Thinking back, I suppose it’s no great surprise.
I’ve been shopping more, at times almost obsessively I always drop into flow when I’m planning an outfit. She no longer knows my name, the day of the week, where she is or who I am in relation to her, but every time I visit she will have some compliment for the outfit I’m wearing.ĭressing myself has been the only channel of creative expression that’s remained open to me.
As I got dressed on those days, it was interesting to notice the amount of effort I’d put into the outfit I was wearing, how I’d bother to apply a little makeup, wear my hair down in waves, when the only person I’d interact with outside of my home was my mother who is so far along her dementia path now that she seems to be living on another timeline entirely. With Dad gone, I spent many hours caring for my mother. A productive morning, always.īut then my dad died, and the words dried up. Sometimes I wrote fiction, sometimes I penned letters to agents to see if I could drum up interest in my work. Once a week, on a Wednesday morning, I would eschew real life and instead drink coffee at a café on the edge of the River Stour with a group of other writers. After he passed, my family and I had to provide round-the-clock care for her for two weeks before she could go into a home that could properly cater to her needs.Īt first, in those early months after Dad’s diagnosis, writing fiction was my escape. All the while my mother, whose challenges with vascular dementia were becoming all too evident, needed more support as my father’s health declined. In January 2022, my dad was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. The last eighteen months have been difficult.
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