Lisa Battye blogs

It’s tomorrow, 2pm. Mum’s 90th Birthday party. All of us will meet by Zoom, from here within her room, where I have been quarantined alongside Mum since Wednesday. I could not leave her in the lock-down they imposed – no visiting. Since then I’ve seen her settle, and become less frightenend in this new, unwelcome place.

And I’m more settled, too. I realise afresh how kindly God has treated me.

The thought of ‘Putting Mum in a Home’ ashames me still. I’ve heard of people feeling guilt like this. Surely I should take her home to mine, where I can nurse my Mother? Even worse – knowing I’m nurse-trained – if anyone can care for their own mother in such need, surely, surely I am that one? I’ve long nursed the expectation that one day she’d end her life with me. Knowing that I’d find her moving in, my full responsibility, ‘too much’ has hurt. I have been feeling such a wimp. OK, it might be ‘wise’ to delegate her care, but tell me, really, what IS ‘wise’? There must be more important things than ‘wise’.

So, what is this I’ve come to see today – that somehow, out of nowhere, God has intervened, and given me a precious opportunity to care for Mum, within this Home, for this short period. How startling! Coronavirus engineered it, but God knew what I needed, to be comforted.

Even the detail’s falling into place with kindness. Sleeping on a mattress on the floor beside her bed – well, yes, it smells. But now it will smell sweet because today her birthday flowers came and filled the room with love.

Who is this God who treats us with such tenderness?

Furthermore tonight I saw at last the truth. This isn’t yet the end. For Mum, or me. She has descended into something deadening, but this dementia is not that death, merely another kind of ending. From eating nothing, drinking very little, she has changed, and now does both on autopilot. Please God, as she closes down, be kind to her. This is the horror she most feared. Be kind to her.

And as I pray I know the next thing I must do. I must leave her here. She will not be left alone. She’s in God’s hands, and in the care of these amazing nurses. Two more days. After her Party we will celebrate Mothering Sunday. Then I will go home.

Nurses were packing Mum’s few things away as I arrived – Mum’s transfer from the ward to the Nursing Home for End of Life care was cancelled, I’d been told, and so had hurried in to comfort Mum – but there they were, preparing her for transport.

“Quickly!” they say. “The Home are closing down to all new admissions, but tell us if we get her there before mid-day they’ll take her, as they promised to”. Soon we’re hastening through the hosptial – the cheerful paramedics taking Mum, planning the onward journey with me, rapidly.

Now I’m driving off before the ambulance, leading the way. My heart is leaden, but I’m driving well. Extra well. It feels as though my driving has to be, well, perfect. Not a mile per hour too fast, no riding of the clutch… I’m leading Mum to her last resting place. And driving very well. As if it matters. As if it helps the road stay smooth, stopping it from causing Mum to jolt and feel the pain she feels on being moved.

My mind plays tricks on me: One moment I am Miriam, leading the way… leading the precious, precious people of the Lord from Egypt to the promised land. Next I’m sitting, as I’ve so often done, in the hearse, beside the Funeral Director, in front of a line of slowly-moving cars snaking their way between the Church and Crematorium.

‘This is her final journey in this life’ I think aloud, with some relief, except for the underlying dread that maybe, ere she passes, some kind soul will yet again send her into hospital, where she doesn’t want to be, for some perfectly reasonable reason, except that now it isn’t reasonable. I determine to insist the nurses in the Home obey her Living Will, and let her be – and die – in peace.

It’s strange seeing her dressed again, after so many weeks.

When we arrive the room they let us in, but the room is not ready. Handymen are called to build the bed within the room. “Tell them to hurry” says my Mum as she lies and we stand in the corridor and wait.

I busy myself with putting pictures out, emptying the bags I left there yesterday. Letting the paramedics roll her into bed, with difficulty. Taking her picture, when she’s there, and tries to smile.

Cleaning staff are coming in to say ‘hello’, and offer things. A cup of tea appears, but then,

“It’s not OK! How can you say it’s OK!”

Mum’s shouting at the nurse who’s come to sit her up a bit, and tell her everything will be OK. The startled woman goes away and I begin (quietly, so they do not hear): “Mum, there is a minimum they have to do to help you drink, and keep you clean. But do be sure, they’ll get to know what hurts, and they will try to stop the pain.” She doesn’t look convinced, but doesn’t shout again.

There have been times when the Lord’s Prayer rattled off my lips, but not today. We say it together, slowly, line by line, until the only voice is Mum’s, for I am filling up again and cannot speak.

Will she be OK tonight? Will she suffer?

And, as I look back and take another photo – is it really true that I am going now?

Mum was calm tonight. Still in the side-ward. They’ve cured the pneumonia, and the gross distress and wild confusion. Caused by constipation – the bane of nursing everywhere.

Mum is lying on a magic bed that really does prevent the scourge of pressure sores. The nurses visit regularly, offering food and drink, tablets and smiles. She’s not sure where she is. She’s trying to get out of bed but can’t.

The doctor wants to see me tomorrow. There is no more they can do. The physios have been again and Mum is not responding. We must think of what comes next for full-time care.

Mum smiles at me and finally I know what’s happened here: the NHS has bought us time – this time, with her and me together, quietly. Time for me to explain what has been happening, and why, and then to ask my Mum ‘What next? What do you want?’

Of course she doesn’t know. And doesn’t mind. She is amazed to learn the Chaplain prayed for her, barely a week ago. ‘How awful’ she says, and, strangely, ‘This has been hard on you’, and I fill up, because it has.

She hasn’t eaten any of her meal, and the sips of luke-warm tea I’m giving her are not enough. ‘You know you’re near the end of life?’ I say, and she says ‘Mmm’, and ‘What a pity’ but is not distressed.

She’s been looking at the big family photo on the wall. I get it down. We identify each person in the picture, every grandchild… everyone is there. We speak of her 90th birthday in three weeks…. ‘Far too old’, she says. ‘Ridiculous’.

‘Who’s missing ?’ she says, several times, looking at the picture, until I realise … she’s thinking of my step-dad, long deceased.

We talk of heaven and I ask her ‘Are you ready?’ ‘What?’ she says. ‘To meet them?’ I reply. ‘All of them. The other ones – who’ve gone before. Your Mum and Dad. Your man, whom you have loved and who loved you. You know! Even the ones you didn’t like? Have you forgiven every one? Be free of all regrets before you go. Let it be a sweet homecoming, Mum.’ She turns to look at me and nods and smiles. ‘How wonderful!’ she says.

You’re needing ‘full-time care now’, I’m impelled to say. ‘We have to say goodbye to where you were, and find you somewhere else, for care. Do you trust us to get it right Mum? Maybe you could come to my house, with a lot of help, or maybe we can take you to a Nursing Home we like’. ‘Of course I trust you’ she replies. ‘I’m doing nothing here’ she volunteers, ‘It’s just a waste of time.’ But there is nothing that she wants, or can think of doing with her time.

So we speak instead of ‘being’ – being like a little child, whose present purpose simply IS to ‘be’ – and of the ‘being’ of life – when there is finally time to stop doing and be simply close to God. When life is truly spiritual.

Mum understands. ‘How wonderful!’ she says again, and really smiles, and looks at me again. ‘You are a sweetie, you know’, she says. ‘I do love you’. And then, ‘I think you need to go to bed’, and I agree.

On the bus returning home the ache between my shoulder blades grows worse. I think of nothing but my hurting knees. I feel like eating chocolate, then decide to write instead, when I get home. I should remember this.

What a difference a day can make.

My Mum responds to treatment and improves. She’s had a good night. She looks at my sister, who has come up from London urgently, and opens her eyes again. And smiles.

What is this thing called love, that causes strangers to pull together, and build hospitals, and take care of people in extremity, and is seen in the kind words of friends who reach out to hold us when we’re shaking, and opens the eyes of a poorly old lady when her daughter comes?

My Mum is waking up. I’ve seen her smile. She’s spoken to me. No, not well, but no longer fading, in such fierce distress. I feel myself recovering.

I can’t even find how to add a picture of my Mum to this blog and yet the wish to write about what is happening to her and how I feel about it all feels almost overwhelming.

They called me in today to the hospital ward because her life signs were failing and it took me three hours to get to her bedside.

I went first to the morning prayer meeting… Why would it seem so important to go there, rather than straight to her bedside? And then, when I arrived at the hospital, why could I not find the ward, and instead ended up first in the chaplain’s office, asking if he would go and give my Mum the last rites, sometime, please?

Did I not want to know if she had died or not? Is it possible to stop someone from dying by not knowing if they are?

This evening I am calmer. She was still unresponsive when I went, but they were giving intravenous fluids and strong antibiotics, and oxygen, and she looked better than yesterday, as if the hospital-acquired chest infection was receeding, and she might recover. She’s quite tough.

The roller-coaster of emotions started to hold breath. I did not know that it was like this – the sense of dread.

Is my mother dying? I don’t yet know if it will be tonight, or if her body will endure for years beyond her clouding mind. Yes, death will come, and because of her age it will probably come sooner rather than later.

May God bless her. She is the one who gave me birth, and did her best for me. I don’t want her to die.

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I have been encouraged not to worry about how my blog looks, whether I’ve got a name for it yet, or even if I am feeling overwhelmed. And to tell why I am here.

I am here because I have things to say. For most of my life I think I have been content to speak through the many means at my disposal but of late I have been yearning to say more. I preach (as in my current parish of St James and Emmanuel, Didsbury, Manchester), speak (in every kind of group from the three-somes of prayer ministry to the General Synod of the C of E) and write (articles, reflections, theses, chapters and letters to people across the world with whom I share an interest). And yet it’s not enough. I feel as though there is still more to say. I want to tell my story, too.

Perhaps this has something to do with growing older: I am 64. I think the Beatles knew a thing or two when they sang about this age. I am also female, married, and mother of four adults of whom I am immensely proud – three boys and a girl. Each one pursuing their own way and delighting their father and me with who they have become.

I have been a priest since 2000, working in Manchester, as curate, rector, area dean, training incumbent, in diocesan roles, inter-faith, and now chaplaincy in an ordination college alongside my half-time parish role. Within the breadth of my denomination I would call myself ‘accepting evangelical’.

Before my ‘call’ in ’92 I was a nurse, midwife, district nurse, geriatric health visitor, multi-level marketing business-woman and property manager.

As to hobbies, well, I like my chess games, scuba-diving, baking bread and craftwork. As to what I love, it’s people, and learning (three masters’ in contemporary theology, a degree in nursing and diploma in post-graduate counselling). As to what makes me sing, it’s family, Israel, the Church, the Hebrew language, France and spending time with Jesus.