04/05/2025
Every Sunday, the piano lady comes to the nursing home. The residents in the dementia wing come in and sing along with the songs that mean so much to them. Que Sera Sera, Somewhere Over The Rainbow and Moon River are on the playlist. My gran is oblivious to the music today, for some reason she has shut it out. Her hearing has deteriorated, so that’s a part of it, but also she is possibly listening to the clutter in her mind. The realities of living with dementia, drowning out external noise, including my voice. We play cards, we connect and the rules of gin rummy miracously come back to her. Some of the men from Gran’s wing join us at the table and ooh and ahh about my dog Bear or sit back and perhaps remember snippets of when they once played the piano. I look across at Mum. I can see that the years of care for Gran are weighing on her mind. Gran’s long life adventure, at a stalemate today it seems. 101 this July, she asks me how old Bear is and I say, ‘He’s turning 13 this week’ but she won’t remember that, even in the next 30 seconds. One of the men tells me that Bear only has 3 years left to live and now clutter in my mind is drowning him out. I’m happy to keep telling Gran the same things over and over. More engagement, more extended conversation used to be achievable but now, as we play cards, I comment on how lovely her shirt is and the colourful flowers in pots around her door. I show her a photo of me playing music to prompt her memory when she asks what I do. She looks perplexed when I show her an album cover I released at a time when she was in her 70s. At that time we’d write countless letters to one another with Granny, always my biggest supporter. Her response today, upon seeing the front cover of my 1996 debut album ‘Thylacine’ is bluntly, ‘That looks like a dead duck!’ With that, Mum and I fall about laughing. Gran laughs too. She then gets suspicious and I tell her that we aren’t laughing at her, she had just said something funny. She says that I needed to put my glasses on so that I can hear more clearly. So I put my glasses on and she takes one look at me and says, ‘No, you look much better with them off.’ I wouldn’t change these moments, nor these conversations. They are part of life and my deep love and connection with Granny Gree Gree. I know that Mum on Sunday nights gets the Sunday night blues too. You know the feeling. The doldrums you’d get when ‘It’s a Knockout’ was on the telly reminding you that you had a full week of school ahead. Anyway, signing off now, but just thought I’d share this with anyone who may have experienced the aging of someone so near and so dear.
Que Sera Sera
Lyricist Ray Evans
‘When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother what will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Here's what she said to me…
Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be
When I grew up and fell in love I asked my sweetheart what lies ahead?
Will we have rainbows day after day? Here's what my sweetheart said…
Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be
