Day 3,400 in The Nanny June Care Home

The One With The Ninetieth Birthday Party

This week Nanny June turned 90.

The care home made a very impressive cake and held a tea party in her honour. I took my balloons and we met outside in the Summer House for thirty five minutes. As we parted Nanny June finally recalled who I am. It was time to go and I apologised for not coming near her while we said goodbye to each other.

“But we love you lots and I can blow you a kiss! Did you catch it?” I said.

Then a pause and she pointed at me and said: “That lady is my baby!”

But what wonderful memories you have though, people say.

But no.

There are not yet any special memories in a gilt edged, carved wooden box playing You Are My Sunshine when opened. These lovely, rose tinted memories which form the basic underpinning needs of life and are so much taken for granted - unless you don't have them.

The memories we make now do not get filed under: Lovely. They get filed under: Error 404 Page Not Found. For her the memories are password protected with no password and for me all is left are corrupt files.

And for some time now dementia has been ruining a lifetime of normality and failsafe memories. Expectation vs Reality has not been a pleasant experience. What life had taught me to expect didn't work.

Because the last ten years have been hard work. Because phone calls got nasty. The washing machine sat with wet clothes in for a week. The sanctity of a coffee shop became the cause of a panic attack. A roast dinner became a meal of raw chicken and burnt potatoes.

Dementia doesn't take you from what you know to what you don't overnight, because it isn't a bridge or a portal. It is the same road you have travelled every day. The daily commute where the odd change goes unnoticed each day until the route is almost unrecognisable. Until one day it is full of the unfamiliar and everyone knows the way except you.

So I can't say "remember the route we used to travel?... how lovely that was", because right now we are still in a wilderness where we can't orientate ourselves or get home. I can't reminisce because it isn't the right time to look back. Eyes are firmly forward, forcing myself to walk through the last part of the journey with Nanny June, even though it is a struggle. I try and point out landmarks of her life that she can use to find her way... such as being bombed out of her house, being widowed or having babies - but it's all got very foggy and unreliable. There are no landmarks anymore, just a very occasional sense that this was once familiar territory even if now it has been decimated to some sort of apocalyptic landscape.

One day, when this painful journey takes us to the end and everything stops being so raw and awful, I will go and open the files and enjoy what has been kept and not corrupted. Then maybe these will be a kept in a gilt edged, carved wooden box and the tinkly notes of You Are My Sunshine will fill the air.