Margarita McFall

Again and again and again…

I held my father’s hand
while the morning stole him softly.
6:00am curtains half drawn,
the chair beside his bed
creased with three nights of my sleep.

The room fell silent for a few moments
except for the sound
of relief and grief
arriving together.

Dementia doesn’t come like thunder.
It arrives politely at first
mislaid keys, forgotten names,
a question asked twice
then ten times more.

It steals in teaspoons.

I drove the endless road to Birmingham
with guilt sitting in the passenger seat.
Signed papers.
Spoke to doctors.
Walked the bright cruel corridors
of places people call “homes.”

And every evening
I sat beside the man
who no longer knew my name,
reading softly,
playing Matt Monro on an old cassette player,
holding his hand
as though love itself
could tether him to us.

Now my mother stands
where he once stood.

Ninety-two years old
and frightened of forgetting.

She calls me six times each evening
to check the day, check the time.
But hidden inside every call
is the same question:

“Don’t abandon me.”

Some days we shop together slowly,
arguing over knickers…long story!
Sharing toasted sandwiches
and iced buns in M&S
Mother & daughter pretending
everything is okay.

Then home again to endless lists,
prescriptions, bills and doctors calls,
eye tests circled on calendars,
her shopping to unpack,
and washing to be folded.

Work fills the spaces in between,
and somewhere in it all
my own life waits patiently.

Friends stop asking after a while
not through cruelty,
but because tiredness creates
its own kind of distance.

And most nights
there is barely enough of me left
to sit quietly with a cuppa
before the phone rings once more.

Some days she remembers everything.
Some days she searches her mind
for my name
while I sit there smiling
and dying a little inside.

And there are times, God forgive me,
I lose patience with my thoughts.
I hear myself sigh, or roll my eyes.
I crumble under the weight of it all.
Then guilt rushes in,
love is not graceful
when it is tired.

People speak of dementia
as memory loss.

But it is more than that.

It is watching someone disappear
while they are still sitting in front of you.

It’s becoming the parent
to the person who once carried you.

It is answering the phone at night
already afraid.

It is grief that never fully arrives,
because it never fully leaves.

And yet

among the repetition,
the fear,
the exhaustion,
there is still love.

Steady & Loyal.

Again and again and again.