Day 3,762 in the Nanny June Care Home

The one with the big feelings.

Nanny June is not happy when I get there. As usual.

I sing a full chorus of happy birthday and don’t care who hears me.

Nanny June isn’t impressed. Big 'leave me alone' vibes.

She wants to get up and get away. The card and flowers receive an unimpressed response. The chocolates are slightly more well recieved.

I chose Maltesers because:

1. they don’t need unwrapping,

2. they would be tricky to choke on

3. the box is bright red and obvious to see.

I open the box and Nanny June takes one suspiciously. Then she is getting up and going because she is done with me. While she makes a bid for freedom I chat to the lady I met last time and we exchange the very socially conditioned pleasantries we all learn. Then the staff speak to her in welsh. So with my very basic welsh I say good bye and respond with very good when she tells me where she is going.

Nanny June tries to shake me off while we relocate to another part of the home but realising she can’t outrun me, Nanny June picks a place to stop and awkwardly manoeuvres herself into a chair, but can’t quite get the hang of moving her body parts in the right order and finds herself facing the chair rather than backing into it. Would she like my help? No she would not. Can I help at all? No I cannot.

Finally seated we find ourselves right next to another visitor, (possibly the only other one in the entire home but typically we have to sit right next to them). The other visitor and I also exchange socially conditioned pleasantries just as if we were in a cafe… are you okay there? Shall I just move this way? Chairs shuffle, people apologise and we all settle down. But there’s no chatter. No happy smiles.

My mum stares into space in front of her.

His wife stares into space in front of him.

Our one sided conversations with the people we love are miserably hard work, so we start a conversation with each other.

Straight into talking about how hard it all is. How unfair it all is. How this just gets worse with time, never better. Conversations you don’t normally have with strangers. But he knows Nanny June from his visits to the home, pre Covid. I remember his wife, I remember her pre Covid too. Actually, I remember meeting her for the first time. She held my hand and connected with me but never said a word. I forgot to relay this story to her husband. I am really annoyed that I didn’t mention it. He would love to know I saw her when she had a moment of being her. I tell him my dad was here before my mum, that I have been visiting this care home for six or seven years. That my dad died here. We talk about the plans he has when his wife dies. He talks about their journey into care. I talk about ours. The whole conversation is brutally honest. But he says it was a blessing to meet me. Because I get it. I know nothing can make it better. I know we don’t need platitudes.

Nanny June tunes into some of the conversation, making sad noises when I say my dad died. But there is nothing from her otherwise.

The other visitor leaves and wishes Nanny June happy birthday. She smiles back. Actually smiles!

Over half an hour has passed, and Nanny June has not tried to get away from me. Maybe because I was talking to someone else. Maybe because she was preoccupied by slowly demolishing the large box of Maltesers. This is the longest she has tolerated my company for a while. I ask if I can have a chocolate? No. Can I give her a birthday hug? No.

I talk about me, my siblings, my mum. And because eating Maltesers is worth sitting still for, for the first time in a long time - Nanny June engages with me in conversation. But the conversation is like a secret language between her and me. There are words missing, facial expressions to read, wrong words in the wrong place, big pauses.

"Are you…. when? Was I good? What…. are you? Who am I? When were you? Where do you live? Near? Was I?"

I am her baby she had, she is my mum. This is unbelievable news to Nanny June. This middle aged women in front of her was the baby? Then like when the sun breaks through on a cloudy day, we get a moment. There are connections firing in her brain, I can see them. More like a little old petrol mower trying to start on a damp day rather than a fantastical display of fireworks but there is definitely something trying to happen.

She has this incomplete realisation that this half truth being spouted by a near stranger must have some sort of something to do with her. A daughter, a birthday, a mum, chocolates. A daughter, a birthday, a mum, chocolates. As she is the one eating the chocolate it must be her birthday and if I am wishing my mum happy birthday then she must be…

Pennies aren’t dropping but they are moving around like those arcade machines where shelves of coins overlap each other and threaten to drop but mostly don’t and you keep adding pennies in the hope you can push some of the older ones over the edge.

I ask if I can give her a birthday hug. And this time I get a yes! For the first time in over two years I get to hug my mum. She is smaller and more old person-y but she is my mum. She feels like my mum. Sort of smells like my mum. I know this might be the last hug I get permission for and not to be taken from granted so I hold her for too long and she pats me on the back.

Then she wants me to let go so I let go.

We go back over the basics. There’s a mother, a daughter, a birthday and some chocolate. A daughter, a birthday, a mum, chocolates. As she is the one eating the chocolate it must be her birthday and if I am wishing my mum happy birthday then she must be…

I am crying and she sees. She stops eating Maltesers and shows sympathy that I am sad.

"Why? What for? Is this?…"

Then I tell her I love her and it is her birthday.

That I love her even though she doesn’t remember me.

That she is still my mum even if she doesn’t know that.

That she doesn’t need to remember me for me to love her.

That I am here because it is her birthday.

I am crying properly now. There is snot. Tears. My mascara starts to run. I have to wipe my nose on my cardigan sleeve and check my face in my phone.

A member of staff comes and discreetly sits a few seats away.

I ask Nanny June if I can hug her again. Out of sympathy and concern Nanny June says yes. It’s big feeling to hug my mum when I am crying. I have no mum who can hug me when I cry now. I haven’t had for a long time. But she hugs me and says “two hands” and without dropping the box of Maltesers off her lap (priorities) she pats me on the back with two hands. So I not only get to hug her but get a hug back. I ask if I can give her a kiss and she says yes. So I kiss her old lady cheek and something in me breaks. I have not kissed her for years. We aren’t a very kissy family, but what is it because of Covid, almost thirty months? I kiss her on the forehead and she says “ohhhh” (in a nice way) so I kiss her about ten more times on the forehand and she laughs.

This is the first day Nanny June would have experienced significant loving affection and touch in over two years. The whole Covid experience has been dehumanising and damaging for people in care and I know that the government will never be held accountable for what they have done.

When I sit down she has tears in her eyes.

I am crying. Nanny June is crying. There are some big feelings going on. That neither of us can really manage.

But I have to go, it is school run time. I have to say goodbye and leave her to what is left of the Maltesers.

I get up out of the chair and immediately the nearby member of staff gets up and sits with Nanny June. Checks in with her if she is okay. “Is that your daughter?” she asks.

“No” says Nanny June as I walk away.