Jabblog wrote about decorum, which made me think of a recent dilemma I felt about manners and formality. Instinct told me one thing, modernity told me another.
HH, is my female neighbour, and since her kindness when Ray died, and with her picking me up at hospital twice after procedures whereby I had to be escorted home, I count her as a friend. At 77, she is quite tech savvy and as I have mentioned we check in on each other by text each morning to check, as she says, we are not dead in bed.
Without being pretentions, she is very middle class and financially comfortable. Her husband is in care and no longer recognises her. In the future, I'll refer to her as HH.
My dilemma was how to introduce her to Phyllis and Kosov to HH. She is 77 and they are 21. Instinct told me I should introduce her to them as Mrs H. I wish I'd asked you all, your advice in advance but you can tell me now I made a grave error when I introduced her to Phyllis and Kosov as H, her first name, rather than Mrs H.
HH didn't seem to have a problem with being introduced to them by her first name, and as they were sitting opposite each at my birthday meal out, they had a good chat.
I can hear Ray in my ear, 'You are living in the past, you stupid old man'. But my connection with HH and with Phyllis are both important to me, and I wanted to get it right. It seemed less formal was right.
A few days later Phyllis mentioned that he had seen HH in the lift and she didn't recognise him. I found this hard to believe. Phyllis is dark skinned, fairly obviously gay and HH would have seen the lift number of the floor he arrived from. When I asked her, she said, 'How could I possibly not know him? I only met him a week or so ago, and I would remember him. This person had forgotten his keys or something.' 'Phyllis, did you talk about keys to HH?' 'Yes.'
After gathering all the information, I sent a text to HH. 'Do you want me to call your daughter for her to book you into the dementia home with BH?'
She did not reply. Sometimes I go too far, as I may have with this post.
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Oops. I know I hate it when my husband points out what I have forgotten, just saying.
ReplyDeleteOuch. From my perspective your text may have gone too far - but you know her and I do not. Dementia is a big fear of mine which probably accounts for that feeling.
ReplyDeleteThe D word is a taboo in older age. That is a conversation destroyer too.
ReplyDeletePerhaps she was being polite when she met Phyllis and did not want to hurt your feelings. Alternatively I often do not always remember people I have only met once despite their age or colour or distinguishing features.
ReplyDeleteShe may not be as observant as you are and may have been distracted at the time.
She sounds like a good friend, can you make light of your remark and tell her something you have done to call into question your sometimes vagueness .
By the detail you gave her regarding how you put the clues together to make the comment she might think you are working for ASIO, theCIA or have an air fryer for sending messages to other spy agencies♥️😂
I have occasionally done something similar and often wish after the event that I had not said or done something.
ReplyDeleteNext time you see her you will more than likely find out if she has taken offence, but I hope that does not turn out to be the case.
Perhaps send her flowers???
She might have wondered what on earth you were on about after receiving your text. Possibly she was lost in her own thoughts in the lift and ‘just didn’t want to be bothered’ with small talk.
ReplyDeleteIt takes more than not recognising someone to be diagnosed with dementia.
I would hate to be introduced as Mrs K. Mrs K was my mother in law. You did the right thing there. As for the lift thing? No idea what was going on there but if she was caught up in her own thoughts she might truly have not registered who Phyllis was or, as Cathy suggested, just wanted to be left alone.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, that last text was a mistake, unless she saw it as the joke it was meant to be. Did you follow up with a "Just Kidding"? Just keep being polite when you see her and it will blow over.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit a nerve but humour is always risky so you just have to move forward.
ReplyDeleteI had an aunt I loved to death and i made some probably lame joke on the day after she died. To me, it didnt say anything bad about her or our relationship but my Dad was super unimpressed.