The 84-year-old mother of Heleen van Royen stands still in the garden. On the question of whether she has her rollator need, the woman replies timidly: “But I need the stairs.”
“You need the stairs not down,” says Van Royen calm. “There is no trap.”
It is one of the many moments in the documentary that illustrates how dementia more and more grip Of Royens mother.
the two of You constantly for your mother to make it clear what happens. You don’t say, ” I can help you with that trap.’ You were there from.
“That is all the time so difficult. I explain constantly where she is and hope she gets it. I want her in reality, not in a fairy tale world. Perhaps against my better judgment.”
It does so very is a compilation of 240 hours of footage that Van Royen self filmed and produced with the help of TVBV-editor-in-chief Mirei Franssen. We see the dementia Of Royens mother so greatly increase that they are no longer at home can continue to live. The writer then shows a mantelzorgwoning in her garden to her mother’s house. We see a child that his mother is clearly trying to make that they need help, but each time encounters any resistance. A daughter who is two grueling fights in a row to deliver. One to her mother to convince of the necessity of the move and the following to actually for her to take care of it.
the documentarye go incredibly patient and loving with your mother. You will never be in a panic. Is that a property of you or the situation you are to do this, forced to that?
“naturally I am sober and do not quickly in a panic. I noticed myself also that I have a lot of patience, but I realised that they have not acted and nothing really the situation could do. So every time I thought: ‘Ok, I’m back to explain.’ Of course, I wanted her sometimes shaking. “Mom! I said this already?’”
“It is, I think, but one time happened that I, my patience lost. That was in the hospital. They had to wait for something and was very narrig of. When I am out walking. Sometimes heard someone her against me railing and the one then said: ‘You can really not do well, isn’t it?’”
You knew during filming that you also are in the picture would come up. From what point did you go after?
“That actually shows you pretty quickly loose. If I some images, looking back, I think: You had to get a brush through your hair can make it.” In the beginning I made my mother sometimes, but don’t you every time to do. That makes no sense.”
What happens if you cry while you know that you are being filmed?
“I tried everything to register. Always with the thought: if it doesn’t then I send it out. I took everything on, and would later see what we should or should not use. But in the moments when you see me cry I’m really sad. You are going to then not the camera is off, that is weird. But as much as I actually did not cry. I did that often in the evenings, alone in bed. Or if I was leaving in the car.”
Some of the statements of your mother have a philosophical character. “My father and mother are no longer there, but why I still think of them?” You answer very rationally, and explains her medical condition. Was that the strategy which you care for your mother had insisted on?
“We were sitting next to each other on the couch, and my mother was out loud at the thought. She wondered what was in her head happened. It was clear that she first realized that something was going on. Until that moment denied them the still. They had all excuses why they did not dementerend was. I found that I had to explain what happened to her. I have that when scientifically and soberly approached. They are experienced not as something tragic, that wanted to keep.”
She asks at one point, also: “If we go to sleep, we will then tomorrow feel better?’ If someone we care for who is sick, we do that with the objective that those will be better. When was it for you clearly that it is not good?
“The most difficult moment was when I was told that 24-hour care needed, and not in the cottage in the garden could continue to live. I went all the way piece. I wanted that they got better feel, but that was not to be. For me it was that time heavier than for her. Then, it occurred not more real to her. But even then, she had but and I was moments where I thought that they might not at all demented. That is in the man, you hope for the better. Until the last moment.”
Why are we seeing you in a documentary, if only for your mother?
“There was also care in the home, and an old neighbor who is always running errands for her. But that would not in the picture. The rest of the family wasn’t really involved. It was a fairly lonely process. “Yes, that is crazy,” says Van Royen, laughing. “But I come from a crazy family.”
are you proud that you alone have solved?
“Certainly. I have a relationship with my mother that other family members do not have, because they themselves might not allow. I have my sisters promised that I do not have them will talk in interviews. I can so there’s not too much to say about it. But what you see is how it was.”
At a given moment seem to be the roles of mother and daughter reversed. They are looking for a kind of motherly warmth with you. What did you think of it?
“quite Amazing and very beautiful. We were used to be hecht. But she was never so cuddly. At a given moment gives them and enjoyed them also. It was sometimes harrowing. You can see that if I tell her that I stay asleep. She is so incredibly happy. This strengthened me in my conviction that other people need.”
a quarter of an hour later she asks again or you can continue to sleep and or your husband Ton van Royen, that is good. You are already years separated and have been for a few years in a different relationship.
“It is so clumsy that you constantly need to explain. At one point it became a running gag. But because Ton often with her came, I understood that it was confusing.”
The interview is interrupted, Van Royen is called. The conversation is about a well known news that excerpts from her documentary and more. More than Van Royen want to allow. She gets audibly out of tune.
“It’s crazy that attention is paid to the documentary, but some people want more and more and more. Then they can just as well be the whole movie tonight, then we don’t need that whole bioscooptraject not more to go through. But well, if you’re not, you should you don’t wish to release. Then I had the documentary only for myself.”
Had just as much fulfillment?
“No. I always make things for an audience. Otherwise I would have the books that I write also in a la can impose.”
Your parents had a complicated marriage. Your father committed suicide when you was thirteen. How you went to with your mothers disappearing memories of him? Why we see nothing of in the documentary?
“I have her there to asked, not very often anyway, but there was little. It was clear that they don’t like to be talked about. They had no sense in it. In the hospital, she said on a day she likes to go back to the house. Because she had such beautiful memories of how our family lived. I was stunned when I heard that. Something she had never said it before, but apparently it is in her head is a whole different story. I was able to recall that they always felt that they were a shithuwelijk had and what a drama in our home. But I decided her not to speak.”
are you relieved that they have those memories anymore?
“Yes, it’s fine that she no longer wrestles. That is the blessing of dementia.”
Your mother says several times that she no longer wants to live, you need to go there every time hard against them. She says that you can’t understand. There is a chance that we don’t realize where someone currently going through it?
“of Course, but the danger is that you don’t know how someone a month later will feel. The term completed life is currently in vogue. According to the adherents of that term, we would people in the eighties and who say: ‘My life is complete, I quit’, their meaning must give. I think that’s a nasty development. Of course that is not true for people that are suffering in pain and no prospect of more. But I have great difficulties with it that people itself from the life in a moment that there still is hope. That has, of course, with my father. My mother knew how hard it is for us. They would never have done it.”
“I myself also throughout the depressive periods, but they have passed away. Joost Zwagerman (author, committed in 2015, in suicide, ed.) told me that people who attempted suicide survived, as later, often very happy about that. Because I by my father knows how it is, I would never can do themselves. That is only to feel like you have experienced. I am this injured. That road is closed.”
Is that not also an invocation?
“No, that is how I experience it. My thoughts also, but a little bit of that side to rise, looms a large red stop sign. A parent says to his child: “I will be there for you always and always take care of you.’ If it cuts off, what is it all for? You should always try to live and hope: ‘Let’s go to sleep, maybe we feel better by tomorrow.’”
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