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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2019
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A MYTH UNRAVELS
MUM IS NOT INDESTRUCTIBLE
By PATRICK WEBB
For The Daily Astorian
S
URREY, England — Those quizzes are cap-
tivating. Pick one word to describe . . .
As we said our goodbyes, I applied that
to my Mum.
“Indestructible.”
Maybe, once. But today my word is so
obviously a lie.
For a lifetime sportswoman looking to downsize
when macular degeneration robbed her of her sight,
Mum’s move from a three-bedroom home to a minis-
cule apartment was a home run.
Never in three years had she lamented the loss of
her two-story brick castle packed with 62 years of
memories and an attic fi lled with every “handy” box
the mailman delivered.
Besides, it is not home anymore. A charming
young couple with a new baby and a Staffordshire
bull terrier have knocked down the kitchen wall to
make it open plan.
Patrick Webb
May Webb, pictured with late husband Bill in 2009,
was a sportswoman all her adult life, playing tennis,
badminton and lawn bowls. Participation in sports
pervades her family. Bill played soccer, cricket, tennis
and bowls. One son was a soccer goalkeeper and
another a referee for three decades. Her late brother
was a champion target shooter and cyclist; a nephew
and granddaughter run marathons.
Assisted living
Instead, Mum thrived in assisted living, a studio
apartment half the size of a volleyball court. It had
everything a frail nonagenarian with bad eyesight
needed, a sideboard bursting with birthday cards,
inky pens and sticky address labels, a college-dorm
sized fridge, and a shorter step from bed or chair to
loo. Independence, but the daily company of like
seniors at a hot communal lunch.
That came to a bumpy halt after Thanksgiving.
Two night-time falls left blood on the soft red car-
pet. Two hospital stays concluded with an admoni-
tion: Two strikes and you’re out.
She could not return home.
Next is a residential care home on the leafy north
end of the market town south of London where I grew
up. It is across the street from the lawn bowls club
which witnessed her fi nal sporting triumphs.
Mum’s diminishing empire is one room on Dor-
mouse wing. Home is tidy, functional and antisep-
tic. Every day, Zahid wheels his barrow past playful
rodent silhouettes that adorn the wainscotting to wipe
or vacuum every surface with zeal. Her world is con-
densed to a hospital-style mechanized bed, a recliner,
a wardrobe of clothes she will never wear again, and
that most necessary bathroom.
The $2,000 recliner is new, with a paisley motif
and a giant black cord that snakes under the bed.
Thankfully, it has just one button to recline and one to
push the sitter up and out. The mechanism is getting
a workout — the windowsill is scuffed where it has
pushed back too far.
Yusuf arrives with a cup of tea, a mission he will
repeat all day. His family fl ed violence in Sierra
Leone to The Gambia, so we have much in common
because my extended family lives in West Africa. In
his culture, caring for the elderly is both duty and joy.
I visit every day for almost two weeks, running
out of conversation, fl eeing her room when visiting
nurses with muscular arms arrive in their royal blue
uniforms to change bandages on Mum’s swollen legs.
Tennis elbow has robbed her of wrist strength and
unmentionable “bad stuff in my innards” has slowed
her greatly. Lost hearing is the biggest annoyance,
however; she cannot see the tiny batteries to change
them when the aids whistle.
May Webb served as a Red Cross
volunteer during the World War II
bombing of London.
Patrick Webb
Goodbye
It is time to leave. My last day features one fi nal
meeting with the attorney, the handing-over-the-keys
ceremony at the old apartment, then early to bed
before my fl ight to San Francisco.
See Mum, Page C2
Patrick Webb
May Webb and Patrick, her young
trainee cow
boy son, in England in 1959-60.