Son, I Don’t Want You to Get Divorced Because of Me! Please Send Me to a Care Home!

Son, I dont want you and your wife to fall out because of me! Take me to a care home!

Half a year ago, I brought my mother to live with us. Shes ever so elderly now, 83. Since my father died, shes struggled living alone in a Hampshire village. Our children are grown, with families of their own, and its just my wife and I rattling around in a semi-detached two-bedroom. So, I thought, why not have mother live with us? Seemed simple enough.

At first, my wife didnt say anything, but within a week, my mothers presence began to chafe. Gift-wrapped silences for my wife.

Listen, can she have her meals separately, after weve eaten?

Why?

Its just easier that way. Honestly, when I see her gumming her food with no teeth, I lose my appetite. Its revolting.

Come off it, well all be old one day.

Thats different.

My wife was irked by mothers troublesome bowels and thunderous snoring as well. She stopped mother coming into the kitchen and eventually forbade her from even leaving her room. One day, she just blurted out:

I didnt realise shed be here this long. I truly cant go on.

What do you want me to do?

Take her back to the village.

She cant manage on her own!

Everyone copes. No ones children fuss this much! Why am I tiptoeing around like a stranger in my own home, putting up with the slobbering and the whiff?

I honestly didnt know which way to turn. Recently, I came home to find mother dressed, suitcase by her feet, sitting in the hallway like a lost shadow.

Mum, what are you doing out here?

Son, please, take me to a care home!

Why? What for?

I dont want you two to split because of me.

Mother keeps pleading with me. Im lost. My heart twists at the thought of her in some old peoples home. Maybe I should just drop everything and take her back to the village with me. What should I do?

It all unfolded with heavy, floating steps, time folding back on itself. The wallpaper bled into the carpet, teacups drifted up from their saucers, and I watched my mother shrink and grow, every moment strange and brittle as a broken clock. I kept thinking perhaps, if I walk through that door again, Ill find a better answer, as if the house itself might dream a solution while we drift in circles, lost in a memory of home.