A Walk in the Rain

One thing I forgot to do yesterday was get a photo of my siblings and me together. There might not be too many more chances to do this, as we all live in different parts of the country. Fortunately I got a chance today:

Taken after we had completed a very important task together, scattering the ashes of both of our parents in a beautiful and peaceful place.

Flowers for the Service

 This morning I cut some daffodils and leucadendrons from our garden and put them in the car,

It seemed like a lot at the time, but I probably should have cut more. Then I collected some proteas and banksias that I'd ordered from a florist (forgot to photograph that stage). I had wanted waratahs, which were my mother's favourite flowers, but it is a bit early in the year for them.

Then I took them all to the church and put them in vases:

Probably should have trimmed those banksias down a bit more than I did. Their stems were very difficult to cut through though.

I think the vases looked better in real life than they do in the photos, but I can't be sure. And probably most of the people who attended this afternoon's memorial service for my mother didn't even notice the flowers.

The church also provided an arrangement:

Which I got to bring home with me.

As for how the service went? I guess it went OK. There were tears and hugs and not enough voices to carry the hymns and too much food left over at the end. And I'm glad it is over.

Vale

On 31st July my mother left this world as I sat beside her stitching and a CD of hymns played quietly. 

Here is one of the earliest photos on my blog, from 2009, on her 81st birthday:

I gave Mum the waratahs because they are the state flower of New South Wales, where she was born and raised.

I have had this post open on my computer for a week now, adding words and then deleting them, wondering what photos to add, which words. But this is it

Vale, farewell, my mother.

Not Yet an Orphan

On the 2nd of this month, my mother's nursing home rang me to discuss her situation. She seemed to be fading away, and they considered her to be on an "end of life pathway". She was not responding to people, not eating, and not drinking much. My father died in May last year, and it seemed Mum was going to do the same this May.

My sister had not been able to visit Mum for 6 months, but as Mum was dying the visitors vaccination requirement was waived. So she has been to visit a few times, which maybe is why Mum is still with us. Seeing her other daughter again seemed to perk her up quite a bit. 

This is the Ukrainian bookmark I started cross-stitching last month. I take it with me when I go to visit Mum, and if she is sleeping or unresponsive, I sit quietly and stitch for a while.

There is a covid outbreak at the nursing home, with about 15 of the residents testing positive over the last couple of weeks. None have been seriously ill so far, probably because they were all vaccinated. But the fact that it has spread at all is a worry. It seems to point to lapses in infection control procedures. If Mum catches it, the outcome is unlikely to be good, given her general frailty and lack of vaccination.

Another issue is that my sister is moving interstate next week, so will no longer be around to help lift Mum's spirits.

There are good days and bad days. On Friday (my birthday) Mum recognised me and spoke to me, and didn't at all seem like she was about to drop off the perch. Yesterday she was completely unresponsive to me and everyone else, until a nurse who has been away for a few weeks came in. He got a "Hello" and a smile!

She is keeping us guessing, but with under six hours to go, it looks like she has made it to the end of May.

Getting Together

A week ago Mum's nursing home closed the doors to visitors because there were some residents who were unwell. Not with covid, with gastro. Each day they sent out reports about how the residents were recovering, and no more were getting sick, but the home still remained closed to visitors.  It was particularly upsetting because my niece who lives interstate was coming here for the first time in nearly a year, arriving on Friday afternoon and leaving today. I had planned to take her to visit her grandmother on Friday. But with the home remaining closed it looked like Mum was going to miss out on seeing her granddaughter.

Fortunately some sense prevailed, and this morning this happened:

That is the biggest smile I have seen on my mother for two years. Her face just lit up when she saw her granddaughter. She was so happy!

It was extra hard when it was time to leave though. There is still no news on when visits will be allowed again. It feels crazy because no-one in my mother's section, or even on the same floor, was sick. You might notice in the photo that we had to meet in the library, we were not allowed in Mum's room. I'm not sure what difference that made, but I didn't care, just so long as Mum got the chance to see a grandchild she hasn't seen for so long.

Such an emotional morning.

Back in the sewing room I have now assembled half the blocks from the Quilt-Addicts Evolution quilt kit:

Plus I have been going through my pink scraps, preparing to make some hearts and leaf blocks for the RSC. No blocks made yet.
 

Hospital Visit

 This is the intimidating door to the ward where Mum is:

Despite Mum having a negative covid test on Thursday, and another one on Friday, she is in the covid ward because that's where all new admissions go! When the hospital is certain the patient is free of covid, and a bed is available, the patient is moved to a regular ward. But apparently Mum is one of 3 covid-free patients in the covid ward waiting to be transferred. It is the same ward Dad was in in April, and he was never transferred out as he was too unwell to be moved. At that time there were no covid cases in the hospital. 

Now there are.

It is a bit scary to know that my 93-year-old unvaccinated (her choice) mother is in the same ward as actual covid cases. 

The view from Mum's room is much the same as the view was from Dad's.  The difference is in the seasons. Then we had grey sky and autumn leaves, now we have blue sky and fresh green spring leaves:

I'm not sure about the view inside the room. I was very worried about what I would be faced with, but in some ways it was not as bad as I had anticipated. Mum was lucid, recognised me, and knew what day it was. I was able to spend a couple of hours with her, including feeding her her lunch. Her fever is gone, as she is on IV antibiotics, but she is not well. 

I am not going to be allowed to visit her again in this ward. If she is transferred to another part of the hospital, I may be allowed to come and visit for care-giving reasons, such as feeding her.

This is the first mobile phone selfie I have ever taken. And possibly the last!

Challenging Times

On Thursday night I had another call from the nursing home, wanting to send Mum to hospital because of her fever. By that time I had had a chance to talk to my sister, and we both agreed that Mum should be left where she was. If she was dying it was better for her to be in a familiar place with people she knows caring for her. So I told the nurse to leave Mum there, and I would come and see her in the morning.

As I was getting ready to visit on Friday morning, I got another call from the nursing home to say that they had just sent Mum to hospital. 

After many phonecalls that just rang out, I eventually spoke to someone in Emergency. Mum was being attended to, but I was not allowed to go and sit with her, as they were awaiting the results of another covid test. (The nursing home had given her one on Thursday because of her elevated temperature.)

Later, Mum was admitted to the hospital, where no visiting is allowed at all. That is part of why I hadn't wanted her to be sent there.

I spent a bit of time soothing my mind this afternoon working on a Christmas placemat challenge that I am meant to have finished by next weekend, but hadn't started.

I got this far today.

Late in the afternoon, I had a call from the hospital to tell me I am allowed a compassionate visit with Mum. I didn't feel up to the drive then, after having had a sleepless night last night, but will go and see her tomorrow.

Empty?

The last few days have been consumed in gathering up the remnants of my parents' lives, emptying out the unit they have lived in since 2007.

Early in this whole process my sister had told me which pieces of furniture she wanted, so those have remained until now. They consisted of two large armchairs, and a kitchen dresser. She had also put aside a couple of boxes of books and other stuff which she might want. On Wednesday, after prompting from me that very few days were left to us to empty the unit, she and her husband came and took away one of the chairs. Her husband decided that they didn't want the dresser because it was a "piece of junk".

Yesterday I met up with the manager of a local op-shop who had helped me clear out all the kitchen cupboards back in June. She took away a large car-load of saleable items, such as clothing, blankets, and unwanted ornaments.

We loaded all the remaining larger bits and pieces into the ute and brought them to our place:

Including the unwanted kitchen dresser:

This morning I washed it all down, then it came inside to live:

I haven't decided yet what I will put in the top section behind the glass doors, but some of my houseplants can call it home, and the cupboards and drawers are useful storage spaces.

 

This afternoon I took (what I would like to be) my last trip to the unit. I packed my car up with the very last of the kipple, and threw into the rubbish bin various things which could not be disposed of otherwise.

I would like to say that the unit is now empty, but there is an armchair and a couple of boxes of books and other stuff that my sister "might want" still inside!

I left her a note which said, "If there are things here that you don't want, could you please dispose of them yourself? I feel like I have done enough."

Morning Coffee

 Today would have been my father's 92nd birthday. I went to see Mum, and look what I found:

 

 

The nursing home has a coffee shop, which has recently re-opened after being shut for over a year due to covid restrictions. And sitting at one of the tables, enjoying their coffees, I found my mother and my sister! So I joined them, and even remembered to get out my camera before my sister had to go back to work.

Memorial

This is a stained-glass window in the church where we held the memorial service for my father this afternoon. It is dedicated to the Welsh miners who built the church in the 1860s.
 

This is also the only photo that I took on the day.

 

Part of the preparation I had to do was a photo slideshow. Here are a couple of the photos I included:

My parents with me:

My parents with my son:

 

I also had to speak about Dad. I wrote out what I was going to say, so that someone else could take over if I was too emotional. But fortunately I made it through to the end.

I think the service went OK. We were lucky that the forecast rain held off and we were able to get Mum to the church and back home again in fine weather. A few people had wanted to attend via zoom, but unfortunately an incorrect password was given, so most of them missed out, including my brother who was in lockdown in Alice Springs. The screen that showed the photos was very dark, so most of the detail of the slideshow I'd carefully assembled couldn't be seen. And as masks are still compulsory indoors, the singing was quite strange!

Most importantly, Mum was happy with the service, and really the whole thing was for her benefit. Dad hadn't wanted a funeral service at all, but the people who are left behind need to do something to mark someone's passing.

Loss

 On the 1st of May, the five crepe myrtles were beautifully autumnal:

A week later those lovely red leaves are gone:

 In May six years ago I lost my two old dogs, and wrote a blog post for each of them to mark the losses.

 

On the 1st of May this year, my father died. It is much harder to write a blog post about this loss.

 

My father was born in July, 1929. His family celebrated his birthday on the 12th, although his birth certificate said he was born on the 13th. He was the youngest of eight children. One sister, who turned 96 last month, survives him.

Mum and Dad married in March 1956:

I posted about their 65th anniversary in March, when it seemed Mum might not be with us for long. Dad dying first was completely unexpected.

Here's a photo I found of them from 11 years ago, on 9th May 2010:

 

They were in their early 80s, and in good health. It is nice to remember them like this.

My relationship with my father was complicated. We had opposite opinions on just about everything. We were not really able to sit and have a conversation. 

 

For his 80th birthday, I made him this quilt:

Photo taken before the binding was quite sewn down. I must have finished it in the car on the way to visit him, as this photo was taken on the morning of 12th July, 2009. Each block is about things that were important to Dad. 

Top left: Snooker layout. The "balls" are appliqued circles. Dad enjoyed snooker, although in recent years in the retirement village he swapped to pool. He played pool every afternoon, and it is what he was doing when he collapsed unconscious on 24th April, as a result of a hemorrhagic stroke.

Top middle: Hard to see here, but it is the badge on a Peugeot 203, Dad's first car.

Top right: A cross, to represent Dad's religious faith.

Middle left: Crosswords. Dad did The Age cryptic crossword daily. In recent years he stopped buying that paper, but someone scanned the puzzle and emailed it to him every day.

Centre block: Royal Australian Air Force. Dad was a member for 22 years. I paper-pieced the kangaroo, then pieced the circular surrounds.

Middle right: Dad was a radio technician, and this is a circuit diagram that I found online and traced onto the fabric with a permanent marker. It is quilted with the letters "QSL", (Wikipedia explanation.)

Bottom left: Essendon football club colours.

Bottom middle: Represents Dad's time in Japan while in the Air Force. The fabric features cherry blossoms, and it is quilted with an outline of the Kintai Bridge in Iwakuni, which opened after reconstruction during his time stationed there.

Bottom right: Dad was a prolific writer of letters to the editor. I have been asked many times, "Are you related to that guy who writes to the paper all the time?"

 

Of course, these were my ideas of what was important to my father; he had no input into it. However I think Dad was happy with it, because he used the lap quilt all the time, all year round. It has only occurred to me now, after all this time, that I never considered dedicating a block to his family. 

View From Another Room

 The photos are not in the order I tried to put them in

but this is the view from my father's hospital room

It is much nicer that the view my mother had last year, because it is on the opposite side of the hospital.

Unfortunately my father cannot enjoy the view. He has been unconscious since he collapsed on Saturday, and he is not going to recover.

Catching Up on March So Far

There has been a bit going on, but I seem to have got out of the blogging habit. Here's a few happenings of the month so far.

The white belladonna lilies opened:

They will probably have faded by the time I do my garden round-up on Monday. This photo was taken on the 5th.
 

We had a field naturalist's outing to Geelong on the 7th. We saw all sorts of fascinating coastal vegetation such as this Grey Samphire (Tecticornia halocnemoides):

Obviously not grey at this time of year. 

And the Grey Mangroves (Avicennia marina):

Also not actually grey.

And lots of water birds:

The 10th March was my parents' 65th wedding anniversary. This is not an event we expected to be celebrating, as earlier in the month my mother was thought to be dying. She doesn't look in great health in this photo:

But it is the first time she had been out of bed and in her wheelchair in over a week. A vaccination team visited her nursing home on the 4th to deliver the first round of the covid vaccine for the residents, but she wasn't offered it as she was too ill. Maybe she will have her first one when the rest of the residents get their second one, if she is still with us.

 

Also on the 10th, we had 8 kookaburras come to visit in the morning:

The chooks are having a tour of the front "lawn", moving to a different part of it each day. The kookaburras are sitting on their temporary fencing.

The chooks weren't impressed that some food was thrown to the kookaburras!

One of my orchids has thrown up a flower spike:

It has flowered in winter/spring in previous years, so this was a surprise. Perhaps being in the shade house has confused it about the time of year.

Another "time of year" confusion:

A bunch of peonies open right now. I had half a dozen buds left in the fridge which I had forgotten about, so here they are, as if it was spring rather than autumn.

And finally, today I basted my WOOFA (working on or finishing a ...) project for this month, my small Frolic that was assembled in March last year.

While I was at it, I pieced a backing for Trail Mix and basted it as well:

It's only been a top since October. It will probably be my WOOFA project for next month.

So that's March so far!

Family

We had my family's Christmas get-together in the back yard of my sister's home. This year my brother joined us as well, so it was a chance to get a photo of parents and siblings all together. The previous time we could do this was nearly five years ago, and it is not likely that there will be many more opportunities.

Not sure exactly what was going on when this photo was taken, but we obviously weren't quite ready for it!

Here are Mum and Dad with some representatives of the next two generations.

In contrast to last year when the day was warm and sunny, today's top was only 15 degrees, with a cool (cold) breeze blowing. Not ideal for sitting outside, but with Mum in a wheelchair now there really wasn't the option to do otherwise.

Remote Visiting

My mother's nursing home have relaxed their visiting restrictions a little bit further, so that now more family members can visit. My sister and one of my nieces went along today, only to discover that grandchildren still aren't allowed (even if they are 27 year old grandchildren).

 

So my sister sat inside with Mum, while my niece and her assistance dog sat outside. I was in Ballarat anyway, so I joined the "outsiders", and we all spoke by phone and waved through the window.

Fun at the Beach

Apologies to my friends in Melbourne. I don't want to make you jealous of our freedom to move around.

But today, Dot:

Jack:

and family members who don't live in Melbourne:

had lunch and a walk along the beach at Ocean Grove. Look how empty the beach is when Melbournians are absent! Well, it was also quite cold.

Residential Care

Today my mother moved into residential care. We were fortunate to find a room available in a place that is still allowing some visits, as most nursing homes are not allowing any visits at all at the moment. My father and I went to have a look at it earlier this week. We couldn't have a full tour, of course, but we could get a bit of an idea of how it works. Even that was a bonus as most homes aren't even allowing family of prospective residents inside.

The facility is divided into separate sections with a homey atmosphere. The kitchen,

 dining

 and lounge areas

look and feel more like a family home than an institution. There are 7 or 8 bedrooms in each "home" section. Mum's room looks out on a bit of garden and the street, so she can watch the world go by.

Mum has always insisted she did not want to go into a nursing home, but really there is no alternative for her now. It is a traumatic time for us all, but I sincerely hope that Mum will be happy here.