I was sitting in my folks’ kitchen with mum recently, having a cup of coffee. I had Orla with me, she was lying on the tiled floor next to my mum, looking forlorn as normal. I think my mum was trying to ask whether Orla’s ears were better (she had an ear infection, trust me to get a dog that’s allergic to pollen) but as is usually the case, my mum’s sentence petered out. Mum lost her train of thought, couldn’t find the right word and instead of trying to finish the sentence she said “oh don’t worry about it, forget it, I’m just stupid, crazy.” She tapped at her temples. It’s a sight I’ve become familiar with. This time, it was my dad’s birthday. Mum forgot and she was devastated. Bawling, shaking, uncontrollably devastated. She’d been over to my brother’s in the morning, she turned up unannounced and my brother had let me know she wasn’t in a good way. She’d worked herself up about it. My brother spent nearly four hours trying to calm her down. By the time she’d come home and we were having this cup of coffee, she was upset but it was manageable. We’d had a chat, I’d offered to order a card and a present from her that she could give to him. Then out of the blue, once I thought we were out of the woods with this one, she turned to me and said

“When was your dad’s birthday, yesterday?”

It wasn’t, it was over a week ago.

There were cards on the mantle in the living room. The calendar by the back door, where mum stands and has a cigarette, has dad’s birthday written on it. None of it registered. But when you don't know what day it is, a date on a calendar doesn't help. Mum and dad went away with friends for dad’s birthday. And after speaking to my dad he told me they went through this on the day — mum was upset, dad said 'don’t worry', she calmed down and they all went out for the day. They popped into a shop and bought dad a Toblerone. Crisis averted. The problem? Mum had forgotten this. She’d forgotten that she’d forgotten.

In hindsight, we should have known, I’ve had to buy presents for my dad, from my mum for years and in truth, I completely forgot this time. I remembered my dad’s birthday at the last minute. But in the moment I offered to order mum a card and a present — I tried to make her laugh — I joked that it would only be a day later than his own mum. It worked, kind of, mum laughed. There was still something off. Since her diagnosis she’s been anxious, she’s been scared but now, I saw the guilt in her laugh. I wasn’t prepared for that. There’s a bitterness to seeing a guilt she can’t express. Mum’s birthday is coming up, honestly, I don’t know if she knows that. I’m sure somewhere there’s a glimmer of recognition that her birthday follows my dad’s. The good news is that there shouldn’t be any guilt with her own birthday, she may well forget it, she’ll wake up on the day oblivious to the date just like every other day but she won’t need to remember, we will. We can hope that in celebrating her we can bring back a little bit of her joy. I wrote about the sense of dread I felt on Mother’s Day. I can feel that rising again approaching her birthday. My mum, who I looked up to my whole life because of her seemingly endless positivity, forgot my dad’s birthday. And she will probably forget her own. At the moment, the awareness of her own dementia diagnosis consumes her. Mum might smile, she might laugh, but the genuine joy — that spark, it’s gone now.