From My Heart by Linda Nolan

Author:Linda Nolan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

Twelve

Miss You, Mum

That terrible autumn Mum was getting weaker too.

Over the past few years her Alzheimer’s disease had become worse and worse. What had started out as general confusion, constantly asking where her handbag was or repeatedly asking the same question, had deteriorated quickly.

It had been terrible to watch. Mum used to devour magazines but now when I bought her one she’d toss it aside, saying it was too hard to read. And in her younger years she’d loved bingo. She could have six of her own cards on the go and keep an eye on everyone else’s on the table too. But as the months went by she’d be missing more and more numbers.

We had a phone call one day from the church bazaar saying Mum had left her purse there with £600 cash inside. Another time we got a call from the Queens Hotel in Blackpool saying: ‘There’s nothing to worry about but we’ve got your mum here. She’s been here since six this morning. We’ve given her some breakfast and she’s welcome to stay as long as she likes.’

People were wonderful with her but it was so distressing to think of her waking up in the morning with no concept of time and wandering down to the hotel where we had performed so many times as kids.

She still loved to sing and would go to the places where they had singalongs in the afternoon for the old folks. But as time went by she found it harder to remember the words. Denise would go with her and sit behind, prompting her when she forgot the words.

After a few years she moved into a sheltered accommodation flat but then she put the kettle on the electric hob and nearly caused a fire. Fortunately someone spotted the smoke and Mum wasn’t affected at all because she was safe in another room. But it could have been terrible. It was clear she could no longer live on her own.

Increasingly she had to stay with one of us kids. But even that was a worry. I was in London or touring with Blood Brothers during this time, so much of the responsibility fell to my older sisters. They were wonderful with Mum. I’d come back as often as I could to visit at weekends but even in the space of a week or so it was possible to see how quickly she was going downhill.

One day when Coleen’s Ciara was a toddler she showed her mum three tablets in her hand.

‘Gran gave me these saying they are sweets but I don’t think they are, Mummy,’ Ciara said.

Thank goodness she didn’t eat them. But it was another sign Mum was slipping fast.

The whole family were trying to look after her. Brian and his wife Annie were fabulous and the other girls were amazing with her. They would bath her and take her to the toilet and cared for her the way she had cared for us when we were children. But by

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