Jane Turley
Jane Turley has written for the BBC and the literary magazine The View From Here. For the past eight years she has been delighting readers and fans through her blog The Witty Ways of a Wayward Wife. Find out more about Jane here.
Jane Turley has written for the BBC and the literary magazine The View From Here. For the past eight years she has been delighting readers and fans through her blog The Witty Ways of a Wayward Wife. Find out more about Jane here.
From The Changing Room by Jane Turley:
If only the Alzheimer’s wasn’t so frustrating, so bloody exhausting. Day in, day out, it’s the same old stories and maths challenges. It wears me down. And now there’s the confusion between fantasy and reality. It’s becoming tougher to deal with it all, especially when I’m tired.
But Mum is tired too. Lately, her lines look deeper, her complexion greyer. I know the illness is draining her, eating away at her body and mind, and there’s nothing she or I can do about it. The frustration inside me is mingled with sadness and defeat as I watch her sweep a loose strand of her hair over her ear like a flirtatious young woman. But she’s not flirtatious or young anymore, she’s frail and old and death is edging closer. I glance at the picture of her and Dad on their wedding day framed on the wall. Even though the picture is in black and white, I see how beautiful and vibrant she was, her youth and exuberance exuding life as she tosses her rose bouquet in the air, her vivacity captured for eternity in a single photograph.