It’s already mine.

Bloganuary 2024 Day 4 Prompt – What is the greatest gift someone could give you?

Books, books, books and more books please, and some wine, maybe a bag of Miss Vickies Salt and Vinegar crisps and throw in a couple more books. Oh, while I’m reading and sipping a glass of Malbec with a bowl of crisps on the table in front of me, please take my car to be detailed and for an oil change. How about adding a scented candle? Vanilla is nice.

That’s the easy lighthearted response and it’s true, all those things are a perfect gift for me, but is that bag of goodies the GREATEST gift? 

I asked my sister the question and her immediate response was honesty. The greatest gift someone can give her is to be honest. I asked her again…GREATEST gift? After a few joke answers she was honest with me.

So, in the interests of being honest, the GREATEST gift, for both of us, would be to give us back our Mum. Wow, that was a hard sentence to write and then to read.

In 2021 our mother was diagnosed with dementia and she willingly moved into a supportive living residence. Seven weeks ago she had a fall at the residence that fractured her pelvis and caused her to be hospitalized. She fell again in the hospital and broke her hip, this resulted in her having emergency surgery. Her decline in the last several weeks has been exponential. From being a fully mobile, funny, smart and active person our beautiful mum is now unable to stand, to walk, to dress or feed herself. She tells stories about what is happening around her but the words are often unintelligible, she sees people standing behind me but there is no one there. There are moments of lucidity when she responds to a question so perfectly that I catch my breath, or she notices that I’m wearing her cardigan and we both laugh. She laughs a lot and I laugh with her, then I scream in the car on the way home. We are now waiting for her to be moved to a long term care facility.

There is no magical cure, and there is no fairy godmother waiting to grant our wish for the GREATEST gift.

So it’s lucky that I’ve already received my GREATEST gift – an amazing support system that listens, asks questions, or not, depending on my needs, drops off flowers when I’m having a wobble, and creates spaces of sharing and laughter; my husband and best friend who does all of those things and is patient and kind even when I’m not; and my sister, one of the strongest people I know, who carries this sorrow with me so that it’s not so heavy.