Celebrating life?

My mother’s been in hospital in a serious condition for nearly a week, but she’s slowly improving. So why am I not celebrating? Why am I not rejoicing at this positive development? Would I want my mother to pass away?

Over the last decade I've watched as my mother has, little by little, lost her mental faculties and the ability to do most of the things she enjoyed in life. Walks in woods, swims in lakes, baking, cooking, sewing, knitting, writing, reading, dancing, chatting to friends – all of the above are becoming more and more distant memories for her. By now, at the age of 89 going on 90, there are only really two things she loves that she’s still able to do: going for short walks and singing. If these two joys disappear also, then what is left of her quality of life?

The last five days I’ve been sitting at her bedside, watching her sleep, trying to make out the words she’s uttering when wakeful. While friends and family wish for a speedy recovery, I realise there’s a part of me that strongly wishes the opposite. Chances are my mother will never recover enough enjoy the last two of all her joys – she can barely speak and can’t get out of bed at this stage – so why would I wish for her to live on, just so that I get to have her alive.

If there’s anything “positive” about long, slow diseases, it is that they give you a chance to prepare for the inevitable. Call me hard-hearted, but my mother’s been near death these last few days and I have not shed a single tear. Not because I don’t care. Instead, it’s testament to the floods of tears I’ve shed during her slow descent into full-blown dementia over the years. The woman who was my mother, the person I knew and loved, has long since left the building. Her personality, her temperament, even her looks, have changed beyond recognition, although there are sometimes tiny sparks of her old self.

Arriving at the hospital, straight off the plane from London, had I not known the room number, I would have taken one quick look at the figure in the bed, determined that it was not my mother and continued to look for her, so drastically different did she seem.

All I wish for my mother now, is for her to feel safe and warm, loved and cared for, without pain and without fear. After years of grieving for the slow loss of her, I feel I’m far more prepared for her to die, than to live. It’s the simple truth: I cannot celebrate life alone, without some semblance of quality. If the choices are a long, slow, painful demise, or a swift passing, the latter seems blissfully preferable.