My mother's keeper

 

I knew that one day my parents would get old. I knew that they might need help with all kinds of tasks but what I never expected was to become the keeper of my mother's friendships.
Mum migrated to Australia before I was around so the really long term friendships she has are with people I have met only on the rare occasion they might visit Australia, they were never really a part of my life in the way more local people have been. It adds an extra level of complexity.

One friend was dying, she may have thought she had more time than she did or maybe she just didn't want to say much. Mum was always reluctant to phone her "in case it interrupted something". To my mind it is bizarre to avoid calling the friend of a lifetime because they might be interrupted but that was the thinking. After mum didn't hear from her in quite a long time I looked for, and found, an obituary. So I delivered that news.

Another friend always phoned the house and refuses to use a mobile phone or computer. Mum's landline phone was disconnected when she found that she could hear better on her mobile. The only way to communicate with this lady was to phone her house or send a letter. While Mum was in hospital last year, Dad did a lot of "tidying up" but his dementia brain had poor judgement and the friend's new contact details, which were on an envelope and not yet transferred to something more permanent, got lost. I have made some effort to try to track that friend but without any kind of digital footprint and really no specific information about her, it was not possible.

The final friend, Mavis, changed address and phone number when she was unwell and moved in with family. Mum used to talk to Mavis via facebook messenger so the details of physical location didn't matter. Overwhelmed by her own life, Mum didn't contact the lady in the first part of last year and when Mum tried again she got no response. She sent messages and made many calls on messenger, all unanswered. I feared Mavis, too, might have died and so I made some enquiries through relatives and church connections and we found out that Mavis had moved into a care home. Mum got a phone number and called her. Mavis told Mum she had forgotten how to use messenger. I feel like she forgot it even exists.

Aging diminishes everything and I expected it diminish friendships but I expected they would continue in some form unless they were interrupted by death. I never considered that the sudden changes that can come with age would conspire to separate us from relationships of many decades.