nurse said she majored on the pudding. After all the solemnity of the day before we were a little taken aback. More than that, we felt foolish- as if we'd been had. "We are talking about the same resident, aren't we?" said my sister.

"She's still on End of Life Care," said the nurse. " But that's not the same as saying she's at the point of death."

No harm in feeling foolish...

Cards

We used to send out cards in my mother's name to assure her old aquaintance that she still remembered them. It was a kindly fiction. We haven't done it this year.

We haven't sent out cards in our own names either. Who needs cards when there's email and messaging? It's become an older generation thing- and was always a bit of a chore- a convention one observed because everybody else did- which is silly. I know other people love giving and receiving them. Not me.

Also this year there are postal strikes. Why add to the pressure on an already staggering system? I saw a story that sacks of undelivered mail have been dumped outside Post Office depots and foxes have been eating them.

I'm not knocking Christmas, just cards. This Christmas will, in fact, be the busiest we've known in years.

Forewarned Is Forearmed

We're preparing for the inevitable.

The authorities require every document relating to a person- apart from their last shopping list and their teenage diaries- before they'll register a death. The way they spy on us these days you'd think they'd have all that material available at the touch of a key.

My sister has some of these documents and we have others, but neither family has copies of my mother's wedding certificate. I can rustle up my grandfather's birth certificate (he was born in 1891) and various other random and irrelevant sheets of paper but not that. "Why on earth do they need it?" I ask. And Ailz replies, "Because it records her change of surname." We order up a copy online. It should arrive tomorrow.

We found the printed sheet- torn from some unknown person's funeral service ( I knew it existed but not where we'd put it)- on which my mother has noted that she'd like the text by Rabindranath Tagore spoken at her own funeral. It's nice and upbeat and I'll be happy to read it. Rabindranath Tagore, well I never....

The Nursing home are comfortingly efficient. They have a favourite funeral director they'll contact to save us the trouble. It's something I'm grateful for...