In Your Dreams

Today

Last night I dreamt about Mamma. I dreamt that she was in a nursing home in Bexhill. She looked so well and beautiful that I couldn't work out why she was in a nursing home at all.

I also couldn't understand why nobody had told me she was there. I railed at my brother David for not telling me. When he protested that he had, I replied that that was impossible; otherwise I'd have been writing to and visiting her all the time.

I have a variant on this dream from time to time.

In My Day

Mamma did actually spend a little time in a nursing home and, curiously, it was I that arranged it. In late 1980 or very early 1981 she had been having treatment for the hole in the lining of her lungs. Litre after litre of fluid had been drained, but as long as the lining was damaged the fluid kept on appearing. So she received treatment to patch it up.

Eventually the hospital was ready to discharge her and it didn't seem quite right that Mamma should just go home alone to the bungalow at Dorking while she convalesced. I don't know why it was decided that she come to Eastbourne, rather than to the more spacious homes occupied by my brothers in London. Maybe it was her choice.

But equally, I couldn't accommodate someone who needed the kind of care that Mamma did in my tiny house. So I trailed around Eastbourne trying to find an establishment that suited my otherwise independent mother's needs. Eventually I found a place that didn't smell of wee and seemed to offer sufficient privacy and respect and Mamma went in, somewhat dubiously.

I told my doctor what I'd arranged and one day he popped in to see her. Perhaps he expected a doddery old dear, on her last legs. What he found was a feisty, intelligent woman who now had nothing to do and no reason to get better. "I don't belong here", said my mother. "I agree!" replied Dr Grant. Surrounded by decaying old people, knowing no-one but me, Mamma was in the completely wrong element.

So, we took her back to Dorking and settled her in as well as we could. As it happened she wasn't going to get better anyway, and the lung cancer took her away from us in November 1981.

I miss you very much, Mamma; and feel happy that you looked so beautiful in my dream.