Birthday celebrations and a garden quiz

On Saturday we are having a party. The main purpose is to celebrate ’ö-Dzin turning 60, but it is also quite close to my birthday, and we are also delighted that ’ö-Dzin will be finishing at work by the end of May.

Quite a few people are expected, so we have been working hard on the garden to get it looking nice, with plenty of areas for people to sit and enjoy each other’s company. The paths have been cleared; there are twinkling lights in various places; the old log store is now the ‘Cwtch’ with seating inside; and we have bought new benches.

The event is an afternoon-into-the-evening sort of party, so I have devised a garden quiz for the children. I imagine a few of the adults will wish to join in as well. Here is my garden map.

It was fun to draw and I hope everyone will enjoy the quiz that goes with it.

Happy May Day to you all. I hope you remembered to wash your face in the morning dew to ensure a beautiful countenance for the rest of the year!

Happy birthday one year old

Today was my grandson’s first birthday. My how they change in the first year! He is such a little personality now and an absolute delight. I am thoroughly enjoying being a grandmother.

Smiley and happy from an early age.

Richard and Steph have adopted an interesting approach to feeding. As soon as Sam started taking solid food they gave him pieces to pick up and eat by himself. They did not puree food or feed him from a spoon. I was a bit dubious at first, but it has proved to be brilliant. His manual dexterity is unusually good. He can pick up single peas, with ease. It has also meant that family meals are a really shared experience. No one has to have their meal going cold while they help Sam, because Sam just feeds himself.

He loves books.

I am looking forward to seeing how he changes in the next year, and starting to walk and talk. I will be looking after him for two days a week in January as his nursery place will not be available for a full week  until February - so that should be fun.

2016 art journal complete and becoming a grandmother

The great event at the end of the year 2016 was the birth of our grandson. I’m a grandmother! How extraordinary! Sam Robert is an absolute delight. He smiles and chuckles and wins all our hearts.

I have just been completing my art journal for 2016 and painted his portrait for the final, December page.

I used a Japanese style book for my 2016 art journal. It opens like concertina. It looks quite fun now as a complete thing, but I found the large size pages rather a challenge month by month, and the cloth hinges tended to show too much.

I haven’t started this year’s yet, but I am using an ordinary ring-bound sketch pad of thick cartridge paper – not so daunting!

Visiting the dead – and saying goodbye

I went to visit Mum today. I was not looking forward to it but felt it would be a good thing to do. I remembered visiting ’ö-Dzin’s Mum and finding it comforting seeing how peaceful she looked lying in her coffin. Mum had not looked entirely peaceful on the actual day of her death.

So I walked into Whitchurch village and visited Mum. It was okay. She did look peaceful – and nothing like my Mum. I think it is good to actually see that the body is a shell. It is good to recognise that the consciousness that animated the body and made it into a living, vivid being has departed. Mum was not there.

I practised for her for a while and said my goodbyes. I shall not visit her again. There is no more to say. I will continue bardo practice for her for the 49 days. I will cry at her funeral. And then that will be the end, apart from memories – and they can be joyous remembering the vivid person that she was rather than the shadow she became.

This week has been a gentle winding down. I have gradually felt less exhausted as the week has progressed. Soon it will be time to discover life-without-Mum; life without watching my mother die, slowly, inch by inch, day by day. It has been a gruelling year seeing her losing ground and slipping away.

Goodbye Mum.

Jo Graves RIP – James Summers & Son memorial page

My mother died on 19th February—last Thursday—at 04:30. She had not really been conscious for a few days and peacefully slipped away. Her funeral is on Monday March 2nd at 10:30 in the Briwnant Chapel of Thornhill Crematorium, Cardiff. There is a memorial page for her to which you can contribute if you wish, or just look at photos of her through her life. It is on the Funeral Director’s site, James Summers and Son.

Mum posed for an illustration
in Relaxing into Meditation

I have closed Aro Ling Buddhist Centre this week and cancelled all my appointments for the 10 days after her death. Aro Ling will reopen on Tuesday March 3rd.

After the initial frenzy of visiting the doctors’ surgery, the registrar, the Funeral Directors and her bank, contacting other officials, and sending out information about the funeral, I find myself in a pleasant lull. I am sad, but not excessively so. I am starting to relax after being ‘on call’ for so long, wondering if the next phone call was going to be the one bearing sad news. She had been ill for a long time, and had such poor quality of life at the end, that I would not wish an extension upon her. She was 98 and had lived a full life.

It is strange the things you find yourself doing in a space like this. I cleaned my oven this morning – thoroughly. I even took out the glass panels and cleaned them. This was even before I had got dressed. Mum would be proud – if a little surprised.

Bohnanza – nutritious bean-filled fun

We had a delightful evening with our sons, daughter-in-law, and one of our students. I bought in pizza and R & S made a fabulous apple crumble for dessert. Fizzy wine, fine cyder and the evening was completed with Mario Kart and Bohnanza.

D was working till 6 so we played Mario Kart before he arrived. This can only be played with 4 and there were 5 of us. Our solution was to rotate the controllers around the group with one person dropping out each round. This meant you kept changing driver and kart, which could be hilarious as well as challenging.

After dinner we played Bohnanza. If you haven’t played it yet, it is a lot of fun. It’s funny how you develop favourites among the odd bean characters in the pack. I quite like wax beans. Even though they are not as valuable as other beans, I have won a game in the past with a wax bean empire. I enjoy that the game is simple and easy to learn, and yet there are also possibilities of subtlety of strategy.

Discovering the present by remembering the past

 I had an enjoyable visit with my mum on Tuesday. It can be quite difficult to know what to do when we visit these days – the boys especially don’t like to go on their own because they are at a loss. Mum can be rather confused – she may talk to people who aren’t there, or about things that haven’t actually happened, or she will be so sleepy that she is incomprehensible. The worst scenario is when she tries to sort out her confusion because this just makes her unhappy.

Mum doesn’t really have a present. She is not strong enough to do anything in the present. When she looks at her present there is confusion, discomfort and dissatisfaction. I can sometimes stimulate an interest in colours or textures in her surroundings, but this will depend on how awake she is. She also does not have a future. She is not going to get better or suddenly stop being at the end of her life. Her only future is more of the same and eventually to die. Sometimes her awareness of this causes her to resent that I do have a present, so I avoid talking about things in my life – though she is always happy to hear what the boys are doing. All she has that is interesting and enlivening is a rich and creative past.

On Tuesday she was sleepy for the first half of my visit and not really with me. Then she suddenly asked me whether ’ö-Dzin still cycled to work everyday. I was then able to talk to her about her memories of cycling when she was younger. This led to other memories and a conversation was born. It was wonderful to watch her becoming more animated through the stimulus of remembering, and as she became more alert she became more comprehensible.

Perhaps I have been dense in not doing this before, but at times it can be difficult to steer conversations around memories away from what she has lost. In future I will always try to find a memory that can stimulate a lively conversation – it does not even matter if it is the same memories again. She was always such a busy person making things and being a creative home-maker. Her home was her canvas. Trying to show her photographs doesn't work as she cannot concentrate on them, but I can talk about memories with her. If this can evoke such light-hearted liveliness and affection it will be wonderful. Remembering the past can actually give her an enlivened present.

Stall, events and appreciation - Aro Ling Buddhist Centre and being an author

Gosh this week has been busy! We had our usual weekly events at Aro Ling Cardiff Tibetan Buddhist Centre, and then on Sunday had a stall in Whitchurch Village. The event was the illuminating of the Christmas lights in the village. A great number of people came along to the event, and we gave out quite a few leaflets and had nice chats with a number of visitors to the stall.

This was followed on Monday with a journey up to Birmingham with my son to visit my 99 year old aunt. We took her out for lunch and then a walk round the park which she thoroughly enjoyed.

There have also been several trips to the vet for our younger cat, Spots. I say younger, but even she is an old lady now. She has one pupil fully delayed in her right eye that does not return to normal. Poor thing.

To finish the week on a delightful note, I received some very nice feedback on my first book Spacious Passion from a lady via Facebook. She has posted a review on Amazon. I am hoping that there will be two new books published in 2015.

One wedding and a birthday

On Friday 9th May it was my birthday – and also the wedding of our younger son, Richard to the delightful Steph. I was so engrossed in the wedding plans that I even forgot it was my birthday when I woke up. Here are a few photos from the day, and from the wedding feast the day afterwards.

The wedding outfits that I made for them.

With Steph's parents

With us.

With Grandma (98) & Great Aunt (99) 

Sisters and brothers

Listening to Steph's Dad's speech

Old friends and Dan

Robot bride and groom

3 tiers of different types of cake made by Steph's Mum and sister

Another full weekend

And so it begins. . .

We had intended for the weekend after returning home from Vienna to be mostly free, apart from a quick Buddhist Council of Wales meeting on the Sunday morning. Life had other ideas however, with Daniel’s flat purchase finally completing. So we spent all of the Saturday moving Dan into his new home. We hired a van and managed to move everything in two trips.

Ready to load.

Pontypridd station.

The flat is a nice as I remembered from our brief first inspection. I think he will be happy there. His lounge overlooks Pontypridd station where he will get the train to work. He also has good views of the hills around Ponty which will be a delight as the seasons move round.

We went into Pontypridd for a meal after our exertions. This was quite an experience! The restaurant was full of Scottish rugby fans. There was much noise, singing and good humour despite the fact that they had lost the match. It was not exactly a relaxed meal, but enjoyable nevertheless.

The Buddhist Council meeting went ahead without incident. We all agreed that we will continue to try to interest other Buddhist organisations in Wales of its existence and of its value. I will be continuing as Chair for a further three years.

Marmalade or strawberry jam?

On Wednesday I attended a meeting at The Hollies Care Home where my mother resides.  There is a new manager at the home and she has entered the arena like a whirlwind.  Quite a number of staff have left and many changes are happening in the arrangements at the home.  Inevitably not everyone is happy about the changes and there has been some grumbling.  A lot of relatives came to the meeting and it was useful for us all to hear the plans for the next six months.

The new manager is keen to make the place as little like an institution and as much like a real home as possible.  For example she says that residents should be able to help themselves to a cup of tea whenever they like, and not have to wait for the trolley to arrive.  If they want a snack, they should be able to have a snack.  If they want to sit in the garden they can do so – and so on.

She has specific training and experience in working with sufferers of dementia and is keen to implement ideas to help stimulate and engage with dementia residents in a respectful and beneficial manner.  She gave a lovely example of how a slight change in approach can make a huge difference:

First scenario: a resident is given a piece of buttered toast.

Second scenario: a resident is given a piece of buttered toast and offered marmalade or strawberry jam on it.
Third scenario:  a resident is given a piece of buttered toast.  The carer takes the lids off the jars of jam and marmalade and offers them to the resident to look at and smell.  The smell of strawberries stimulates a memory and the resident talks with the carer about picking strawberries as a child.

I found this--and other similar examples--quite moving and inspiring.  I can imagine my mother remembering making marmalade and jam, and growing strawberries in her garden. We can all be so much more alive and aware if we stop filtering experience through our mental processes and open ourselves to the experiences of the sense fields.  Direct experience of strawberry jam through the sense of smell is so much more immediate and direct than the abstract question of whether you want it on your toast.

A sensory room has already been set up at the Hollies with a seaside theme.  Residents can sit in there and listen to sounds of the sea and of gulls; there is a sandpit with buckets and a spade; the floor covering looks like pebbles; and there is a large seaside scene that fills a whole wall. 

I am pleased that The Hollies has an enthusiastic and energetic manager with lots of ideas to improve the home.  It will be interesting to see what other changes come into being in the home over the coming months.

Proud parents

It’s that time of year again – to be proud parents displaying the achievement of our graduating son.  This time it is Richard’s turn.  His study has been quite a long haul of five years.  He had to undertake a foundation year because he had not taken A level maths, and his degree course was a four year course leading to a masters.  Richard is now an MEng – with a masters first class honours degree in electrical and electronic engineering.  He also won the Cardiff Univertsity’s Agilent Technology prize.  There is no doubt he is a clever lad.  He is receiving a lot of interest from prospective employers and it will be interesting to see how his career progresses from here.

We had a lovely day at his graduation yesterday.  The weather was glorious and the event well presented and organised.  We enjoyed a full day of celebrations in Cardiff city centre.

Well done Richard and good luck for the future.

Patience and good humour

I have really valued my mother's capacity to laugh at her own confusion, and to remain patient and good humoured through all the recent difficulties.  At times she was a little frightened by her disorientation, but mostly she took it in her stride.

During her time in Llandough Hospital this summer she was on four different wards altogether, plus a short period at Heath Hospital to have the pacemaker fitted. She always had a smile for whoever was caring for her and she accepted whatever needed to happen patiently. Now she is in the new nursing home and settling in well.

 I hope that I am able to work with confusion so light-heartedly when I become elderly. I already say the wrong word quite frequently or get in a mess – so it may not be so far away! As long as we can retain our sense of humour we continue to live in the human realm. Illness or old age do not give us the right to be ill-tempered and difficult to work with. Thanks for the reminder Mum!

My mother seems to be very much living in the present moment just now without any clear understanding of the passing of time. It is as if she is slowly losing her grasp on the reality of this life, and any sense of its continuity. She just is with whatever is happening in the moment. I feel that as long as she continues to have a happy mind and is able to find humour in her situation, it bodes well for a peaceful passing and for her next life when the time comes.

Life returning to normal

It has been a difficult summer.  Mum was in hospital for four months in all – it felt as though it was never going to end.  She was not too bad at first and we both wondered what the fuss was about.  Yes she had blanked out a couple of times, but was otherwise quite well.  These ‘funny turns’ had been happening more frequently.  It took about a month for the hospital to sort out that it was a problem with her heart.  They tried to regulate the problem using medication but this was not successful, so Mum had a pacemaker fitted – at 96!

Mum came through the operation surprisingly well, and apart from a few poorly days straight afterwards, made a quick recovery.  Unfortunately being in hospital represented a total lack of stimulation for Mum and she has lost a lot of ground because of this.  Whereas in her residential care home she had walked to and from the dining room and the bathroom a number of times a day, in hospital she would have a short walking session with a physio once a day – but not even every day.  Also her appetite—which has never been particularly good-—disappeared, so she lost weight and strength.

As a consequence, Mum is sadly a lot frailer than she was before going into hospital and it was eventually decided that she no longer had sufficient independence to return to residential care and would need nursing care.  After nagging the hospital for weeks to make a decision, they finally made the need for nursing care official – and then gave me two weeks to find a new home for her!  The bureaucracy around this was appalling and distressingly cold-hearted at times.

I did succeed in finding a nice place for Mum however, and she moved in a couple of weeks ago.  She is settling well and likes the place.  Her room overlooks the entrance, car park and garden and she enjoys watching the comings and goings. They have her walking a little more again and she is eating better, so she is a little stronger, but still very frail.

My feelings about the care she received at Llandough Hospital is rather mixed.  I think it is a case of their doing the best they can in difficult circumstances.  I could not believe how much washing the hospital generated from one old lady and found it stressful and upsetting that this became a major focus of my life for four months – what unpleasantness will I find in the bag today and will I be able to get it dry before she runs out of clothes again?  I feel surprised that relatives are expected to deal with some of the unpleasantness I found in those laundry bags, and some of it I put straight in the bin.

Thank heavens those days are behind us and we can have happier times again for now.

Shark infested waters

I believe I have successfully navigated the shark-infested waters of care home financing.  What an ordeal!  First one benefit was stopped without notice; then another.  First one amount was charged for the care home, then another.  Then one benefit suddenly became payable again, but another one had to be re-applied for.

Aaaarrrrggghhhh!!

Throughout this process I have been expected to make decisions.  I made decisions based on the criteria I had at the time, but no one told me that they would change... and then change again... and then change again.  In the end I think it will be alright and we will be able to afford to keep mum in the home that she chose, but it has been most stressful and worrying.  Fortunately she has no idea of the extra grey hairs I have acquired over the last three or four months.  I am still waiting for one reply about a benefit and another official document, but then I will finally know our actual financial situation.

Mum has settled in well and is mostly content.  I am the person that she complains to so I have learned to take this with a pinch of salt.  She is usually pretty happy when I visit and only has the occasional grumbly day.  She gets on well with the staff and has a lady that she always sits by who seems fond of her.  She is eating well and seems stronger.  I took her out in the sunshine a few days ago.  We walked along by the river and the cyclepath and got the wheelchair rather muddy, but the staff thought this most amusing and were not at all upset about the state of the chair.  They were happy that mum had had a nice trip out.  This is a refreshing and balanced response and reflects the pleasant, friendly atmosphere of Cathedral View.

The image accompanying this post is of a plate that my mother painted some years ago.

Proud mother

Last week my elder son graduated with a 2.1 in Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Glamorgan.  I am so proud of him – it is an extraordinary achievement.

Daniel had health problems from birth.  His was ill pretty much of the time as a baby and a toddler, but this gradually improved by the time he went to school.  At infant school he was diagnosed as dyspraxic and he received therapy for this for several years.  This means that his coordination is poor and he does not see the world in quite the same way the rest of us do.  For years—for example—he was only able to safely walk downstairs by sliding his foot along the back of the step to feel his way to the next tread.  He could not hop, found running difficult, ball games impossible, and has never succeeded in learning to swim despite a couple of courses of private lessons.

In the final year of his primary school his was awarded the Bethan Bradley memorial award – an award given to the student who has persevered and risen to the challenge to overcome personal learning difficulties. 

Because of his poor hand/eye coordination his handwriting is messy and childlike and difficult to read, and this proved a great disadvantage in the secondary school examination system.  Nevertheless he achieved 10 GCSEs and 3 A levels.  The grades do not reflect his intelligence and capability.  He worked really hard for his exams – Daniel always gives 110% in effort and application.  For his A levels he gained a D for politics, a D for English Language and a C Religious Studies.  Unfortunately the writing course he wished to take at university required a minimum achievement of 2 Bs and a C.

Daniel tried to find work but was unable to find anyone who would give him a chance.  Having to hand write application forms was a big disadvantage.  Two years later and still with no career prospect he decided to try again for the writing course at the University of Glamorgan.  After having been refused again, once in writing and once on the phone, we pursued it this time explaining that writing was all Daniel had ever wanted to do and that he had been writing stories since he was 5.  Fortunately one time we spoke to a person on the other end of the phone who was less rigid, and they put Daniel in touch with one of the tutors.  She asked him to submit a piece of his work.  Daniel sent in a short story and was accepted on the strength of that.

In his first year at university he was diagnosed as dyslexic – which explained a lot.  He was allowed a computer for the exams which meant he was not at the mercy of his handwriting.  Years two and three were assessed on coursework rather than by examination so this problem did not arise again.  He worked hard and deserved the 2.1 award.

So well done Daniel.  I hope that someone will give him a job this time.  If an employer would take a risk on him they would discover a jewel – an employee who is conscientious and hard-working, honest and reliable, and who can succeed when the odds are against him.

End of the hospital vigil

The period of daily hospital visits is now at an end.  My mother moves into a residential care home tomorrow.  It has been six weeks.  Mum—who featured in illustrations in Relaxing into Meditation—is not overjoyed at the prospect of residential care but does recognise that she cannot live alone in her own home any more without considerable support.  Of the options available to her, residential care is the lesser of two evils for her – she really hated carers coming into her home several times a day and this would have had to happen four times a day from here on.  Residential care may actually be cheaper as well.

She is moving into Cathedral View Resdidential Care Home which is just up the road from her house.  Mum felt it would be nice to continue to live in the area she knows and she is lucky that there is a space at the home.  It is a great relief for me to know that she will be in residential care.  I will no longer feel on call all the time and have that little surge of worry whenever the phone rings in the evening; I will have more time and will not feel the responsibility of being my mother's primary source of companionship; and I will know that she is safe.  It will be great to visit her just as her daughter wanting to enjoy her company, rather than as a carer running around trying to sort things out for her.  The home is near a park and the Taff trail, and I am looking forward to trundling her over to see the river.  If the weather is fine we can even have a picnic – we haven't managed anything relaxing like that together this year as it has been dominated by her injuries and hospital visits.

All the wards at the University Hospital of Wales have these curtains showing scenes from Cardiff and the Vale.  They are nice curtains and a useful talking point sometimes – but I am hoping that I will not be seeing them again for a while.

Tubular Bells

'ö-Dzin inherited a set of tubular bells from his great grandfather.  They have been languishing in a box for decades and finally we have pulled them out, polished them up and hung them somewhere they can be played.  There are only eight of them so what can be played is fairly limited and the music notation we have is nearly all hymns.  I remember this tune from my days of learning to play the recorder in junior school - a long time ago!

'ö-Dzin's great grandfather was called Seymour Barker and he was a bell-ringer at St John's Church on the Hayes in Cardiff.  I also used to ring bells in my teenage years at the Church of St Mary and St. Bartholomew in Hampton in Arden, Warwickshire where I grew up.  I was also a choir girl.  I had to stand on a box to ring the bell and can remember occasionally leaving the ground slightly while holding on to the sally.

Hospital visiting

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

My mother is in hospital at the moment.  This is her second round as an in-patient this year.  In January she broke her wrist.  In June she broke her hip.  At 95 years of age it is disorientating for her to adjust to changing environments and circumstances.  The ward she is on at the University Hospital of Wales, Heath, Cardiff, is a friendly place with an optimistic atmosphere.  I try to visit her every day and it can be difficult to know what to talk about.  She has little occurring in her present, and her future is uncertain.  Talking of the past can sometimes become distressing.  She likes to hear what is happening with the family and sometimes I take in photograph albums for us to look at.  We also talk about what we can see: noticing the lovely sky blue colour of the window curtains, the texture of the blanket over her knees, the sky - my mother still has a great capacity to appreciate through her sense fields if prompted to have this awareness.  She is a remarkable person in many ways.