Day 3,904 in the Nanny June Care Home

The one when June met Jack.

Thanks to everyone who asks after Nanny June.

Sometimes I have an answer, sometimes it’s awkward. I don’t look forward to the visits anymore. I don’t have them as part of my routine. They stopped being the touchpoint they once were some time ago. I used to think I was helping jumpstart a couple of the dormant synapses and recover something lost. But not anymore. So my answer now is that she is doing fine. Physically quite strong and mentally still determined but becoming more compliant. In case you have never met her - the words ‘compliant’ and ‘June’ have never been used in the same sentence throughout her life until now. For her caregivers compliance is a good thing but for me it marks a deterioration and another step into the abyss. She has a social care review by another random social worker tomorrow, this might be social worker number six we are on now. Someone who has never seen Nanny June before with no context of her life or relationship with myself or the care home.

But this visit brought something new. I took Jack our four month old puppy. The care home always had a dog friendly policy and our old labrador Samson used to join us on our visits until he died during lockdown.

Nanny June always had dogs. From the less than always friendly poodle called Pepe Miss Muffet of Toytown (I kid you not), to Peter a golden retriever, and the legendary black Labrador Dumble(dor) named well before the Harry Potter series so JK Rowling owes us for that, to the black lab x called Bella bought for a fiver through a newspaper ad - Nanny June always was (and is) a dog person. So taking a dog is a genuine pleasure for Nanny June. She said Jack is “Gorgeous. Just Gorgeous.” And that’s about all she said.

Nanny June sat for a while with Jack before switching into walk mode. She has become one of the residents that walk around all day aimlessly. I remember seeing them when Nanny June first moved in. Pitying them and their focused efforts to go somewhere, just anywhere from where they are. It’s like a genuine science fiction film when the brains of innocents are taken over by an invading species and something in the suddenly changes, their eyes glaze over and they become something else and unable to engage with the world around them. It was either dementia or the Easter Egg I opened for her because it was still sat on the side five months later.

Navigating the care home corridors with a puppy and an infirm elderly person with a walker should have had some sort of risk assessment. Then add in another infirm elderly person with a walker and it was time to make our excuses to leave. We had the potential to cause enough damage in five minutes to need a couple of ambulances, the police, social services a vet and possibly a hearse.

Today also marked the first time I have never had even a moment of recognition from Nanny June. I thought it would feel dramatic but it doesn’t. It feels inevitable. Each moment of growing distance has been catalogued here. I feel a bit fainter maybe. Like a photograph left in the sunlight. Also feeling slightly less rooted in reality. Like I need people to believe in me for me to be there. So many of our very early memories aren’t easily recalled without a prompt. Some memories I have of me have never even belonged to me. Does everyone feel like this when they lose parents? Why do they take part of you with them when they go? So who am I grieving the increasing loss of then? Nanny June or myself. Am I actually being selfish and trying to preserve whatever is left of me when she goes.

The irrepressible hope inside of me that this wouldn’t even happen should have died today. But it didn’t. It died sometime in January 2017 in the side room of hospital ward when my mum complained it had been a while since she saw me - “oh no” I explained, “you saw me a few days ago. I see you every few days. Once a week at least”. She replied in the voice of someone who is discovering bad news “but I forgot”. “Yes”, I said. “But don’t worry I’ll still keep coming”.

Then I think we had one or the very lowest points in our journey as she realised she had dementia - “So I won’t remember this either?”

“No”, I confirmed - “you won’t”.

And she didn’t.

And today she didn’t remember me either.