On this Mother’s Day
I celebrate my husband’s devotion to his mother, P, who lives with us. P is 91 years old and suffers from dementia. D is so good with her. He makes her laugh. He tells her inside jokes and teases her. She plays along with him and gives back as good as she gets. You can tell they’ve been bantering like this with each other all their lives. He takes her for a drive, which is her favourite thing to do. Her late husband used to take her for a drive through the moors during their sixty-plus years of marriage in Yorkshire, England.
P loves long drives. Two years ago, P and I drove to Calgary, then to Yellowknife, and back home—a total of 3700 km over 10 days. We would drive for 8 hours a day, with lunch breaks and bathroom stops. She stayed awake almost the whole time every day. She loved looking out the window and watching the landscapes pass by. She would comment on the blue sky and yellow flowers in the field and look out for wild animals on the road.
P can’t do long drives anymore, but every chance he gets, D takes her for drives on rural roads around our village. He buys her hot chocolate or soft ice cream on a cone at the Dairy Queen and chats with her about anything that pops up. And, of course, he makes her laugh. He treats her like there is nothing wrong. She doesn’t show that there is anything wrong. I wonder if she knows her brain gets jumbled at times. It’s hard to tell because she just pushes on at her own pace each day with her ever-present sunny attitude. And I love that about her and the way D treats her.
D washes her bedding and laundry. When I’m not around, he fixes her meals and gets Coronation Street or Vera on her laptop, though he has not come around to fully accepting her changing dietary needs due to advancing dementia. He treats her eating habits like how she treats her every other way – nothing has changed, the same way he jokes with her like the way he has all his life. Oddly, I like that he does that with her. My job is to fuss around. He is her rock. He is the only son he has left. She is the last of his immediate family. Their bond is strong. They need each other and are happy to be with one another.
I also celebrate D’s relationship with my mom. T is 90, and she lives with us, too. D & T have become closer every year in our nine years of living together. They grew close organically, very naturally. It’s a beautiful relationship. We are lucky. Our moms get along well with each other, and D and my relationship has become unexpectedly more robust since our moms live with us. So, on this Mother’s Day, we have much to celebrate. It’s a true blessing.
On this Mother’s Day morning, we started with a full English breakfast for P and D and ended with Mom and me making mandoo (Korean wontons) by hand all afternoon. D, Mom, and I had mandoo for dinner, and P had roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy—one of her many favourite things. It’s a good Mother’s Day.
