Song for Rosaleen by Pip Desmond

Author:Pip Desmond [Pip Desmond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780995100138
Publisher: Massey University Press
Published: 2018-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

THE RETIREMENT VILLAGE was on the other side of town from Rose, Ginny, me and that beacon of light, the Chelsea Club. But it was close to Kate, and the only similar accommodation near the rest of us had a six-month waiting list. My sisters asked the professionals to break the news to Mum. ‘There was one flash of anger and a few tears (“I’ll have to leave my mother’s things”) but overall Mum was very accepting,’ Kate emailed. ‘Not only of the six-week recuperation but also of the possibility of it being a longer-term option.’

The move was scheduled for the following Monday. Emails flew back and forth about signing the paperwork, organising Mum’s medication and clothes, choosing furnishings for her studio, letting relatives know. Everyone agreed it would be too unsettling for Mum to go back to Colville Street first. Kate volunteered to set up the studio with Ginny the day before. But no one offered to pick Mum up from the hospital and deliver her to her new lodgings.

For me, the timing was terrible. I had three weeks to hand in my 100,000-word university thesis, at about the same time as my second grandchild was due. But it was more than that. I couldn’t be the bad daughter one more time. I couldn’t withstand Mum’s fury, her tears, her cold shoulder. Worst of all, I couldn’t witness her defeat.

Sobbing, I phoned Liz. Everyone expected me to move Mum into the village, I said, perhaps wrongly. I couldn’t do it; I didn’t even know if I could visit her there for a while. Liz listened till I stopped crying, promised to talk to the others, and offered to come down from Hastings to move Mum herself if necessary.

Rose, convalescing after an operation, said it wasn’t fair for me to bow out; there weren’t enough of us as it was. I knew everyone was worn out. I knew everyone was reeling from the guilt of becoming one of those families ‘who put a parent into care’. I knew it couldn’t be me.

Ginny and Kate, bless them, picked Mum up from hospital and took her to the retirement village. That night Kate emailed to say it had gone well. ‘At 8 p.m. I called the night nurse to see how Mum had settled. She said she’d had a lovely afternoon with Lorna, had just been given her Triazolam, and said she looked very cozy in bed with her little hat on. What hat, you ask? — as did I. Not sure, but think she may have gone to bed wearing a shower cap!’

There was one silver lining. My siblings agreed that Megan and Rome could move into Colville Street until we decided what to do with the house. They’d have their own place, close to Pat and me, to bring their second baby home.

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