WISH YOU WERE HERE

For once my timing was perfect.Whilst taking time off from my blog to get my head around my medical issues, I received a phone call from my sister-in-law, to tell me that my special mum had suffered a stroke. Without further delay Math and I made our way to Somerset, surprisingly this was not the ordeal I'd imagined, plenty of stops helped with any problems I thought I would have.
We arrived at my brothers home Wednesday lunch time, a quick cup of tea and off we went to see mum (this would be the first time I had seen the new nursing home mum was now in. From the exterior it looked very grand, a huge recently painted white Georgian house. As we entered, the staff greeted us with warm friendly smiles (I had good feelings about this place). The duty nurse gave us a quick update on mum's health, she had eaten a small amount breakfast and taken her medication, she was in her bed and had slept most of the morning. I followed my brother to mums room. As we reached the door, my sister-in-law told me to be prepared for a shock as mums health had deteriorated quite a lot.

The first thing I noticed on entering her room was how bright and spacious it was, her large Georgian window looked out onto the garden, there were birds feeding from the bird-table. I don't want to go into too much detail or else I'll never finish this blog, but my beautiful special mum laid asleep in a bed that was padded on both sides. The bed looked enormous and she looked so petite sleeping among all the covers.
I think she recognised me, I gave her her tea and meds, told her I loved her and she said "love you too".
The next day was her birthday, we took her her cards, presents and a cake. Unfortunately she only came round for a few minutes, butI lit the candle on her cake and sang happy birthday to her.
We returned home on the Friday, the builders were coming to work on the en-suite and Math had work he needed to finish.
Sunday morning my sister-in-law rang to say mum had taken a turn for the worst and had bronchial- pneumonia. The doctor told my brother it would be doubtful if she made it through the night. Well she made the doctor eat his words and continued her struggle until she was ready to say good-bye. So two and a half weeks later on the 1st of August at approximately quarter past midnight (her watch stopped at eight minutes past!)my mum left us on this mortal planet to join the ones she had loved and lost here.
We drove down to Somerset for her funeral, mum had been taken back home to the chapel of rest in the village she had spent most of here life in. Before the journey to the crematorium, the hearse took her a ride to the cottage in the next village were she was born, she would have loved that, and I remember her always pointing it out every time we drove by.
We celebrated her life with some of her close friends, and as we sat out in the garden, the sun shining down on us, laughing and crying about the things we had shared together, I just wished she could have been there with us, or maybe she was....