The rest of Mum’s stay in Lake Macquarie chunters along at the speed of a greased snail. Everything we do is in slow motion. For someone like me who likes to move at speed, it takes a mental as well as physical adjustment. But the reward is great: Mum exclaims delightedly at everything – the ducks that waddle up to the verandah to be fed, the peaceful lap of the lake, the trees that line our daily walks, the call of the bellbird in the woods, the ballets we watch together on a gigantic screen.
In her care home, she’s terribly deprived of such stimulation. The building sits on a major noisy road, the residents are mostly bedridden, the staff constantly changing and overworked and her relationship with my eldest sister, her current external support, has deteriorated badly. Not that that’s surprising. In the last eighteen months, Julia has lost both a husband and a daughter and is in no state of mind to support a demanding, and sometimes difficult, old woman.
My younger sister in Yamba is still working on transferring mum to a smaller establishment, facing the beach, where many of the elderly are still, as Mum puts it, ‘on their legs’. Jorel and I agree that Julia needs to be released from the responsibility, given time to properly grieve. But there’s resistance. And our mother is reluctant to make a move against the advice of her eldest daughter.
In the meantime, Adrian and I have booked our return flight to the UK. We’ll arrive in London on 11th May, having crossed the date line to Vancouver and then galloped forward to British time. We love Australia, it’s climate, its beaches, its relaxed way of life and of course, there’s my family to consider. We’re also apprehensive about the current political and economic state of the UK. But it’s difficult to deliberately remove ourselves from the orbit of our children, A’s family and our friends of so many years. We’re hesitantly coming to a decision.
And then it’s time to take mum back to her care home. Out of the blue, she announces that she would, after all, like to make the move to Yamba, to be near Jorel, and we leave her energised by this prospect of change. We have her photos printed to take with her, as a reminder of all we did, and then say our tearful good-byes, this time for at least another year.
Avoca Beach on the Central Coast is our next destination. It’s a part of the NSW coastline that I know little about and we’re hugely impressed with its beauty. We stop at Budgewoi where the beach is seemingly endless; we call at Norah Head and take in the unique and stunning geology of the headland; we have lunch in the Surf Haus, where the food is innovative and delicious and then we arrive at our apartment which looks directly onto the beach with its myriad activities. Yet another of my sisters (I have many) lives nearby and we arrange to meet up.
Then, after much diplomacy and persuasion (not to mention some loss of sleep), my sisters all agree to Mum’s move to the care home in Yamba. It’s a relief. Not only will this be a more suitable environment for our mother but the move will give my sister, Julia, the opportunity to gradually move her life forward. I’m hugely grateful to my sisters and more than ever aware of the sporadic and limited role I play in the life of my family.
