Being Mortal…

Welcome to 2023

Festive holidays allowed me to catch up on a few reads. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande is one of the books that captivated me. I personalised it so much I couldn’t put it down. A lot of questions ran through my mind as I reflected on my own life and my Mom's.

Sadly after my dad’s passing in May 2009, my very healthy and energetic mom’s health deteriorated drastically from a clean 10 to 4 in less than 3 months.

We later found out that she had dementia which her mom also suffered till her demise in January 1993 in our home, a day before my 9th birthday.

Between 2015 and 2017 I stayed with my mom for close to a year. That was one of the most challenging periods in my adult life.

Mid 2017 I spoke to my sisters and started looking for an old age home for our mom.

Mom is an introvert. She does things herself and would not ask you for anything unless she is in dire need. She complains about nothing and she is always smiling.

She would be sick and not tell a soul. We’d either find out from a neighbour or from the medical aid statements through my other sister as she belongs to her medical aid.

That’s when I decided to stay with her because living alone was no longer safe and was scary for us. I would assume the worst. Hiring help for her proved futile as she’d fire the assigned ladies immediately after we left citing this and that.

Checking her into an old age home seemed like a feasible solution. She had started loosing herself and the thread of what she was saying.

Our conversations became difficult with repeated incidents of what we already spoke about filled with painful forgetfulness.

She would take a walk and not return home because she had forgotten (couldn’t remember) the house. I’d then receive a call from our friendly and helpful security guards in our estate either because they saw her by the main gate or she’d be wandering in circles aimlessly trying to locate our home.

What scared me is that at one point Malome Punini (her younger brother) took a train from Kimberley to visit us at my elder sister’s home which is within the radius of 2kms from my home.

Malome took a short walk and never returned from the walk to this day. It’s been 7 years since the incident. (Ha ho nko ho tswa lemina)

We went to the police stations around, watched the security’s footage for the day and visited almost every prison, police station and mosque in and around Midrand and Centurion with no luck at all.

We’ve sort of accepted that we may never see him again. On the other hand, mom still speaks fondly about him in the present tense…”mhhh e be Punini ha a so kgutle? Ke mo emetse..”

To avoid a similar situation repeating itself, Mom was then put into a “Home”

A brief consultation was done with her and she consented to living in the chosen home.

I just don’t know if it’s truly what she wants. She seems happy, she is safe and has access to medical attention 24/7 and ofcourse will not die alone which was my worse fear as she could not manage on her own yet kept on firing people that were meant to stay with her in her home and help around the house and with her needs.

Atleast with the “home” we get frequent reports and we are at ease.

“She could not manage on her own” according to who? According to her or us her children fearing what society would say with us being in our comfort bubble yet our mom lives alone at an old age?

We didn’t feel comfortable with her living independently anymore.

However my mom has also outsourced responsibilities in decision making to us her children. She’s turned to be a child- everything that happens in our family she’s given charge to us. Easily, happily and without thought she’d be heard saying “whatever you girls want”

We manoeuvre around all the family obstacles there are to be manoeuvred around on her behalf. We just report back and know that she also just obliges. Mom has detached herself from this things, accepted the situation and given herself so much peace.

Mom has lost in excess of 20kgs and still gradually looses weight. Sickness and old age has brought so much terror and loss in her life.

She’s lost the zest of life (atleast according to my observations and what I expect of her and out of her). She misses my dad a lot.

Being an introvert, she has always enjoyed solitude but now isolation is a big part of her life. She would visit and later slip into one of the rooms. Should you notice and follow her, you’d find her humming to a hymn (difela tsa sione) - just like her mom, but her with heaps and heaps of laundry that needs ironing despite the many times I remind her that her coming to my home is to rest and reconnect - but being the strong person she is despite old age, I guess it brings familiarity and that sense of being in her home.

As people age and are aware of the finitude of their life, they do not ask for much. The question we need to ask ourselves is “have we truly asked what they want and are we offering it”?

Vanity of vanities I tell you as the writer of Ecclesiastes have put it.

The knowledge of fragility of our life’s has allowed me to visit mom more often. She has become part of my aches. I put in extra time in between being in Joburg just to pass by and drop a 1/4 Nandos meal and ice cream by her.

We have briefly spoken about the last days and how she would like things to happen. A strange conversation for our family as we have over the years avoided talking about death and anything suggestive of death such as a Will etc.

During the holidays I build up the courage to discuss my Will and that I would like my organs donated to those in need. Mom was petrified.

Chatting with my cousin Inonge on the same and how things have turned, she then proposed an Obituary Club. This is where we meet over wine (you know the truth always comes out with fermented grapes) starting from the end backwards talking about our goals and eventually what one wants and how life should end up like. More like if you had 4 weeks to live, what would you do (and if you are not doing it…what is stopping you from doing it).

In the Obituary Club we'd then discuss issues of whether you’d want to stay in a home or still be left chaffling between the rooms in a cane. Should you be in a critical situation do we put life machines on or let nature take its course and save the ones left behind on “unnecessary medical bills”. (Don’t kill me take note of inverted commas on UNNECESSARY

The club would promote us people to atleast make decisions about life and death matters analytically on the basis of facts and in a sound manner having no pressure of time.

It is an opportunity to make an effort to understand what our elderly parents want and cares about most (and see how best we can help with them living life as they had been and as they wished.)

We may know what is coming but I think focusing on what matters to them matters a lot.

Maybe it’s time we constantly ask ourselves and loved ones..”what is most important to you? What worries you?” It’s time we start deliberating on our larger goals and rethinking our priorities and beliefs.

In this time, I’ve put on my big girl panties and asked mom;

1. What her fears are in life

2. What her most important goals are

3. What she’d still like to do atleast in a month’s time.

My mom like me loves coffee, but I deny her the enjoyment citing health reasons, so to compensate I offer her Rooibos which she doesn’t like but takes…is this fair?

I know she enjoys Coke, but I give her Oros and cranberry juice.

We may not control life’s circumstances, but we have the resources at hand to paint whatever picture we want for our lives.

Let’s live our lives the best we could with what we have. We’ve heard a lot about intentional living. This is the time to experience it in 2023 and beyond incase you’ve been lagging on it.

Happy new year folks

Likha~Biso 🌺