My father sent me a text message this morning. He was about to fly to Scotland to deal with his mother.
I've written a reasonable amount about my maternal grandmother, Nana. Not much on Granny. This is to no small part due to the fact that I don't really know the woman. She lives in Scotland and we don't speak very often. This, in turn, is because her long-dead husband treated my dad apallingly, beating him and consequentially I guess my Dad didn't feel that close to the father that beat him or the mother that stood by and let it happen.
However, for all that, his mother is his mother. Whenever I've met her as an adult, she's seemed like a nice-enough person, though her staunch Presbyterian views (approving of Ian Paisley for example) are not to my taste whatsoever.
She has become steadily less together over the past few years, but has now taken to claiming her clothes are not her own, and talking to the deceased whilst not going to bed. She's also been beating against the windows and begging to be let out. According to my uncle, a slightly tragic character who has never had any form of relationship and never left home, she is now a danger to herself (and him), and he's not a strong enough person to deal with it.
So, my dad texted me from the airport as he waited for his plane. They are going to arrange for her to be put into a home with proper supervision, which will necessitate dealing with solicitors and finding a suitable place. Putting a parent into a home must be deeply distressing and comes with the near-certainty that you are putting someone in there to die. He's likely to be gone for a week and I don't envy him one bit.
And, of course, this now means for a near certainty that my dad won't be around when the baby is born. It's not that he's going to miss much in those few days - sleeping, feeding and crapping mainly - but the fact he's going to be missing it at all.
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