Aubrey
Welsh
The passing of an icon
From 2018 to 2022, I spent much of the time visiting my elderly mother in Durban, South Africa. She was in her nineties and living in a frail care facility. The staff were pretty good; their pay was not so great and the working hours are extended. But they did everything in their power to help and assist a large number of residents in their care and I have been very grateful for their compassion. But I have seen mom change from a fiercely independent woman living on her own in the Manhattan Court apartment I purchased for her in 1994, to someone who has lost that independence and now required assistance to do almost everything she used to do by herself. I was devastated when watching mom feed herself (which she still steadfastly did) as some of the food fell onto her 'shelf' and body. She ate very little and I knew that in time she would eat even less. Her mobility was severely compromised and in her final 18 months she was largely confined to her bed. Her room was tiny and she had few belongings but every day she got up and tidied her space before the staff came in to clean - she did not want them coming into a 'dirty place'.
I took this photograph in 2021 when Mom was healthy, relatively mobile and we were going out to the shops three of four times a week. Not that Mom wanted to buy lots of stuff; she just wanted to wander through the shops having a look at the goods, comparing prices with the old days and running her fingers and hands across every item she passed. This is something that she has done all her life and I recall when she visited me in Hong Kong, she would spend days looking through the markets and bazaars, marvelling at what could be bought. She did buy stuff, of course, and a not so wonderful memory of her trips was the 'scene' at the airport when she flew home and she tried to re-pack her luggage to comply with the weight requirements. Inevitably, I had to take 10kg of stuff home with me!
A few weeks ago, mom went through a 'bad patch' and I took a photo of her lying on her bed, in still repose. Her breathing was quite shallow and I had to get up close to make sure that she was still breathing. Mom was facing a new challenge at that moment, the onset of Alzheimer's. She has always had an incredible memory and would astound me with her ability to recall information from decades ago. I learned very early in life not to tell her any fibs, mostly because I could not remember what I had said in the first place. We used to joke that she still had all her marbles. In recent times, most of those marbles seem to be rolling away. She knew something was happening in her brain and she talked about it. Although it was frustrating for her, there were times when we had real quality conversations. And this was the joy that I received from her, just sitting with her, chatting sometimes - at other times, just being with her. I knew I would lose my mother at some time in the future so it was important for me now to spend as much time with her as possible. Thank you to all those people who have sent her their best wishes. She loved receiving them and sent her thanks in return.
This photo was taken on the campus of The Chinese University of Hong Kong during one of her visits there.
