My step dad’s mum died this afternoon. She was in a carehome about seven miles away, but it was in a different Tier so he hadn’t been allowed to visit her for a while and his sister who lives closer was the one doing the majority of the visits recently.
Yolanda was in her nineties and had dementia but seemed to keep on going almost indefinitely. She lived on her own up until about a year when it got too dangerous for her to be by herself and she had to go into a home. Her husband died a very long time ago of cancer, in his fifties I think, so she had been living alone for a long time. She fought it tooth and nail, but she didn’t know if it was day or night and would be found wandering in the street at all hours, and the fire brigade were regularly called to her home because she would put things in the oven or under the grill and forget about them.
I didn’t know her very well, I only really saw her and christmas and new year but she was a lively, talkative soul and the beloved matriarch of her family. Her family were italian immigrants, hence her glamorous name. They owned an italian chip shop in my town which sounds heavenly. It has been a chinese takeaway all of my life. The whole of her family all possess a strong cooking gene though, and my step dad is a fantastic cook.
I feel all weird inside now. Like there’s something in the room. Something perched on my shoulders. I don’t know what sort of funeral they’ll be able to have. I’m glad I don’t have to go though.
When you’re young you don’t think about death. It happens to really old people and that’s light years away. It’s not even something that’s on your radar. Now that I am middle aged I spend increasing amounts of time worrying about my mum dying. I don’t have kids. I am unmarried. I’m not close to any of my family. She’s the only real family I’ve got. She turned seventy one last week. She isn’t going to live forever.
This is the first time I’ve really voiced this one big fear of mine. It’s scary to admit. I have this strange reticence, I don’t like to say bad things out loud, it makes them real. They were real before but putting them into words somehow gives them life. It’s like saying Beetlejuice three times.
She is in pretty good health. She walks the dog twice a day just now. She used to do line dancing, aqua aerobics and zumba a couple of times a week. She needs something to do with her time now that she’s retired. She’s fitter than me. She gave up smoking when I was little. She ate better when I lived at home as I was vegetarian back then and did most of the cooking. Now it’s her and step dad, he is a good cook but is very much a meat and potatoes and butter and cream sort of man. They rarely eat vegetables, that’s some sort of homosexual liberal agenda. Step dad has smoked for about eighty years, drinks beer and red wine every day, fries everything in butter daily and never exercises beyond playing bowls. His knees are fucked from when he was in the army and he hobbles about swearing and is pretty obese. He has COPD and his doctor recently discovered a ‘mass’ on his lungs. I’m honestly surprised he outlived his mother.
I don’t know what I’ll do without my mum. We’re not best friends or anything. I just don’t have anyone else. No one else I feel comfortable with. No one else I can pick up the phone when I’m feeling bad and talk to. I don’t do that any way, my mum is the last person I tell my private feelings to. If I need help with something practical, going to a doctor’s appointment, she understands and knows I find it difficult to go out. Nobody else does. She’ll get step dad to take me and she’ll come too. Little things like that are hugely important.
I think when mum goes I will too. Maybe I can find a husband before then so I wont be left on my own. But how will I do that? And who would put up with me?
The past couple of years I have spent so much time obsessing about the future. It’s the one thing I can’t avoid. It’s my biggest fear.
