It’s a little after 4h00 and it’s the weekend. It’s also pouring with rain outside and I’ve just come from my mother’s room where I sneakily went to check a wound on her foot, with a torch.

My paranoia has been raging ever since she’s had this little abscess.

I have been really busy since I last blogged and for multiple reasons. My mother hasn’t been doing very well and I’ve recently started to help her bath. Ever since this little development, she feels that she too can watch me bath.

The smoothness of my cooch has become a topic of discussion on more than one occasion and despite me explaining that I don’t shave anymore, my mother has gifted me a lovely green razor, a back scratcher, and some ‘duvva’ (medicine) for the graze on my knee.

When I fell three weeks ago, I didn’t immediately tell my mother. But from the time she first saw me limp, until now, I’ve carefully observed her attempts to take care of me.

It’s cute how she leaves a glass of water next to my pills at night time. She also offers to make me tea when she sees me working past 16h00. My mother folds my towels when I do the washing, she makes sure I have spare toilet paper in my bathroom and will throw away and change the toothpaste when it’s nearing the end.

One of her chores is feeding the cat. She takes this very seriously. If Mexico utters even the tiniest sound, she will get up and look for her. If Mexico throws up in the middle of the night, my mother will complain to me about her bad behaviour the minute I get home. If Mexico goes outside and my mother hears cats fighting, she makes me go outside to bring her back. Basically, the cat is hers now. I must be strong.

The best quality of my mother is her consideration. She says sorry too many times in the day because that word has become her absolution. She will say, “Sorry, can I talk?… Sorry, are you going to put eye drops in my eyes?… Sorry, are you going to bath?… Sorry, what must I eat?… Sorry, I’m going for a walk… Sorry, doesn’t Christmas Father look pretty? (while pointing to a King and his crown in her colouring book). She’s also started calling her ankles, calves, and potatoes, eggs. But that’s normal dementia babble.

Last week I had one of the busiest weekends to date. I baked cakes and cupcakes and piped them until my hands went numb. While taking a coconut sponge out of the oven, my mother reminded me that I use all her baking tins for my cakes.

I giggled and said, “Yes, I am my mother’s child.”

When the cakes were cool, I turned them out on the wire rack. My mother rounded next to me again and started laughing hysterically.

“You are my child,” she spluttered. I burst into tears.

There I was with her dishes, baking cakes like she once did, and giving her the icing bowl to lick. I mesmerized her just as she once mesmerized me.

Also a new development is my mother waking up around 2h00 some week days. A whole 30 minutes before my alarm goes off for work.

I’ll hear arthritic feet shuffling slowly towards my bedroom. She resembles a detective with a torch and I am always awoken by a growing shadow on the walls. The first time this happened, I thought I was being robbed and slid down the side of my bed in fear and panic. Her unmistakable gait gave her away after a little while.

That was then. These days I try my utmost to lay as still as I can, praying she’ll do a u-turn and go back to bed. But she never does. When she gets to the entrance of my room she’ll yell, “Reeeee-shaaa?”

It takes her exactly four steps to fully turn the corner into my bedroom. By then, her shadow is as big as the wall. If a child shared my bed they would undoubtedly pee themselves wet EVERY time this scene unfolded.

I mean it’s something straight out of the grim reaper’s playbook, but instead of the scythe, the weapon of choice is a mechanical floodlight powered by two AAA batteries.

I never respond and the result is being blinded by a tiny torch on steroids, shaking about wildly in my face. I try to clench my eyes shut and make sure there’s no sign of life. But still on a mission, my mother will come right to my bed and hover above my face like a ghost.

Eventually, she’ll breathe, foul-smelling and toothless, “I NEED help.”

“WHAT! NO, MAN.

Why are you here….”

Laughing, she’ll turn around and shuffle back out of my room, and her comeback?

“I just wanted to see if you’re here. Are you going to get up?

“Can you put eye drops in my eyes?”