When she was a girl in Rawmarsh in The West Riding of Yorkshire,
Mum loved to dance. Why should we remember the dead as they were
just before they died? Picture taken around 1930.
Old e-mails now give evidence of times past just as documents in dusty files use to do. Looking back through my hotmail library I stumbled across a message I wrote to my late brother Paul on September 2nd 2007. I did not even remember writing it.
Our mother died just eleven days after I wrote that e-mail more than thirteen years ago now and Paul himself was to die less than three years later. Though no longer alive, they are still with me. Do loved ones ever truly die? We hold them in our hearts long after they have left us.
I am glad that I didn't delete the e-mail years ago. It brought memories of that sad time rushing back. Here's what I wrote:-
___________________________________
We all went over to see mum in Beverley today - me, Shirley, Ian and Frances. We had Sunday lunch in "The Rose and Crown" - it scored a measly five out of ten on my pub food scale.
Mum was asleep when we got to her room - lying on her new bed which has sides and electronic vibration through a super-duper hospital mattress. This is for her painful bed sores and especially her painful feet. She's probably drugged up too. I doubt that she is ever out of that bed now and wonder if she will ever make it to her chair again. Her Sunday Express was unread like Saturday's Daily Express. She lives in a kind of slumber - fading away with only occasional flashes of her old spirit.
As on previous visits she asked me how old she is. She had no recollection of Katie's visit in mid-August and was surprised that Shirley and I had been to France. We bought her a little souvenir in Lourdes but getting it out of the little paper bag seemed like a test in the Krypton Factor. In the end we had to get it out for her and she stared for a moment at the back of it as if not realising where the front of it was. I put a new picture on her wall of some bluebell woods and rather sweetly she said it reminded her of her childhood in Rawmarsh when she would walk to her bluebell wood past the "fever hospital".
I asked her about "When you have passed away" and she confirmed - no religion - just a simple ceremony at the crematorium. I think I am going to get in touch with the British Humanist Society who will conduct funeral ceremonies now. Maybe one of their reps might visit mum in Westwood Park and get to know her a little before the inevitable end.
She was very thirsty when we were there and seemed to appreciate the non-alcoholic drinks we plied her with. I don't think the staff have time to persuade and cajole residents to eat and drink. It's very nearly twenty eight years since Dad died - Sept 14th 1979. If there were a heaven I would think that Mum will be meeting up with him again before this year is out. She's so weak and thin and sleepy.
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/2W9rua3
