About 12 years ago was when I first considered changing my name to Ham. Or Cheese and Tomato.
I was walking along the promenade with my daughter and my mother, enjoying the sea air and their company.
Two-year-old Peggy was skipping along holding my left hand, and my 83-year-old mum’s arm was linked through my right, because she was unsteady on her feet. We were making slow but companionable progress.
Then Peggy saw a seagull she liked the look of and shot off in the direction of the busy seafront car park. I froze in panic. What should I do? Race after my child, or continue to prop up my mum?
Maggie Alderson discusses being sandwiched between her loved ones in her new novel ‘The Scent Of You’
As I was hopelessly yelling, ‘Peggy! Come back!’ into the wind, I heard my mother’s voice.
‘Go!’ she said, with the authority of a mother of four, grandmother of eight.
I dropped her arm and sprinted after Peggy, grabbing hold of her just before she made it into the car park. Then — holding her under my arm like a stolen piglet — I ran back to my mum, who remained upright through sheer determination, swaying slightly.
I got there just as she started to fall and could only save her by dropping Peggy, who I then had to comfort and hoist onto my hip with one arm, the other supporting my mother.
It seemed a long way back to the car. That was when it really sunk in that Ham would be a good name for me.
Or Tuna Mayo. Or Grilled Halloumi and Pesto. Anything to represent the human sandwich I have become, stuck between the two people I love most in the world (my wonderfully supportive husband fills a watercress garnish role), trying to support their diverse needs and give them each the attention they deserve.
I also want to enjoy them both.
As all those heartbreaking songs remind me that my offspring’s childhood is as fleeting and beautiful as cherry blossom, so missing out on any time with young Peggy felt like a waste I’d painfully regret later.
She says she feels guilty choosing to spend time with either her mother or daughter
Equally, I was only 23 when my father died and I’m determined to relish every moment I have left with my mum (who’s also called Peggy, but I’ll try to make it clear which one I mean).
Peggy Snr is now 95, still with it mentally (and always fabulously accessorised), and I’m super-grateful for that. But the tug of war in my heart hasn’t got any easier. Doing the best by one of my slices of family bread still seems to compromise what I need to do for the other.
Peggy Snr (let’s call her PS) lives five hours away by train or car, so any trip to see her means at least a couple of nights away from home to make it worthwhile.
Now nearly 15, Peggy Jnr (PJ) no longer holds on to my knees as I try to leave the house. But I’m keenly aware she needs emotional support and loving boundaries just as much as she did when she was two, if not more so. School is getting serious; her social life, too.
So the whole time I’m away from PJ, I feel slightly anxious (will her father make sure she’s done her homework?) and a bit guilty. And then when it’s time to leave PS and go home again, I always feel a stab of guilt. A tear will be rolling down my cheek as I start the car.
And that’s the heart of the human sandwich dilemma. How do you handle your guilt? With tears, or anxiety?
In an attempt to bring this cycle to an end, four years ago, when PS was still in her own place, I suggested we get together and buy a house big enough for us all to live in, but with a sanity-preserving level of independence.
The perfect place had come up, with a floor plan that would allow a bedroom and adjoining bathroom on the ground floor for my mum, two sitting rooms, and a lovely big family kitchen.
Maggie’s mother has lived alone for 30 years and chooses not to move in with her and the rest of the family
It seemed such a perfect solution to me that before she’d even seen it, in my head I’d redecorated throughout and we were enjoying jolly family meals around the kitchen table next to the Aga, with a constant parade of groovy teenagers coming through.
Just like in our old house when I was growing up. ‘Pull up a chair, Tristan, there’s plenty to go around. Crumble?’
How wonderful it would be for my mum, I thought, after 30 years living alone as a widow, to have that family energy around again.
But she didn’t like the windows. We didn’t buy the house.
I think what she actually didn’t like was the idea of being in a passive, secondary role in such an establishment, having been such a splendid chatelaine in her time.
So instead she lives, very much alone, in a one-bed apartment in a swanky purpose-built development for the over-70s. She describes her situation as ‘like a bird in a gilded cage’.
I still live five hours away in a permanent state of low-level guilt, with a dash of self-reproach (I should have had kids 20 years younger) and a light sprinkling of resentment (she could have been living here with us!).
But I’ve grown to understand there’s nothing for it but to live with the permanent unease of being the human sandwich, and to remind myself, all the time, how lucky I am to have two such splendid slices of bread on my plate.
Maggie Alderson’s novel, The Scent Of You (Harper Collins), is out now. This article first appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald