A Little Bit Of Love

Jane Hardy’s mother was in a care home, but living with her daughter has transformed her

- Jane Hardy, Rachel Halliwell

This morning, I took my mum out in her wheelchair for our daily walk, and we got chatting with a passing dog walker. ‘What a beautiful dog, what kind is it?’ my mum Beth asked, before telling this chap about the many pets she’d owned over the years.

Five minutes later, we went our separate ways, that friendly dog walker no doubt oblivious to the fact he’d just been chatting to someone with dementia.

Indeed, were anyone to visit my home, I doubt they’d realise the old lady helping me fold laundry, chatting about a story she’d just read in the newspaper or dictating where in the garden I place the plants she’d picked out at the garden centre, had been diagnosed with this horrible disease at all. How different Mum, who’s 94, is today compared to four years ago, when she was in a care home and declining rapidly. Back then, she’d lost the ability to read and write, had been put in nappies, and wouldn’t have known what to do with the tea towels she now carefully folds into neat squares.

Maintaining dignity

In the home, she was spoken to kindly, but as though she was a baby, rather than the intelligent woman she really is. Certainly, no one had time to discuss the day’s news reports with her – although, back then, she wasn’t interested in them herself.

I couldn’t bear to think that was how the end of Mum’s life was going to play out – and so, after just a couple of weeks, I started making arrangements for her to come and live with me.