Day 786 in the Nanny June Care Home

The one with a Little Chimney and a random duck called Kate.

When someone goes into a care home there is a lot to process practically, as well as emotionally.

The 'going in' to a care home must have a 'coming from' somewhere else. A whole life has to be packed up into bags for the charity shop, bags for the bin, piles for recycling, loads to take to the tip, individual pieces of furniture no one wants (weighed down with memories but worthless) suitcases of clothes for the next phase of the journey, and boxes and boxes and boxes of just STUFF. Some 'stuff' is easy to sort through but others just get left.

It takes a lot of emotional resilience to sort through the possessions of someone else, and deconstruct a life that has been left. If someone you know is in the process of doing this, please, please be very kind to them. It is time consuming and difficult no matter if it is through dementia or death.

Before the dementia, and as the dementia took hold - Nanny June liked to write (and write and write). Stories and poems mostly. I am still sorting through the boxes of writings.

Writing is so personal and I can hear her voice in it so clearly. A voice I never hear now. So her folders of handwritten notes are the very hardest to work through. I'm still getting through them and found this poem about a little chimney. A poem that looks like it was written in two phases, and the ending (although excellent) looks like it was added much later and is clearly not where the poem was heading!

The earliest clues of dementia are so easily missed and seamlessly hidden in everyday life. Looking back this just might have been an early clue.

Enjoy.