Day 3,484 in the Nanny June Care Home

The One When The Phone Doesn't Ring

Nanny June was always one for picking up the phone and (probably due to a lifetime of trauma) was paranoid I was in danger. I went away with friends once to stay in a holiday cottage by the sea in West Wales. The place had absolutely no phone signal. When I finally found a few bars of connectivity my phone alerted me to the numerous answer phone messages all increasing in panic as I failed to respond to each one. My failure to answer created such a fear in Nanny June that she rang the police to report me as missing or in danger. I can’t imagine how she explained to the police that I was 30 and married and on holiday with my husband.

As an adult I would get multiple phone calls in a week or a day, and as the dementia progressed and she lived at home I would receive many phone calls each day. Sometimes just for a chat, sometimes to report that something had broken in the house because she couldn’t get it to work, sometimes to complain about the neighbours ‘spying’ on her or the local children targeting her house by playing outside.

Typically of her generation Nanny June relied on the police and doctors as the saving grace. Both received plenty of attention via phone from Nanny June as the dementia took more and more of a hold. Especially as Nanny June became convinced she had been burgled on numerous occasions. I had more than one phone call from the amazing local police officers to ask if I would come and sit with her because she was so distressed. I do not live locally but made the round trip to be with her as she sat tearful and traumatised, feeling robbed and violated watching her cast her arm theatrically around her indicating a fully furnished bungalow with everything she possessed in its rightful place saying “they have taken it all, everything. I have nothing left”. In her mind she was sat in an empty room, alone with nothing left around her.

I often think back to that moment. Sitting next to her feeling helpless. The hopelessness radiating from her body and soul at being burgled and having nothing left. The hopelessness in my heart that this was what was left of Nanny June. Both of us crying for different reasons.

Then the regional command office for the local police force rang a week or so later asking that I stop her calling the police.

Then the woman at the other end of the emergency pull cord also contacted me to ask if I could stop Nanny June pulling the emergency cord and alerting her of a problem. It was becoming a nuisance.

Then I spoke to her GP the same week and he was about the rudest he could have been.

During that time I also spoke to British Gas, because dementia issues and gas cookers have potentially quite dangerous and explosive outcomes. The kindness and even gentleness with which British Gas dealt with my call was exceptional. I cried when I came off the phone.

Until Covid hit I was still able to lever in my woes to my conversations with Nanny June. Catching glimpses of her wisdom or instinct. And I wish she could tell me what to do sometimes when life gets hard and reassure me that this will all be okay. Or to tell me to cheer up because things will get better. Or to side with me that yes I am in the right. The silence now is just overwhelming.

Last time I went to see her the effort of preparing for my visit was just too much and she slept in her wheelchair, head lowered, ever shrinking body wrapped snugly in care home blankets, eyelids struggling to open while I called her name from the issues two meters distance away and felt like we would never connect again.

I just want her to know I still care.

What do you even do when your parents (or whoever you turn to in tough times) aren’t there for you anymore? How does each generation deal with the death of the one that went before? How are we not equipped to deal with this?

Maybe I should give British Gas a call again.

I read this lovely little piece of writing on Twitter.

Home is a house.

Unless it's an apartment.

Or it’s a tent, or a car, or a boat, or a city, or a country, or a planet rapidly fading from view.

Or perhaps it's a hand you used to hold.

Maybe it's just a hole in you that you're sure you could fill, if only you could go backwards.

(c) Jesse Stanchak, the creator of the highly successful Twitter account @MicroFlashFic,