Day 2,225 in the Nanny June Care Home

The one with the Mothers Day that wasn’t. Again.

I asked the Mini Morries to plan my Mother’s Day. What did a good Mothers Day for their mummy look like to them?

This could go either way.

But it went this way:

Breakfast in bed

A Caterpillar Cake

Visit Nanny June

More cake

A Chinese.

The Mini Morries said I should visit Nanny June “because even if she doesn’t recognise me, she is my mummy and I should respect that”. They are so right.

What they don't know is how intolerant of me Nanny June is now. Getting ignored and hated on by my mum on my own Mothers Day is a mixed blessing because Nanny June turns 93 this year and I doubt we have many more left to go. Also thanks to Covid I couldn’t see her on the last Mother’s Day when she would have known who I was. So maybe the one before that was actually our last one.

I always buy a card, and flowers and even sent them all through lockdown.

For Mothers Day last year (2022) I had tested positive for Covid. This year I had to take another one - so here's to new traditions. This year my husband tested positive the night before Mothers Day. But while there are no screenings or rules in place anymore - what fool would take the risk of infecting a whole care home.

My name isn’t Matt Hancock.

And I am angry.

But even when I am angry and disappointed and sad, I am still loved.

The Mini Morries are awesome. I would never have thought myself strong enough to be pregnant, have babies and raise them while both my own parents lost the capability to live independently and went into care.

The Mini Morries walked that journey with me. They knew the inside of hospitals, care homes, meetings with multi disciplinary care teams, nurses, social workers… I remember breast feeding in one meeting with a number of the hospital staff, a social worker, a consultant, a DOLLS assessor and having to argue my case why Nanny June couldn’t be discharged into my care.

Three children under five (including a three month old baby) were not a good enough reason and social services were being no help.

Nanny June couldn’t go home as she was finally deemed a risk to herself and others. Even with a care package. Social Services couldn’t offer a care home that offered the right care. So she had to go home to me. No other option. I refused.

Stalemate.

Until we had a letter from the local health board declaring that I was being taken to court to be charged with abandonment of a vulnerable adult. I still wouldn’t take her home (I was going in and seeing her every week and doing her laundry but sadly, she could not come and live with me).

Then magically social services found somewhere. What we now have as the Nanny June Care Home.

This has been an extraordinarily difficult journey and sympathy or pity is not required. Because dementia is what it is. For now. And that’s not all. Support services are ironically named. Society hides from vulnerable people. The government fails them.

Sometimes love is a card and presents.

Sometimes love is standing up to a faceless wall of services who are there to help but don’t. No money. No resources. No capacity.

Sometimes love is holding someones hand while they die.

Sometimes love is just being there. Regardless of how much you can (in reality) say or do.

I know I don’t walk it alone though. Thank you to all of you lovely people who ask after Nanny June and follow her story and grieve with me for the person you remember her being and not the person she is now.

Her legacy is me.

My legacy will be the Mini Morries.

And hopefully also communicating on a public platform that I understand that for some of you lovely people out there that having a mum isn’t always easy.

Losing a mum isn’t always easy.

And sometimes being a mum isn’t always easy.

But you are always loved.