The missed call from the nursing home on my mobile at 1.58am told me what I already knew. Our tiny but mighty mother had died in her sleep, just hours after my sister and I had left her side.
We returned later that morning to a room with an empty bed, this time to put away her slippers and favorite green cardigan, take down the family photographs, and remove the cards we had given Mom exactly two weeks earlier for her 83rd birthday.
My brother told me with dark humor that we were too old to be orphans. But whatever your age, nothing prepares you for losing a mother so deeply loved that you become a child without a hand to hold on to.
My mother’s death left me perplexed even though it was something completely expected.
Marianne, right, with her late mother Maria, an intelligent girl who lovingly and single-handedly guided her three children into adulthood after their father left.
She was my biggest supporter, my fiercest critic, my most loyal confidant. Last week I burst into tears at the train station watching a mother and daughter telling a joke and had to hide my eyes behind sunglasses, despite the rain. We would never enjoy those easy jokes again.
The magnitude of my grief took me by surprise because for the past five years my mother lived with the slow, slow deterioration of dementia.
This cruel disease gradually robbed him of his mobility, his voice and, finally, his soul. Our brilliant Maltese firecracker with big dark curls became a silver-haired sparrow on a pillow.
It may sound terrible, but there were times when I silently wished my mother would suddenly go away, doing something very ordinary that she loved, like spinning around the dance floor or eating pasta with seafood, or even watching Coronation Street.
This would have involved the pain of saying goodbye, but only once. As anyone who cares for a loved one with dementia knows, this devastating disease (with someone diagnosed every three minutes) is a series of long goodbyes. They are lost in pieces.
It was like recording a baby’s milestones, but in reverse: the day he needed a wheelchair, stopped talking and couldn’t swallow solid food. The most heartbreaking thing was that he no longer recognized me, something I was convinced would never happen.
Luckily, my husband captured the moment when Mom reached out from her bed to smile and touch my face, not knowing it would be the last time.
Even though she is free now, the relief I was assured would come has stubbornly not come. I don’t feel relieved that Mom is no longer in the world. But memories of the person she used to be have come back in waves and I find comfort in remembering Mom as she really was rather than as her shell.
She was a smart girl who lovingly and single-handedly guided three of us into adulthood after my father left when I was eight.
My mother had a tough life, which she survived through her stubbornness, cunning, and lack of self-pity. Frankly, I don’t think I could have done it. She had a full-time factory job, but walked home after every shift to cook dinner from scratch. I dreamed of ready-made meals, but this 4-foot-10 pocket rocket who was determined to keep our diet healthy made me a casserole.
She could make a penny go a long way, knitting and sewing our clothes, her love reflected in every dish and every stitch. We were the richest of the poor children.
As a child, she gave me three pieces of advice: never depend on a man for money, always keep your head on straight, and don’t let others put you down. She was a feminist without knowing it.
When I was 15 and felt discouraged after a school guidance counselor described journalism as a bit ambitious, my mother’s dismissive response, “What does she know?” encouraged me to keep going.
She was determined that my life would be different from hers, that I would go to college and do well in a job I loved.
This resilience and wisdom instilled in me my own money, my dignity, and my long career as a fashion magazine editor.
When my mother grew up, she was finally able to relax, having found love and security for the second time with my stepfather, George.
She became the perfect companion, agreeing to trips to the theatre or a short getaway before I had even finished asking her. Unlike children, friends and other halves, she was a willing companion and could handle herself in any company, as she was so comfortable being herself.
Despite living in different parts of the country, we never go more than a couple of weeks without meeting up and talking on the phone every day, discussing life’s trivialities that you would never bore anyone with.
She would drop everything (even poor George) and hop on a train to come south to take care of our two kids during a work crisis, and I honestly couldn’t have gotten through it without her unwavering support.
Her grandchildren were her world and I had never seen her happier than when she was babysitting her naughty children (‘naughty boys’ is my favourite phrase). Mum spoiled them more than she ever could us and found it much easier to verbalise her love.
Although the stress of her youth faded, the incessant knitting continued. The boys have the Bob the Builder and skull sweaters she made for them tucked away in their memory boxes. We call them their Nanna knits.
She continued to cook from scratch, insisting that I didn’t need frozen ready meals if I was organized, which sometimes got on my nerves. But even though we argued, we never got angry. The trick was to accept that she was never wrong, that she didn’t apologize, and that she was unlikely to change her mind (or at least admit it). My husband says he’s married to a similar woman.
While my sister inherited my mother’s thrifty and culinary skills and my brother her practical mind, I inherited her love of reading and fashion (not so useful, but very fun).
Her ideal day was to spend hours shopping on the high street before heading to the M&S cafe for a cup of tea and cake.
Even though she always kept an eye on her money, even when she no longer needed it, she had a soft spot for clothes. It would take my sister and I two whole days to empty her closet, as Mom could never resist buying another flower-print skirt, a colorful T-shirt, or a pair of sandals that caught her eye. And if she liked something I was wearing, she would always say, “Ooh, I’ll take that when you’re done with it.”
I swear she had more of my clothes than I did, but I never admitted how much they cost because that would lead to another one of her favorite lines: “You have more money than sense.”
One of the first signs that Mom was experiencing something more than an “old age moment” occurred while we were talking about books.
My stepdad died in 2019 and we spent the summer with Mum, taking her on a family holiday to Croatia and then bringing her back home with us to Kent.
Dementia gradually robbed Marla of her mobility, her voice, and eventually her soul.
One afternoon, while I was browsing my bookshelf, she picked out The Outcast by Sadie Jones and told me she’d like to read it. I thought she was joking and said, “Mum, you just read it on holiday!” When she said she’d never seen it before, I showed her a picture of her holding it on a deckchair.
It was stupid and insensitive. She seemed stunned and frightened. It soon became clear that George had been hiding signs of his decline. Later that week, while cooking us his signature risotto, he tried to put an onion in a pan of boiling water instead of frying it. It was the beginning of the end.
He was eventually diagnosed with a mix of vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s.
In 2021, my sister, who I am very lucky to have, became Mom’s full-time caregiver, but by the following November her needs were so great that we reluctantly and guiltily placed her in a nursing home.
A few months earlier we took her to Malta, suspecting it would be her last visit, so her nephews and cousins could say goodbye. It was a week of warmth and laughter, except when Mum wandered off while we were sightseeing. Like a scene from a bad comedy, we saw her ahead, asked a man to take us in a golf cart and picked her up.
“Where have you been?” she asked angrily. We had to laugh (in the end). It’s these imperfect memories that make me smile now. I wish I had more videos of Mum to capture her laugh, those bright chocolate eyes and the Merseyside/Maltese accent we would happily imitate.
My sister also wishes we had cut off a lock of her hair. I regret not having done so, but I hope we did more right than wrong. I was worried about having to warn my children, who adored her so much, that Nanna did not have much time left, especially as one of them was taking university exams.
I’m glad I did, because on what turned out to be her last day, they FaceTimed her and it was beautiful. Even though Mom wasn’t conscious, it’s comforting to know that her grandchildren told her how much they loved her.
It was also a special comfort for my sister and I to “prepare” Mom to leave this world. Her pink nail polish was chipped, and as trivial as that sounds, she hated looking disheveled, so we carefully removed it and then massaged her hands with her favorite rose hand cream.
As we were chatting, Mom suddenly opened her eyes and looked at us. “There it is!” we both exclaimed.
It lasted a few seconds, but that tender moment, where I hope she felt loved and safe in her final hours, means a lot.
When I came home after my mother’s death, I remembered that she had taped a note to the back of a photograph of her that she had embroidered and framed for my birthday years ago. It showed her as a child in Malta making her First Communion. “Open it when I’m gone,” she told me.
We always thought the letter would contain a shocking family secret, but I needn’t have worried. In typical mother fashion, the paper is not fancy, the letter is written in pen, and its words record the place and date of the occasion and the style of the embroidery. But what is unusual are the words that say that she “loves my Marianne very much” – something that, in true northern style, we rarely said to each other. I was overwhelmed.
My biggest challenge was writing and delivering my mother’s eulogy. At her funeral I was devastated to see her coffin and the flowers in the shape of a Maltese cross, a symbol of the island where she wanted her ashes to be scattered.
I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I knew she would love to hear me talk about her life, including a friend’s line that perfectly described Mom as “a big person in a small body.”
So I mustered some of my courage, stood tall, shoulders back, and hopefully made her proud. And as I looked around at the fun, kind, warm children and grandchildren she still lives on in, I thought: Job done, Mom.
- For information and support about dementia, visit dementiauk.org or call 0800 888 6678.
- Marianne Jones is co-host of the twice-weekly podcast Been there Done That Got the Podcast.