The Merry Widower?

It’s hard to tell how my Dad is taking things. He must be missing Mum a lot: they were married for 67 years, after all. But she was a very controlling woman, and now he’s able to watch television (and fall asleep in front of it) and rustle the paper and drop it all over the floor to his heart’s content, he does seem to have perked up a good deal. This week, Janet, one of his carers, took him out in his wheelchair. It has a motor assistance underneath, so she can push him quite easily for some distance. She took him up to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre coffee shop and bought him tea and cakes, then on to Woolworths to choose a photo frame. He wants this for two pressed flowers, one from Mum’s garden and one from her funeral wreath, along with a photo of her. I think it will be a lovely memento, and will give him much comfort.

Anyway, the day after this outing, he was very bright and perky. He was awake all morning – unusual for him – and we chatted for nearly an hour, which is unheard of – I don’t ever remember chatting that long even when he and I were much younger! Mum would never let him go out if there was any wind: but I think if he’s wrapped up warm, the fresh air keeps his brain going, and being confined to barracks is a major contributing factor to his moments of confusion. It’s as well he was having a lucid period, as we needed to get him to understand and execute a power of attorney so I can run his finances for him. He never signs anything without looking at it for ages, so it’s really slow if you actually want something done! (At least he signed a cheque for all the money I’d spent on his behalf, though.)

I suppose it’s early days yet: next Tuesday will be a month since Mum died. To me it doesn’t seem any time at all: I’d been vaguely wondering if it would become clear in two or three months whether Dad would be able to cope, but now I think it will take longer than that. I’m so aware than many couples of long duration follow one another quite quickly, but I’m not at all sure that this will be the case with Dad: but then, he’s 94 and his own health isn’t exactly A1.

But we’ve done a bit of ‘greening’, nevertheless. Mum used to have heaters on all the time, even in high Summer, because she felt the cold: as we discovered, she had a lot of arteriosclerosis and so must have had very limited circulation. And the immersion heater was on 24/7: I’ve now got the carers to have it on in the morning (hot water for the washing machine) and turn it off at teatime, which will save Dad money and the Planet a little as well. So I’m doing my greenish bit down there as well as up here – though it does concern me, the amount of petrol I’m burning going up and down the A1/M1 all the time. I’ve been three times since mid June, and will go again at the very end of July, so it’s lots of miles – but I can’t do what’s needed quickly enough without a car, and things like shopping are really hard as there’s no bus to where my Dad lives. They did try a wonderful pollution free electric bus (well, only the pollution from making the electricity!) which went round the town, but that would have meant two bus rides – not free for me down there, why can’t my ‘free bus travel’ cover the UK instead of only my home area?! – and shopping would have taken about three hours. I don’t like to leave Dad that long, though of course I’m leaving him three weeks at the moment! And if I do move to Banbury, the drive over will take half an hour, but the train takes an hour and a half – so I ain’t using the train a lot!! Time and Greenness is so often a conflict. As ever, one has to strike a balance: at least I’m making some sort of effort to decrease Dad’s footprint as well as my own.