Seizing the day

This year I shall be seventy years old. My life has been busy and eventful and I often wonder how long it will continue  and what the quality of the remainder will be. My general health is good and I keep active. The bogey man who lurks on the periphery of my life is senile dementia. Eight years ago I inherited a sick old man who at the time was reasonably cogent although frail physically. He lives on, nearly blind, very deaf, bedridden, incontinent and far gone in dementia. Sometimes he will recognise me and my husband when we visit, but often he will mistake us for someone long dead, or not respond at all. Familiarity with senility has made me dread it.

I was ambitious once and I suppose I achieved a few of the things to which I aspired. I made a good marriage that has lasted forty-eight years and had a  daughter and then a son. I tried to be a good mother but am now permanently estranged from my son and my daughter died a year ago. She was autistic but high-functioning and a good, sweet person.

In a material sense I have everything I need and more and I am grateful but the gap the loss of my children has left will never be filled. My husband and I do most things together and have a good life. I think that we are too old now fully to enjoy any grandchildren that might one day come, although our son is still single and shows no sign of settling down.

The old man for whom I am responsible was married to my  mother's younger sister. She was the second youngest of a family of fifteen children, eleven of whom survived infancy. Owing to the fact that  my mother largely brought her up, the two sisters were very close. When my aunt died I found that I was to be her executor and hold my uncle's  power of attorney, not only for financial matters but for health and welfare. Thus I became responsible for a man I had not seen for forty years. I did this willingly as one cannot turn one's back on a sick old man. There was also the fact that he had left my daughter the sum of £100,000 in his will. When I signed the power of attorney documents I joked that all of the old man's money might go in long-term care. I did not anticipate that the main beneficiary would predecease him.