{"id":1041,"date":"2021-04-11T17:11:59","date_gmt":"2021-04-11T16:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/?page_id=1041"},"modified":"2022-01-09T09:35:14","modified_gmt":"2022-01-09T09:35:14","slug":"mum-the-only-option","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/january-2001-newsletter\/mum-the-only-option\/","title":{"rendered":"Mum &#8211; The Only Option?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1043\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1043\" style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/evergreen3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1043\" src=\"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/evergreen3-300x68.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"490\" height=\"110\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/evergreen3-300x68.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/evergreen3-768x173.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/evergreen3.jpg 915w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 490px) 100vw, 490px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1043\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In the Garden at 43<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><b>Juliet Henderson<br \/>\n<\/b>2014<\/p>\n<p>She sits there by the Rayburn rubbing the wart on her left eyelid<br \/>\nReading the newspaper the way she always has<br \/>\nMind still sharp for crosswords and scrabble<br \/>\nShe doesn\u2019t give up looking for winning solutions easily<br \/>\nWhy should she need care?<\/p>\n<p>Her blood is ours.<\/p>\n<p>She lies childlike asleep warmed by an electric blanket<br \/>\nWorn sheepskin slippers by the bedside with holes in the toes<br \/>\nShirt, cardigan, and blouse worn five days in a row lain on a chair<br \/>\nWooden floorboards store memories of falls she keeps secret<br \/>\nDoes this mean she is no longer safe?<\/p>\n<p>We can feel her confusion.<\/p>\n<p>Her memory fails her again and again<br \/>\nFriend\u2019s names, what she did five minutes ago,<br \/>\nWhere she went on holiday,<br \/>\nHer life erased, her life, now present moment repeated again and again<br \/>\nDoes this mean she must quit her home and independence?<\/p>\n<p>We feel the betrayal in our children\u2019s hearts.<\/p>\n<p>So I\u2019m going to the home for three days. Oh, three weeks?<br \/>\nHow strange, and it\u2019s just across the road from here?<br \/>\nDoes everybody know? Can I take my radio?<br \/>\nOh, I have my own room, I thought there were wards,<br \/>\nAnd I\u2019m going because of my problems with my memory?<\/p>\n<p>Trying to understand.<\/p>\n<p>What crime has she committed to lose all most dear to her?<br \/>\nWhat system of justice requires her to relocate to a residential home?<br \/>\nTo forego the freedoms she spent a lifetime treasuring<br \/>\nTo burn up her carefully managed estate in a market of care<br \/>\nHow did it come to this?<\/p>\n<p>Our mother is disappearing into age.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a class=\"fasc-button fasc-size-medium fasc-type-glossy fasc-rounded-medium fasc-ico-before dashicons-arrow-up-alt fasc-style-bold\" style=\"background-color: #0315a3; color: #ffffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/january-2001-newsletter\/\">Back to January 2021 e-Newsletter Main Page<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>Forty-Three<\/em> e-Newsletter \u2022 Number 501 \u2022 January 2021<br \/>\n<\/strong>Oxford Friends Meeting<br \/>\n43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">newsletter@oxfordquakers.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Juliet Henderson 2014 She sits there by the Rayburn rubbing the wart on her left eyelid Reading the newspaper the way she always has Mind still sharp for crosswords and scrabble She doesn\u2019t give up looking for winning solutions easily Why should she need care? Her blood is ours. She lies childlike asleep warmed by &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/january-2001-newsletter\/mum-the-only-option\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mum &#8211; The Only Option?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"parent":62,"menu_order":172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1041","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1045,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1041\/revisions\/1045"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/62"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordquaker.com\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}