Some years ago I had a friend. She was the dearest creature; she had some significant health problems which didn’t intrude much on her daily life when I first met her – but they were always in the background.

Because of her health issues she had been told it was risky for her to have a child – but she wanted, more than anything, to be a mother – so she took that risk.

And it was a good decision – she had a beautiful daughter – and she was fine.

But her doctors were anxious for her not to take another risk and so for years she followed their advice – watching her friends have children – while she just had a child.

And then after six years she was overwhelmed by her desire to have another child – and so she took another risk…

It was around this time that we became close – we were both pregnant toegther – she gave birth first – and for a while our lives entwined.

I think, because of the shadow that hung over her life, she had problems with anxiety. These manifested not quite as OCD – rather as a desire to please; a weekly ridgid housework routine that was really too much for her – and kept her isolated; and anxiety about food, eating, and putting on weight.

The two crusty rolls were a passion of hers – we had a local bakery that did these to perfection – but my friend lived on the edge of town and didn’t drive – and for a while she had an idea that if she could have two fresh crusty rolls for lunch that this would make her so happy that the rest of her eating would effortlessly fall into place. So for several months I would drop in two rolls on my way back home after the school run – in an attempt to support her in this notion.

Some years after this the doctors’ fears were realised and she was very ill. The result of this episode was that she lost her long term memory. And the reason that she came into my mind this morning was because of parallels that my mind saw between her predicament and what is currently going on with my parents.

When my friend lost her memory going to visit her was extraordinary: she had full time carers because she couldn’t remember anything so she couldn’t function without help. The first time I went round to see her after she’d come out of hospital, I went to the loo after we’d had a cup of tea together and when I came back a couple of minutes later, she greeted me with surprise and delight – she had no memory of me being there – she thought I had just arrived…

But as extraordinary as this, was trying to find things to talk about – both her children were at school and so not in the room – any mention of them made her distressed as she knew she had children, but didn’t have a clear sense of what age they were, let alone that she and her carer has taken them to school that morning. So any reference to them caused immediate confusion and panic.

So finding anything to talk about was challenging – basically if it wasn’t tangibly present in that moment we couldn’t talk about it – she wasn’t up to initiating conversation – so it was up to me – and so I talked about every ornament in the room, what a lovely cup of tea it was, how much I liked her dress etc etc…

And it occurs to me that I living alongside my parents is not disismilar.

With my mother I am doing a version of the crusty rolls…

Before she lost her memory – when “normal” conversations were possible – my friend Lyn and I rarely talked about the fact that she was living with the spector of her own death hovering over her – with the possibilty that her children could grow up motherless… Instead we would talk about her challenges keeping the house clean and tidy, about how to make eating less of an issue for her, and, of course, about her children. With my mother, I keep the conversation light – we talk about her friends, my daughters, what was on the telly, what she is reading, what she is exploring in her various literary groups – and we talk – ENDLESSLY – about the birds on the bird feeder, the weather, about the two local teashops and whether they are stealing each other’s business…

We don’t talk about her getting older – apart from difficulties getting in and out of the bath…

And talking to my father is like being with Lyn after she lost her memory – I want to be companionable – but searching for topics suitable to have a brief exchange about with my father is quite tricky… It, again, has to be something tangibly present that he can grasp – that doesn’t require him to remember anything – including the name of things…

And, of course, the other parallel for me – is the spector of death… I am spending much of my time at the moment staying with my parents, loving them, supporting them – but, what is ever present for me, is that everything changed six months ago when my brother was run over and killed. Suddenly death and the impermance of everything and everyone I love was what I saw everywhere…since 8th January, when he was killed, the unspoken thought is: there have been four of us – my parents, my brother and me for almost all my life – and now I feel like I am watching the last days unfold before me – watching as we get ever closer to it just being me.

In the early days I wondered if losing her son meant that my mother would slip into a decline and that she and my father would be gone within the year – that doesn’t seem to be how it is… but I looked for it for many weeks…

But having had my brother just “go” – one minute I have a brother, the next minute I get a phonecall and learn this is no longer so … this changes one’s experience of family…

And the last piece of what my mind saw this morning is this: it occurs to me that my blog is my crusty roll – it is something tangible to focus on when the “bigger picture” is just too big – it gives me a daily ritual, thinking about what to write is a form of escapism, chosing words, playing with how to phrase things… there is even something very comforting about punctuation and spell checking 🙂

And so, as I continue to grapple with “the bigger picture”, my blog appears, currently, to be part of me having the best time 🙂