In my experience, when Mother says “she is fine,” it is time to start worrying. A combination of my Mother’s abnormal lack of complaining and the visual confirmation via today’s FaceTime to my 84-year-old Mother, who lives alone in Spain, sets off alarm bells. Mother is usually a robust enigma full of self-opinion and directive upon everyone’s life; typically, there are always complications and complaints.
I could see her eyes lightly unfocused, and face indented with dehydration and rapid aged deterioration. These large, newly formed craters and black face marks had exceptionally and rapidly replaced her previously unblemished sixty-something appearance. “I am just tired,” she said in a baby accent.
I am one of three siblings, and my brother had arrived in Spain. All three of us communicated all night while my brother sat inside a deserted hospital awaiting the completion of Mother’s first operation. The hospital I was to discover was beautifully clean, and the facilities made the NHS look positively Victorian.
This little injection into our lives has ignited a bond between three siblings. We all love each other, but our lives get busy, and we only get a moment to rekindle our friendships during crises and celebratory events. Time has melted and warmed with jokes and humour all night, sharing old photographs and ridiculing our various heights, loves, hates and endearing insults. It has been wonderfully odd to think that we have bonded in the most touching sibling moments at a crucial time when we may lose ‘Mummy Dearest’.
Fast forward to the following day, Friday, the 25th of August, 2023, and I am on a one-way flight to Spain. Sadly, this wasn’t looking like a much-needed holiday as she was in intensive care in a state-run hospital. After last night’s excitement, I am tired enough to remortgage and invest in buying a cardboard heated sandwich. It contains sticky yellow stuff, vast quantities of unpronounceable preservatives, rock-hard bread and one very finely sliced piece of ham. Forget that they won’t serve peanuts on this flight because someone has a nut allergy; I have an allergy to overpriced inedible food! They had caught me at a vulnerable moment, tired, sad, and emotional. I was the perfect victim, and I was starving. I didn’t complain about my sandwich as I realised it was not the cabin crew’s fault that the food was shite (an appropriate word for this airline). To be sure, to be sure, you pay a fee for bloody sneezing on this airline, and goodness knows how much a non-bloody sneeze costs?
Listen to me; I have become a grumpy old woman brought on prematurely because my Mother was in Intensive Care. Mental note to self: upon my return, I must get some face work done, have a full MOT and never say, “I am fine!”.
Oh, you’re wondering how she is? Mother is now stable, but most importantly, she has begun to complain and moan, which is a sure sign of her imminent recovery.
Soozi’s Grown Up Life 