Dingo the Dissident

THE BLOG OF DISQUIET : Qweir Notions, an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since 2008 .

Tuesday 4 August 2015

My mother never liked being asked

How are you ?
because she very often had a serious headache
(which might last a week or even two).
She fended off inquiries with such replies as
Surviving,
Bearing up,
Coping,
Vegetating,
Soldiering on, 
Deliquescing
and Mouldering away.
She played golf and bridge
until dementia left her with
one foot in the grave.

My mother and I by the Loire in 1981.



















Only to me would she say how she really was,
and not all the time.
I rarely ask how people are,
because I also hate being asked how I am
even though I mostly feel pretty good
and almost never have a headache.
This is amplified behavioural inheritance.

2 comments:

Jindra K. Hrdlička said...

I always liked the reply to the useless "How are you ?"
"I am fine, it's the others."

Marcus Billson said...

Beautiful picture. I have traveled three thousand miles to attend on my mother suffering from dementia in a nursing home. It is amazing how much and how little you know about "how a person is" when there is no language to respond or engage, and how little you know and how much you don't know when there is.