Last Conversations With My Mother

Despite the deterioration of her mind and memory, the essence of her mother’s selfless spirit remained right until the end, recalls writer Christabel Smith...

- Christabel Smith

No matter your age, it comes as a seismic shock when your mother loses her mind. Twelve years ago, my 80-year-old mom – gracious, selfless, clean-living – phoned me, of her head.

She was in the hospital, due to having a hip replacement the following day. “They’ve given me morphine,” she boomed down the line. “It’s absolutely marvelous!”

Then, she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “All the nurses are spies, so I can’t talk.” With that, she hung up. “I wouldn’t mind some of what she’s having,” I thought, reeling. Soon after coming round from surgery, my mom called again. “Bonjour,” she breezed. “Parlez-vous français?”

“Er, no,” I managed. “Pardon.” This made her laugh uproariously. Later that day, I bumped into a doctor friend. My brow must still have been zigzagged with concern because she immediately asked me what was up.

When I explained about the bizarre conversations, she told me the mix of pain, shock, drugs, anesthetic, and infection often triggers dementia symptoms in elderly people. “It’s unlikely to be permanent,” she reassured me. Sure enough, back home, my mother was herself again. She remembered nothing about the resurrected language skills or the double agents on the ward.

Over the following years, a bad fall and an emergency hernia op brought a return to her erratic mental state. That passed with time, but as with any storm, the landscape was never quite the same.

At 85, she finally conceded the time was right to move into a care home. She soon settled in her pretty garden room, surrounded by her most precious possessions, and thoroughly enjoyed meeting new people, as well as the social program on offer – yoga, music, even cocktail night on a Tuesday.