That was an essay that used to crop up with monotonous regularity in school English exams.

“Child is father to the man – Discuss”.

I never understood it so I never chose to write about it. With hindsight, I suppose I should have researched it and memorised a brilliant essay that I could trot out each time. Unfortunately we didn’t have Interweb access at the time which somewhat stunted my education.

Recently however, Daughter came up with something that reminded me of that paradoxical expression. I cannot remember her exact words but it was along the lines of “a point where a parent no longer cares for the child and the child becomes carer for the parent”.

Of course I have always loved my daughter. I have admired her many talents, her ability to care for a severely disabled son for twenty one years and bringing up three other children that any Grandad would be more than proud of.

Lately though she has excelled herself. She has quietly taken over a major part of our lives and is happily parenting us both. I can only describe this as really fucking amazing as she is organising stuff that never even would have occurred to me. There is the everyday stuff like calling in every lunchtime to cook us a small [delicious] snack to make sure we are eating something. Beyond that though she has set wheels in motion that are churning away and creating a setup that will ensure that we are well looked after while still remaining completely independent.

She is a Carer by profession – a job she loves and one she excels at after her experience with Grandson the Elder. She tells us a little about her work which sounds demanding and requiring endless patience. She is now using her contacts withing the profession to set up a package tailored just for the two of us here.

Yesterday a bloke called to the house. He was apparently in charge of our “reablement team” [an expression that grates on my perfectionist use of language] which is now in place to ensure that Herself gets all the physiotherapy and various therapies to lead a normal life. This has been set up by the hospital from which we had mercifully escaped. He explained who would be calling and when and what they would be doing. He did seem a little concerned though that we needed more help than his team could provide. Just then, Daughter breezed in and assured him that everything was being sorted. I just sat there and let all the technicalities float over my head – two professionals who obviously knew what they are talking about.

The upshot of all of this is that there will be a couple of teams who will come here on a regular basis They will do everything from arse-wiping [should that be required] to cooking us lunch to make sure we don;t starve. They will be as unobtrusive as possible [unobtrusive arse-wiping?] and will only do things within a set of ground rules that we set. Special arrangements will be put in place if/when I get lumbered with a prolonged hospital stay where Herself would have been on her own for a week or three.

It means a few strangers calling here on a regular basis [where presumably they will cease to be strangers] and some would decry the lack of independence, but fuck that. It means peace of mind in turbulent times.

i am immensely proud of my daughter. She is just fucking amazing.