The Funeral Trip (day 2) ……….

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At 6am I can hear F i L , in the adjoining room, opening and closing his hotel room door and turning the keys.  I’d already found out that are very few people staying here at the moment, as it’s out of season, so I don’t have to go and stop him making a noise.

By 7am we can hear the basin tap running.  He’s true to his word and, in order to be ready for the funeral in time (as he only has 2.5 hours to get ready!), he doesn’t bathe or shower.  I make a mental note not to sit next to him.

He gets himself dressed and we’re relieved to see that he has managed to go out and get himself a replacement black jumper; that is until he turns around and we see that it is completely covered in white fur from his cat.  It looks like it’s been used as a cat bed!

We go down for breakfast and we have the usual meal ordering trick (I’m still waiting for husband to say “I’ll have a bag on my head” as he keeps threatening to see whether F i L still says “I’ll have the same as him”).

I can’t stand watching F i L eat.  I hate the way he pushes the food forward in his mouth with his tongue as he chews.  I did have to laugh though when he was trying to eat the sauce from the baked beans with a fork and couldn’t work out why it kept falling through the prongs.

We pack our belongings.  F i L has lost his flannel!  It’s the least of our worries and he couldn’t remember if he had really brought it with him.

In the car on the way to his brother’s house he starts fishing around from his seat in the back, under the driver’s seat with his walking stick.

“What are you doing?” I say

“I’m looking to see if my thing is here.  I might have left it in the car.”  He was looking under the seat for his flannel.

“It’s not there and you’re hitting the seat while [No. 2 Son] is driving.  Stop it! It’s dangerous.”

We arrive at the house in time for F i L to take his place in the cortege.  We weren’t sure we would be able to do that.  He is very jolly and happy which is unnerving to me for two reasons.  Firstly, it’s his brother’s funeral.  Should he be happy? Did he understand what was happenning?  Secondly, when he’s that jolly he usually says something really crass.

As it turned out it we didn’t really need to worry.  Pretty much all he did was exchange pleasantries with other guests so we managed to talk to family and relax a little, and even better he doesn’t take his coat off so they never got to see his furry jumper.

The last part of the day is the cremation, and this is family only.  We gather around the coffin in the crematorium and say our part.  As the curtains close around the coffin his brother’s wife finally breaks down and crys.  She had been so brave all day and it was heartbreaking to watch her weeping.  F i L looked at her aghast!  What was she crying for?

Outside we said goodbye to each other.  Brother’s wife gave me a big hug and said

“I think it’s good that [F i L] was here…..”  The unspoken part of that statement was ‘even if he didn’t know what was going on’.

We got back in the car and after a short while he’s fishing around under the seat with his stick,looking for his flannel again.

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• The Little Black Jumper (thedementiadiary.wordpress.com)

The Little Black Jumper

Last nights visit was hard.

We’re getting ready to take F i L to his brother’s funeral.  He was one of 6 children and this was his last (and emotionally closest) sibling.

As I’ve said before the funeral is a 5 hour drive away (7 by the time we’ve stopped for F i L to have dinner at the allotted time etc.) and we need to be at the house by 10.30am, which means staying overnight in a hotel.  Trying to find a suitable hotel was a challenge.  Then getting him to understand that he needs to be ready early in the morning (see http://wp.me/p2aUqx-k).  Yesterday should have been a fairly straight forward visit.

At the weekend we got him to try on his suit as that’s what he wanted to wear for the funeral.  He’s had it since 1987 and since M i L died he’s lost at least 3 stone (he was overweight).  The suit was, unsurprisingly, too big for him but to be honest he just looked his usual scruffy self.  He wasn’t comfortable in it so we offered him the option of wearing a pair of black trousers that he’d bought recently, with a shirt and tie and black jumper.  Husband and I would have to go on the search for a suitable jumper without him as the last time we went clothes shopping it took 6 HOURS to buy one pair of trousers in ONE shop. These trousers subsequently became known as the ‘Modernistic Trousers’ (that story to follow).

As Husband and I both work this involved a dash out in our breaks to try to find a jumper.  Husband went out first.  His office is surrounded by markets, but he had no luck, so it was my turn.  I’d already spent time that day trying to confirm details with the hotel and booking flowers, sorting their delivery etc. so this was another added pressure.  I dashed into the local supermarket and, joy of joy, they had exactly what we were looking for.  Best of all it was just £8! F i L physically winces when you tell him the price of things so this met 2 seperate criteria – it was suitable for a funeral and it was cheap!

So last night he tried it on.  He tried to take the tags off before he tried it on.  Husband had to remind him that this was not a good idea. It took 20 minutes to get it over his head as he kept turning it one way out and then the other.  He went off to the kitchen (?) to do this and kept narrowly missing the cat litter box with the sleeves. He was huffing and puffing and sighing which is always a bad sign.

When he came back to the living room wearing it he was looking at the floor shaking his head.

“It doesn’t fit”

It was fine.  It’s a slimmer fit than he’s used to, especially as he’s still wearing the voluminous jumpers from pre-weight loss, but he wasn’t satisfied.  He kept pulling at the bottom of the jumper, trying to stretch it down to his knees, as if this would fix it.  He wanted us to give him an alternative right then and there. Couldn’t we get him something bigger and better quality (ie more expensive!)?

Husband and I just don’t have time to take him to find another one today, so we’ve had to send him shopping on his own.  We’ve explained that he has all day today and tomorrow to find something else.  We have to work.  His solution?

“You’ve gone to so much trouble……I’ll wear this one”

There’s nothing worse than him ‘putting up’ with something he doesn’t like so fingers crossed he’ll find something.

The Time Altering Shower

On Friday the last of F i L’s 5 siblings is being buried.  Husband and I have the unenviable task of driving F i L for 7 hours to the town where this is taking place, checking him into a hotel (and us as chaperones), then having him ready and at the service on time the following morning.

We didn’t get full details until today so the hotel we had initially booked has turned out to be 25 miles away from where we start (although it’s very close to where all of the services finish) so given the amount of time it takes F i L to get ready each morning we felt it would be better to move to a hotel closer to the start.

“Oh No! Just when my luck had started to change!” was his response to this. “I won three packets of biscuits in the raffle at my club today and now this! It’s all gone wrong again!”

Nothing has gone wrong.  We’re just changing the hotel we’re staying in to give him more time in the morning.  He didn’t even know where he was staying in the first place.

We ran through all of the criteria we had been looking for:

• Lift because he can’t walk up and down stairs
• Parking on site because he can’t walk far
• Large enough building that he won’t disturb people if he wanders in the night
• Late enough check in that we can travel after work (so we only lose one days income)

“Well,” says he “the important thing is to get there.  I’ve got all of the following day to get ready.”

“No you haven’t.” I remind him. “You need to be up and dressed, and have breakfast, and be ready to go by 9am” (this allows for what we call faffing time, where he faffs about looking for shoes, tablets, pink rabbits, whatever grabs his attention.

“No problem” he says assuredly.

“Are you sure?” I ask as gently as I am able.  “You usually struggle to be ready by 11am”

“Yes you’re right I do.  Simple!  I won’t have a shower.”

My F i L lives in a world where not having a shower saves 2 hours!

I tell him that if he’s not having a shower he is not going to sit anywhere near me.

“This having showers every morning is all nonsense.  When I was at work we never had a shower every morning. We never had time!”

Husband and I looked at each other and laughed.  Husband has his morning routine down to such a fine art that he can be up, showered, dressed and out of the house in approx 12 minutes.

“You had time.  You just didn’t use it.  Time hasn’t changed.”

“Things are different.  In these affluent times you can shower every day, but we couldn’t.”

“You could, but you didn’t.  You had the time, you just didn’t do it.”

Husband said “You stank!  You just couldn’t smell it cos you all stank!”

“It was a different time. When Men were Men and Ladies were Ladies!”

Husband was justifiably worried at this point that I may be about to throttle F i L.  He keeps making references to ‘You Ladies’ usually attached to cooking, housework,  and organisation even though husband does his fair share of all of these.

I took a deep breath and left the room for a breather but could hear him say again “I won’t wash!”

I shouted back “You have plenty of time and you will wash!”

As I stepped back into the room I said “Habits have changed but time hasn’t.”

“Yes, you’re right dear.  We’re just having a laugh!”

I asked husband if he was having a laugh.

Without a hint of humour: “No.”

“No,” I said, “neither am I.”