🔸 VALUE EVERY MOMENT
It was a day that her daughter had said she wouldn’t be able to visit her. She had some appointments in town and had advised her mother she would not be around in the morning to see her. The mother, aged 93, didn’t want anything and said she would see her daughter later in the day instead.
At 11:00 am the mother decided she wanted to go shopping for herself for a change. She got into her Honda Jazz and drove the two miles to the local Coop supermarket. She parked up in her normal spot in a layby opposite the store. She crossed the road and went into the store and bought a few supplies. Mince Pies, a block of cheese and a packet of four brown rolls filled her bag as she left the store some fifteen minutes after going in.
The mother started heading back to her car. She stood at the kerb and waited until the busy road was clear. She stepped out and started slowly walking across the road carrying her heavy shopping bag. She never made it to the other side. An instant bleed in her head caused her to collapse before she made the other side. She fell to the road surface unconscious.
A kind and caring lady quickly joined the scene and set about trying to offer help. But the mother remained unconscious on the road surface. Another person joined in to help and between them, they phoned for an ambulance. A doctor on his way to the nearby surgery joined in with the care of the mother and declared that the mother must be taken to the hospital immediately to find out what was wrong.
A passing police car stopped and blocked the road off to secure the elderly mother’s safety as she lay on the road unresponsive. Everyone on the scene did what they could to make the mother comfortable. Blankets were brought to keep the mother warm.
It took over an hour for the ambulance to arrive. An hour in which the mother’s head had been filling with blood and putting increased pressure on her brain. There is little doubt that this delay caused the damage to worsen for the mother.
The hospital experts said that scans revealed the blood had most likely caused irreversible damage to the mother and that the long-term outlook was poor. She was too old to be operated on safely and the only thing that remained was for palliative care to be administered until the mother died.
She died seven days later, peacefully with her two children alongside her bed. She had never regained consciousness. The mother’s name is Barbara, my partner Jane’s mother.
As we look back through the blurriness of the tears of sorrow, we wonder if we could have done anything differently. We ask questions of ourselves and of mother’s decision to go shopping alone. Jane desperately tries to recall her last words to Mother the night before the accident occurred.
Barbara had appeared in reasonable health, for a 93-year-old. She had been fiercely independent and had no intentions of giving that up for anyone. But the Divine has taken her back home to be reunited with her husband, brother and parents. It was not the Divine that planned the passing, that was merely an outcome of the body failing. But the Divine was there to welcome her.
Her remaining family are now involved in the earthly matters of the estate and the funeral. These are made more challenging by the need for a coroner’s report. Who would have thought this would happen? Who would have believed we would not get a chance to say goodbye properly? Life is so precious, yet each of us abuses it in the belief we are infallible, indestructible and here forever. The gift of life is one that is taken from us in a moment.
So sad not be able to say good bye in person! I send my love to you and Jane. Even though we know our loved ones are right there.. it still so difficult and we miss them so very much!!
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My condolonces to you and your family Trevor