Shoes or Slippers

At this late stage in my life finding myself in charge of clothing another person is to be honest a bit of a burden. I’ve never been fussed about clothes. As long as they were comfortable that was fine.  And I’ve never been responsible for another person’s clothes. Now I am.

When mum was a teenager her Aunt Ann made her clothes and she was always immaculate in lovely dresses for her tennis match teas and her Scottish country dancing. I’ve seen the photos.   She refused for years to throw away gowns and other untouched clothes until me and my friend Anne took her in hand one day and went through her wardrobe (cos you couldn’t find anything in it and couldn’t get anything else in it) and threw out anything that she hadn’t worn in the last 10 years and wasn’t likely to wear.  By that stage in the Alzheimer’s she was ok with it.

Clothes have a special significance for mum. When she was sectioned in hospital they took away all her clothes and only brought out for her what she had to wear that day. All her clothes were locked away in a walk-in-cupboard in another part of the hospital. The reason for this was to prevent her from walking out of the hospital.  The rationale being that if she didn’t have outside shoes and a coat she wouldn’t walk out of the main door. Needless to say it didn’t work. The main door was meant to be locked; but if you waited long enough someone would open it and it didn’t close very quickly. Also the nurses would sneak out to have a smoke leaving another door open.  With nothing else to do all day mum must have just watched the doors.  She could frequently be found wandering in the grounds or the car park or trying to get into other wards. Her piece de resistance was when she had got out, walked all the way in her slippers and jumper over to a friend’s house on the other side of the town -a good one hour walk. Her friend was most perturbed to see her and phoned my friend who used to take her up to the hospital to visit her and asked her why Chris was there. Had she been let out? My friend told her to keep her there, phoned the hospital (nobody had noticed she had gone missing) and rushed over in her car to pick her up and return her to the hospital.

So the point is she doesn’t like being separated from her clothes. She has to know where they are and where they are going. This makes washing them a bit tricky and means she likes to keep them on if she can.  She is also always saying that she has no clothes. A quick pull out of the drawers in Colombo or a pointing to the clothes rack down south alleviates this concern.  She packs constantly. (In fact she has to be watched when out at restaurants as the napkins frequently end up neatly packed and shoved into her bag.) She only has a small Barefoot cloth bag but she manages to squeeze into it her nightie, a t shirt, her hankies, her comb, cards from her friends and family, and her purse containing lots of Sri Lankan coins. ‘The bag’ itself must never be lost. It goes everywhere with her. Since she continually puts it places and then forgets where she’s put it, hours are spent searching for ‘the bag’. On one level this attention to her clothes is a reaction against the hospital experience; on another level they are one of the few things that are actually hers here. She has some photographs but her house has been rented and her furniture now is in my flat. So clothes are precious.

Getting dressed is a challenge for both of us.  I wash and dress her.  Her trousers have to be turned down just so. I presume this was because at one point in the not so distant past a pair of trousers were too long and so she just turned them over at the top rather than turned up a hem on them.  Now all  of them have to be turned down regardless of their length. Trousers must have pockets for her innumerable bits of tissues. If they don’t, tissues will be found secreted about her person. And when going to bed, she calls nighties “ridiculous things!” and exclaims “Is that another one from Robert?” My brother brought over quite a few the last time he came. Socks must be whipped off quickly before she realizes they have gone.  Finding trousers for her to wear is a definite challenge. She has worn out the seat in a few because getting the right ones is difficult. They must be beige, brown or grey, elastic waisted (no buttons or clasps) and have pockets.  Also because we are in Sri Lanka they must be light weight.

 “Slippers” and “shoes” cause endless confusion.  She never understands why she has to wear one to go outside and one to stay inside.  Or why she has to keep changing them. I do try to remember to check before we go anywhere.  But it doesn’t always work.  At one point I only noticed that she still had her slippers on when we arrived at the restaurant on the beach – too late to do anything about it. Luckily it was dark and nobody noticed. Once though when we left the house in the car to go to the Fortress, we had to turn back because she had on her slippers, not her shoes.  It was broad daylight and someone would have noticed.  They are most definitely slipper looking – Marks and Spencer style.

I have tried to simplify the whole clothes scenario by keeping some clothes in Colombo and some in Unawatuna. And this works to an extent. However her habit of stuffing her bag with clothes has meant that tops that should be down south end up in Colombo and vice versa.  It continues to be a challenge.