[Sundae]

Because it's on my mind I may as well share.
My Auntie by marriage (Dad's brother's widow) broke her hip over Easter. She knew she was in a bad way, but hid it from her sons and her care workers.

When my cousin found out he immediately had her taken to hospital, X-rayed etc.
She was discharged temporarily to a care home, where she had more falls (HOW?! but that's another topic) and readmitted to hospital.

She will now be discharged home. Social Services can offer four visits a day, none at night. She is a severe risk in terms of falls, she is incontinent. But she's a bloody tough old East Londoner. Because her psych eval shows she is compos mentis, the hospital is legally bound to respect her choice and she refuses to go to a care home. She says they'll have to take her out of her flat on a board. But what kind of a life is that? Lying in a soiled bed until the first carer arrives, waiting for someone to come and feed you? How can that be worse than being looked after 24 hours?

This hurts me because although she's not actually blood, she's definitely family. She put up with Ted and his temper and alcoholism for years, lived through the Blitz, brought up two boys only to have one shattered into pieces by a motorcycle accident (Tony has artificial legs and metal plates in his skull) and loved and looked after my Mum when she was a young bride and new mother.

She's an amazing woman, in an unamazing way if you get what I mean.
She didn't change the world, but she worked hard, played hard, saved money, raised kids, looked after her neighbours and kept a home.
And now she refuses to be looked after.

I don't get it.
I wasn't cast from her mould.
If someone offered to look after me for the rest of my life I'd bite their hand off. After they signed the papers of course.
It's not even as if she owns the flat - it's rented from a charitable trust, so she's not spending any "inheritance" she wants to pass on to her sons. Her sons who want her to be happy, but also really want her to be safe.

Oh yeah, and she's a cancer survivor.
Of course.
Sigh.

I can't say they don't make them like that any more, but I will always hold in my heart the night Mum, Auntie Joyce and I hit the vodka and stayed up well after the husbands went to bed. I don't treasure the drinking, but I do remember the stories. And I had my first Bloody Mary the next day (and I hated tomato juice). "Get that down you gel, hair of the dog!" I didn't dare refuse.