in which I finally break the news to my mother, who remains calm throughout, and face the scorn of drunken cavaliers alone…for now…
“What are you doing here?” says my mother.
She’s smiling, as if relishing my surprise. Her head is bowed as usual and her shoulders are almost in line with her ears so she’s looking up at me, one eyebrow raised as if to say, ‘gotcha’. I’m taken aback as always when she pulls this trick… 
Lucid, articulate, engaged, aware, funny, even cheeky, these are qualities you forget to remember as characteristic of this woman most of the time. Because most of the time, they’re just not apparent and because most of the time before she was ill, these qualities were quashed by my father.
These moments are precious and I always stumble and trip over myself to pack in whatever meaningful communication we can manage before something or someone, imaginary or real, distracts her from the present and from my presence. Especially today, because my sister has gone back to Canada and I’ve assured her that I will handle giving our mother the news of her husband’s passing.
We’ve already mentioned bringing her home several times but without being sure the news is understood, so I’m hoping to reinforce that message by explaining why we can do this now when it was impossible for the last three years. If I say that when we saw Dad in hospital, it was his last wish that she should come home and take care of the place as he had done in her absence, it might not be a true and accurate account of events but it could serve to sweeten the bitter pill I have to administer, killing two birds with one stone as it were.
“Mum, you remember I said we’d take you home soon?”
She smiles and is apparently listening. But she says nothing.
“Well, it’s almost time. The day is coming very soon. Is that okay?”
She doesn’t speak and there’s no change to her expression.
“Because that’s what Dad wanted. And I hope that’s what you want. Is it?”
Someone passing by catches her attention. Movement, particularly if it comes unexpectedly and takes human form, will often generate a quick response in her and she’ll follow whoever it is with an alert interest.
“Mum?”
I take her hand. She looks down to see what the touch is all about and her eyes trace a line up my arm to my shoulder, neck and face. She’s back.
“I was saying, we’re going to get you home soon, though I have to warn you it’ll be me taking care of you. What do you think of them apples?”
She starts to cough. I think maybe she was going to reply but as her vocal chords prepared to go to work a bit of phlegm lazing around in her throat shifted and caused a blockage. I’ll find out in the months to come that dysphagia, disruption to the swallowing process, will be one of my greatest enemies and though such a simple complaint, life threatening to my mother. She’s leaning far enough forward in the chair for me to rub her back in little circular motions that I can’t imagine do anything to ease her coughing, but serve to make me feel better. I tap a couple of times with the flat of my hand, the way you do when someone is choking, and reach for the colourless plastic cup with the winged handles sitting close by on a hospital bed table. I think it has squash in it, to judge by the colour of the liquid. It was here before I arrived. I give a futile look around for someone who might reassure me that the drink is fresh, or hers, or appropriate to the cough, but there’s no-one so I go ahead and put it to her lips anyway.
This is another lesson I’ll learn as time goes by, that almost every decision I’ll make with regard to her welfare involves risk and is of...