Word Perfect

9th January 2012 Monday

Feel weary and grumpy tonight - maybe because we started a diet. I’m stuffed full of spiced up vegetables and prawns but I still have a ‘what else can I eat?’ hole inside. And I know the answer isn’t chocolate.....

This afternoon I take my father a bunch of daffodils but he’s deeply asleep and only opens his eyes when I kiss him goodbye and he doesn’t register it’s me. My big sister visited him this morning bringing a Zambian friend from Oxford. She said they said The Lord’s Prayer together and he was word perfect. The senior carer - the man he really likes - the one who went on Amazon and bought my father’s autobiography - because he says it makes a difference if you know who they really are - these old people he cares for - who weren’t always old - shows me my father’s care plan and it seems he fell out of bed at six o’clock this morning but didn’t hurt himself. And he was sick on the table at lunch.

It’s good they write everything down so you can track the history of what happened - the white bones of decline - the facts. But not what it means. Each of us makes up a different story about that.

The moon took my breath away this evening, a huge proud plate, hanging low in the sky marbled with silver clouds - in full perfect bloom. The thing about the moon is that it always slinks back just when you think it has disappeared forever.