Paying attention

On Fridays, we go to see my mother. Tony gets her groceries while she and I sit and chat. She's 91, and I'm watching her gradually drift out to sea. Today I manage to negotiate the difficult territory of securing her agreement to dispose of her dying houseplants (I'd brought her some silk ones instead) and associated cache-pots, and some of the accumulation of storage tins from the kitchen. We haul off a big bagful of junk. More next time . . .

She likes the new artificial flowers.
"What are those? Are those snowdrops? I love snowdrops! They're my favourite!"

While I'm in her kitchen making her a cup of tea, she calls me: "Am I talking rubbish?"

"No," I say. "What about?"

"Well, is there a cardiologist on the North York Moors?"

This last week she's called her carer at three in the morning and had the ambulance out in the small hours only to send them away when they arrived. She remembers very little from moment to moment, so I talk with her about places she's known and animals we had — the dogs, the sheep — which delight her when they're recalled to mind. And I talk to her about the farm where she grew up and go over all the family stories so she can find herself again. She's frail and very thin, and losing track: "What am I supposed to be doing? How old am I? When is Kerry coming?"

When someone in such circumstances asks me if there really is a cardiologist on the North York Moors, I listen intently. As people draw near to death they begin to drift from their moorings and often language becomes symbolic. She has a longstanding heart condition and is increasingly breathless — and the North York Moors are the heights above home.

Sometimes in her dreams, she tells me, she has a companion — a dog called Lou — who takes care of her as they go walking. Sometimes they revisit places that have been home, and sometimes they go walking on the North York Moors.

"I don't think that's a dream," I tell her as she describes the dog and how faithfully it goes with her: "I think you've been astral travelling. I think your soul's getting a bit loose in its socket. You're getting multi-dimensional. You've been star-walking."

She gazes at me, bewildered, asks me in puzzlement: "What? Is that a fact?"

"It's an opinion," I tell her. "I might be wrong, so I can't say it's a fact. It's just what I think."

And today I ask her to tell me more about the cardiologist on the North York Moors. "Is this someone you've been to see, or someone you're going to see?"

"I think I've been to see him," she says. 

"Oh. What did he say? Was he pleased with how you are, or was he worried?"

She tells me another family member accompanied her on this visit. "He kept talking to her and not to me — talking over my head," she says. "In the end, I said to him, I am the patient."

"And did he listen then?" I ask.

"Yes," she says. "He did."

So I tell her about my friend Rosie, a nurse who lived and worked in Hastings but came from the Caribbean. Everyone loved Rosie, she was a darling. When she had cancer and was in the hospital I went to see her. Her room smelt delicious — she had some Caribbean colleagues who'd been bringing in home cooking! While I was there, a consultant came on a ward round, sweeping in with an entourage of students and graciously bestowing on Rosie the benefit of his patronising manner. He looked at her notes, and frowned over the oncology report. "I believe your oncologist is on holiday," he said. "Did he give you his opinion on this before he went?"
And Rosie said (or this is what we heard), "Huh!"
The consultant looked distinctly put out.
"I beg your pardon?" he said.
And Rosie said again (at least this is what we heard), "Huh!"
The students shuffled a little and looked at each other nervously. Seeing clarification was needed, Rosie explained in her lovely Caribbean accent: "Not 'his' — huh — Dr XXX is a lady."
Everyone visibly relaxed and the tension left the room like air let out of a tyre.

"It was funny," I explain to my mother. She laughs. She thinks so too. 

It's always important to listen, and to notice what's happening. To understand where someone is coming from — and maybe to realise when someone is setting out for the peace of the North York Moors, that wild and open space of larks and curlews where the soul can at last be free.