New Dawn – Mum’s memories

HOPE ALL good mothers enjoyed a happy Mother’s Day. My brother and his son would have visited my mum, as they regularly do, but on such a special day probably gave her flowers and carried her out for ice cream.For all of her friends who ask about her, the situation is still the same. She has some type of senile dementia with memory problems, so it became dangerous for her to live in her own apartment, even with “assisted living” services. Jean is still slim and fit and capable of walking miles and getting lost.So she is living on a “rehab” floor of a controlled building and getting good care. There are no phone facilities in rooms and she is incapable of using or answering a cellphone. The one phone is at the nurses’ station and only one or two next of kin should call – and not frequently.Imagine if you were one of the few, very busy staff running up and down on a floor with geriatrics, the vast majority of them having to be spoon-fed, tubed up, electronically connected to monitors/machines, wiped, diapered, catheter-changed, sponged, medicated, and so on! And friends of a patient kept calling!If by some miracle, the dear lady’s brain improves, she will call relatives, friends and acquaintances. I know all of those who are reasonable will understand and accept what I am sharing.However, there are two demanding, controlling, dictators – one a distant aunt in Trinidad, the other a man my mum once worked with in that country – who keep calling me ad nauseam. This after I have said to both of them: “I never, ever, want to speak with you again. Do not call me. Goodbye!”I have no friendship with this man, although he says “he feels like my uncle”. Very creepy! The aunt rants and raves about our side of the family not being “saved” in her church, in spite of our being believers our whole lives. She told my mum and grandmum when my younger sister was murdered: “You know she is going to hell!”  When my mum had all her marbles in the right slots I begged her to tell these two to stop calling me. I have been staying with Jean when she cried after getting upsetting calls from these two people, or received newspaper clippings of kidnappings and murders in Trinidad!But she was too much of a lady to put her foot down.  I, however, have no such inhibition. I don’t care what auntie not-dearest or mock “uncle” think of me. There is no point badgering me after I have said “no”.One of the claims from this man was that he loved my mum. She replied she loved him too. Yeah, right! She was just being polite and mushy-headed. The last time I told her this man was still calling me, she said: “Oh my God, is he still pestering you?”I wonder what they are going to do when God calls Jean’s number? Jump into the crematorium fire with her corpse à la suttee?Dawn Morgan is a NATION Senior Reporter (Advertising) who thinks people with problems accepting “No” need to call professional help. Phone 430-5495. dawnmorgan@nationnews.com