Some of the things my mother managed to worry about

One of the many unpleasant features of my mother’s condition is that dementia is common in the later stages.  Not, in my mother’s case, dementia in its normal form of memory loss; her memory remained superb and she could recite, without hesitation, every single thing I had ever done wrong in my entire life, including some of my indiscretions as a baby. No, mother’s dementia took the form of obsessive worrying, usually about things so unlikely or impossible that they wouldn’t even occur to a normal mind.

 

I remember the first time I noticed, though there may have been previous occasions. I was serving her supper, a lentil and vegetable bake for which I am to this day famed across the island. Suddenly she looked up, stared at me, and said: “I’m worried about you going to war, Jed.”

“War,” I laughed, “the war ended years’ ago mum. I have absolutely no intention to join the army. Can you imagine me being willing to die for the mainland.”

 

“Not the mainland army, Jed. I’m worried about you and Alun starting a war after I’m gone.”

 

“Don’t talk nonsense,” I said, “me and Alun have never so much as been in a fight, let alone started a war.”

 

Despite my best efforts I had lost her for the rest of the evening, all she could talk about, all she could think about, was me and Alun going to war. Of course I understand that for a mother a son or daughter going off to war must be a horrible thing to go through, and the loss of a child on some foreign field, for no better reason than the glory of the mainland king or queen, must be the worst thing you could ever go through.

 

However, I had no intention of ever going to war, and bar the fight with a goat on Shepherdless Island I never have. No, what I heard that day was to the ravings of dementia, and it was not a pleasant thing for a boy to experience in his own mother.

 

I thought no more of it at the time, however, a few days later my mother had a similar turn. This time however, her source of worry was something of less universal concern than warfare.

 

“I’m worried about fridges, Jed,” she said.

 

“The fridge?” I said, “The fridge is fine, even the light works when you open the door.”

 

“Not our fridge, Jed. I’m worried that someone is going to dump a fridge on the island.”

“Well if they do I’ll just get the boatman to help me move it. It really is nothing to worry about mother.”

 

“You won’t be able to move it if they dump it on the clifftops,” she said, “you’ll hurt your back trying to lift it that far.”

 

“Well, if someone lugs a fridge a mile up the path to the clifftop, which seems somewhat unlikely, then I’ll just get the council to move it.”

 

“Not the council Jed. They’ll find an excuse to dump another 200 fridges on the island if you phone the council.”

 

I was 17 years old. I’d never had a girlfriend, never visited the mainland, never, based on a million different measures, lived.  And yet in some ways I’d seen it all. My mother, the person I loved more than anyone else in the world, slowly losing her mind with worry. Worry about things that would never happen, that could never happen, that only a fool would worry about.

 

Another time it was the Daleks. “Oh Jed, I do worry, what will you do when I’m gone?”

“I’ll be fine mum, honest, but that won’t be for years yet.”

 

“How will you cope Jed? What will you do if the Daleks invade?”

 

“The Daleks? Oh for goodness sake mother, the Daleks are a fictional creation, a TV programme, they aren’t going to invade Happy Island.”

 

That one lasted all night. She kept on and on about the Daleks. I ended up losing my temper and shouting at her. She cried and I didn’t know what to do after that. She didn’t speak again for an age and when she did it was a terrified whisper. “I was just worried about the Daleks, Jed, that’s all.”

 

I do feel guilty. I mean she couldn’t help it, it was just a part of her brain in decline, suddenly, to her, everything seemed possible, and that just meant a million impossible things to worry about. Like the birds.

 

“The birds Jed,” she said one time, “what if all the birds on the island forget to wake up?”

 

“The birds won’t forget to wake up, mother. You’re always complaining that they wake you every morning. You really don’t have to worry about the birds forgetting to set their alarms.”

 

“But what if they don’t? Who’ll wake you? Who’ll wake Alun? It’ll be terrible Jed.”

 

“Don’t be silly, the birds will always wake. It’s mainlanders who sometimes spend whole days in bed mother, not the birds. It’s not like there’s only one bird on the island, if one oversleeps there’ll be hundreds more singing out that morning has broken.”

 

“I worry Jed. What if the birds’ sunglasses are too strong and they don’t realise the sun has risen.”

 

“Oh for goodness sake mother, the birds don’t wear sunglasses. The things you manage to worry about. That could simply never happen, not even in the wildest fantasy. Could you please try and calm down. Take one of your pills.”

 

It’s strange the things parents manage to worry about. Sometimes I felt she was worrying just for the sake of it, as a hobby almost, rather than waste away her days watching the TV she preferred to spend her leisure hours worrying about any sort of nonsense. 

 

Or maybe she was just distracting herself from the real worry, from what was happening to her body, to her mind; and genuine fears about leaving me alone in the world, a 17 year old boy, who’d never even visited the mainland, who’d never even kissed a girl.