By Keren Smedley

When my elderly mother was diagnosed with vascular dementia nine years ago at the age of 81, my sister and I naturally assumed that we shared a common goal – to look after her and manage her care in the same way. But what emerged in the weeks and months that followed her diagnosis was a far cry from sisterly love and affection.

Looking back, I realise our main interest seemed to be ourselves as much as our mother. We disagreed on the best way to care for her. I felt she needed more care than my sister did. I thought my sister was in denial of just how unwell our mother was, and she felt I was forcing the pace. Suddenly, we were five-year-olds again, each fighting for her own way. We veered from spitting criticisms at each other to feeling ashamed and remorseful and trying to patch up our wounded relationship.

The strangest thing was that we’d been used to our strong-minded mother making all the family decisions and, suddenly, she couldn’t. Without her at the heart of the family, holding it all together, we were lost. Except that we weren’t children. We were grown women, women who, having fled the nest as teenagers, had grown so far apart that we were struggling to recognise each other’s value systems.

Had my mother ever anticipated that her beloved girls would fall out over her like this, she would have been horrified. She was widowed in 1965 when she was in her mid-40s and my sister and I were ten and 13, and since then I had always felt that I had to look after my mother emotionally. When, in recent years, she started to feel fearful about her memory loss, I think I became fearful alongside her, while I believe my sister went into denial. Both were understandable reactions, I suppose, but very different.

Our main argument centred on the amount of care my mother needed. On some days she managed well; on others, she was confused. We knew from the start that, fiercely independent, she wasn’t going to take having carers in her home lying down. We started with a ‘voluntary befriending service’ and then moved swiftly through the care staff of two private agencies, each of whom spent several hours a day with Mum.

I was the point of liaison for them and was telephoned by them sometimes as often as five times a day. You can imagine how stressful this could become. Yet my sister didn’t understand the problem – or why I was resentful that we did not seem to be sharing the burden equally. She thought I was being melodramatic, and I thought she was self-centred. We argued our way through this mess until circumstances changed.

On three occasions, I was telephoned by Mum’s neighbour after she wandered into their house in a bewildered state. I wanted to arrange full-time care for our mother at home, but my sister felt I was depriving my mother of all independence by doing that. Eventually, after Mum was found wandering the streets alone, my sister agreed that we had to take action.

By this point, I was managing my mother’s finances. My sister and I had shared power of attorney over her money, but I felt I had to ask my sister her thoughts, out of common decency. After all, this was our joint inheritance I would be spending. At times I was bad-tempered and spitty with her and would moan that I was fed up with doing everything. She would argue that I was not doing everything, and on it went.

Perhaps the only thing we did well was to keep all of this away from our mother. We knew she had enough on her plate. I wanted to discuss what was happening and find a way for us to manage our differences. My sister accused me of trying to be her therapist and she didn’t want one, she said. At times, I got cross and went into big sister mode and freely admit that I became superior with her.

The reality was that Mum had become used to me doing things for her, so it was me she relied on. I think she felt more secure when I was managing the situation. This made me cross because it was an assumption that put pressure on me. I tended to spend my visits to her doing chores, not always with a smile, while my sister chatted and was good company.

Looking back, I can see that as the elder sister I’d always been the one in charge, and I believed I should be in terms of how my mother was cared for. I like to think through a problem, find a solution and be fully prepared for the event. My sister (or this is how it felt) wanted to wait until a crisis occurred before discussing the problem.

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