Dear Nan

Dear Nan,

I’m writing this whilst sat at your house. It is so weird without you sat in the chair next to me, telling me you want cake. I am pretty sure the cupboards are full of cake I just can’t bring myself to go and look.

I’m here to get photos for your order of service and clothes for you to wear as you go on your final journey. I’ve got Boxcar Willie on, trying to find that song that always used to make you tap your feet. Its between two, I think I know which it is, its going to be played as we exit your funeral. I have so many fond memories of your dancing to this song. Here Nan, I found your falls detector watch! After months of it being missing and you hid it underneath your cds. Nice one there, I would have never have guessed that! I wonder what else we will all find as time goes on.

It is really cold in here. The heating is probably broke but I can’t go look like whats the point? I reckon that we met most of the British gas staff in the area in the last few years. I will always chuckle at the engineer turning up and telling me he already knew where the boiler was as he’d been there at least once before. That bloody boiler of yours kept me on my toes!

Whilst listening to the music I had a look in some of the drawers. Mainly looking for any other potential photos or cds full of music, Nan you have a little bit of everything in there. I’m assuming halves of christmas cards came in handy, I’m guessing shopping lists. I mean lets not let anything go to waste. I found that poetry book I had a poem published in when I was 12. The book itself didn’t bother me, I have my own copy somewhere but you had a bookmark on the page of my poem. It has probably remained untouched for years. I could just think about how proud you would have been putting that bookmark in.

We have been deciding on what to put in your coffin with you. I want you to take the photos of me in the black with you (Graduation photos for anyone who doesn’t speak Nan!). I will never forget you giving me a present on my masters graduation day and saying “happy birthday” close, you knew the day was important.

When all this is over, the pandemic I mean I will go and do all the things you said you wanted me to do.

I’ll never stop talking to you Nan. I still have my chats with Grampy after 23 years and now you’re back together I’ll be coming to you both for advice, the advice I know you’d give when I need it.

Lots of Love,

Becka xx

Every photo is a memory I can keep forever.

For the last 3 and a half years I have taken thousands of pictures and videos with Nan, I always joked well its something to remember her by but it really is something to remember her by now all I have is the memories. Every photo has a story and I am quite good at remembering things without even looking at the date I can tell you when this photo was taken.

27th September 2017… probably around 9pm (give or take I mean I am not perfect)

I’d had a full day at uni, I was tired and I had commuted, seen Nan, rang Nan in the morning and all was fine. Until I believe (and this is where I am slightly hazey) Nan rang me and I missed a call. When I rang back, I didn’t get an answer. PANIC.

So I went up to Nans and she was ringing me because she was worried about something that she has found in her kitchen. I really was slightly concerned as to what I was about to be shown. There was a sense of relieve and sadness however as Nan was confused as to what a plug socket was and why was it there? I really think this is one of the first times I started to understand that Alzheimer’s was more than just memory loss. It was so much more than that and when my grief isn’t so raw I want to talk about my feelings about the condition and how much I have learnt about it by being Nan’s carer.

I explained to her what it was, why it was there and by having it it means it was possible for her to do her toast in a morning and that was it, she was ok then. We snapped some pictures, we had a laugh, I made her a cup of tea and she told me to go home. She was rather abrupt in her manner but I knew that it translated to I am ok now, so you go to bed.

I think right now I would give anything to have one more hug like this. I miss this so much and I can’t believe tomorrow will have already been a week since we lost her. Taking thousands of pictures in order to have these memories

Becka

We were the best of friends.

In the last few days I have been looking at all the pictures that I have taken of me and Nan. This picture sticks out to me. It doesn’t look that significant but it really makes me smile every time I look at it. This picture is from the morning after my uncle went into hospital last year. I stayed with Nan, I did try and sleep on the sofa so I could be next to her but it just wasn’t comfortable and she snored. I mean I snore too but I needed to actually nod off to be able to snore! So I went upstairs and slept in her old bed. In fact I slept in my Nan and grampys old bed, which actually felt quite comforting like they were both cuddling me in a way!

I didn’t get the best sleep and I remember sitting at the top of the stairs about 6am hearing her potter about downstairs. She was obviously tidying up any mess in the living room. Nan liked to be very house proud, even until the end when maybe it wasn’t the easiest she still tried to be house proud and proud of her appearance too. It was actually quite heartbreaking when she used to do things like try and put cardigans on as trousers because I knew this wasn’t my Nan! This was dementia. That is a post for another day though.

I went downstairs and I couldn’t find my shoes. I thought maybe I had taken them upstairs with me so i went and checked, still couldn’t find them and then i spotted them. Nan had put my shoes next to hers away, tidied away, I mean naughty Becka probably left them right in the way and I can only imagine Nan tutting about the mess when she put them away.

This photo makes me smile because to me its like I was moving in, my shoes had a special place. My shoes were allowed to be with hers! She was quite particular about things and everything had to be in its right place.

Only a couple of weeks ago she said to me I wish you would come and stay with me. I told her if the time came (when another nasty social worker was trying to move her out!!!) I would and I don’t regret not going to stay with her permanently because she proved that she was safe in her own home alone with carers and me visiting daily right until the very end. In fact when I stayed with her when my Uncle was in hospital I actually only stayed two nights because I went for a third night and she told me to go home because she was fine!

The last 3 and a half years we really have been the best of friends, looking through photos I have so many funny ones of us being daft as anything, I have so many lovely memories, I miss her a lot but I am extremely proud of what we achieved and the bond we had.

It was special.

Becka.

Dear Social worker

Dear Social worker,

You could have ruined it all. Last year when Nan was in hospital you had all these ideas. You tried to push for my Nan to be taken away from her home and put in a care home. “Shes unsafe” “She walks around with her trousers round her ankles” “She will fall”. Shes never fallen, and now passed I can say she never fell. You made it impossible for us, we had just lost my uncle, my Nan was struggling, couldn’t understand where the man upstairs had gone and you couldn’t see the bigger picture, you couldn’t look outside the box you had in your head.

Nan was assessed for her capabilities and you told us she would be a danger in her own home. We knew this was not the case, this was the Nan who still raided the cupboards or changed her own clothes. This was the Nan that had walked outside her home and into the neighbours house looking for the man upstairs. We then find out Nan had a chest infection, you had assessed her with a chest infection and somehow still felt this was a true reflection of her life.

It took weeks to convince you to let her home. Well you just have to consider you kept telling us. I wasn’t going to consider anything, my Nan was coming home. OK, she can have two week live in care to see how she get on, but remember this might lead to a care home you told us. If she proved to be safe then she could go to 4 times a day care. Well I knew she would be going to 4 times a day care no matter how much you were so sure she had to be in a care home.

She came home and within minutes of meeting her both the live in carer and the colleague sat in Nans living room couldn’t understand why you had wrote the stuff you had wrote in your report. This was not the Nan they were seeing????! They were expecting to come across a woman with zero capabilities who would wander and fall. This was not the case. The carer used to come down in the morning to find that Nan had already on some occasions (Attempted to) washed and changed her clothes, found some breakfast (probably cake) and pottered about “cleaning” though probably made a bit of a mess!

Oh social worker, now she has gone from this world never a danger in her own home, never wandered out the house again, never fallen, I can only think about how if we hadn’t fought you the ending could have been so much different. Especially in the world as it is today. I very much doubt I would have been holding her hand or stroking her face as she slowly fell asleep for that last time. She smiled at me before the paramedics arrived you know, I think she knew what was happening and she was ok.

But social worker, what I really like to think that smile was. I like to think it was a Its alright Becks, we won. And we did.

My Nan got to pass away at home with all her things and me holding her hand.

You were wrong.

But I always knew that anyway.

Becka

The disappearing cooked chicken

I don’t want to just be sad on this blog. Yes, as I write this its 00:17am on 14th of April so basically 36 and a half hours ago Nan passed and I was holding her hand and now is the point the tears won’t stop flowing. So I thought i might try and cheer myself up by telling you all one of the funniest stories of the last few years – the mysterious disappearing cooked chicken!

My Uncle lived with my Nan for 18 months up until his death (which the first anniversary was only a couple of days ago very emotional time at the moment!) his friend used to do his food shopping for him and Nan took a shine to lots of my uncles food and drink (including the odd can of beer). He did tell mum and I that he once went into the fridge to get his cheese out, pulled it out of the wrapper and it had teeth marks in it. Nan had been in the fridge, ate some cheese but then had the sense to put it back in the packet backwards so it didnt look like it had been touched!

This one time my uncles friend took him a cooked chicken, you know like you get off the deli counters in a supermarket. It went in the fridge, nothing was thought of it and the next day my uncle came to do some food and the chicken was gone. Not only was the chicken gone, but so was the carcass and the wrapper. There was no evidence in the fridge the chicken was ever there.

Not only was there no evidence in the fridge the chicken was ever there, we couldn’t find any evidence in the HOUSE that it was ever there. We did ask Nan and she as good as admitted that she took a shine to it so she thought she would have it. But what she did with the evidence? How much of the chicken she ate? These are all questions we joke about and commented last year my uncle died never knowing what happened to the chicken.

I just hope however much of the chicken she ate, she enjoyed every mouthful because its given us plenty of laughs ever since.

Becka. x

Loss – it happens twice.

Nan x

Yesterday (12th April) We sadly lost my Nan. She died peacefully at home with me holding her hand and given everything that is going on in the world at the moment I don’t think that we could have asked for much more from such a terrible thing. Sadly my mum and brother didn’t make it in time, but i had 2 lovely paramedics with me who I will remember forever.

Its such a weird feeling today, I cried my eyes out in Tesco getting some bits in all because today is easter monday and I took her shopping on easter monday a couple of years ago and it was the last time she was in a supermarket (i think). But, in some ways I feel ok because Nan had dementia, it had got quite advanced and in a way we lost big parts of her a while ago.

The Nan from my youth was lost a while back, I had got used to the new Nan and you can see from the memories ive shared we have had such a laugh in the last few years. Every moment was worth it, even the moments in which I cried out of shear frustration and there was more than enough of them.

Anyone caring for a family member with dementia has my respect because it is the hardest and most rewarding thing I have ever done. You lose pieces of the person in front of you but you still love all of them even the bits that aren’t there. It is only in mulling things over in the last 24 hours that I have realised just how much of Nan we had lost without realising.

I can’t say that I expected her pass away when i went to her house yesterday morning but as I think about it over the last week she had shown that she was so tired and I think she was getting ready to leave us all. I was getting numerous calls from her carers over the last few weeks because they needed more assistance with her and I was always the go to person to contact and this is how yesterday morning started.

As a family we are at a loss, I am heartbroken and a little bit lost. I had been seeing Nan pretty much daily for 3 and a half years and it was a more than a little bit strange today and probably will be for the foreseeable. I have plenty of memories and pictures that I want to share, good, bad and damn right funny. Please stay with me and if you have come here from previously reading onceuponafibrotime keep coming back. I have missed writing.

Becka. x