2025!
Can't remember when I last blogged, but I know it's been a while, so sorry. I just needed a little time off to deal with my own personal stuff and let my brain rest a little bit.
I sincerely hope your New Year has started out well and continues in the same vain. Good luck to you all!
I think many of us just gave the big two's up to 2024 in the end, I know I did and I let the New Year in with a huge but hopeful sigh!
2024 was indeed a heinous year to top them all and thank goodness its over and a half, sick of it I was.
The first of January 2024 took my beloved dog Bertie from me, then in mid summer my friend Pam died suddenly and finally towards the end of the year, my Mum had a catastrophic fall down the stairs at home and she tragically died of her injuries, complications and probably, medical mismanagement on the 1st of December. She was just 78. Would she have lived longer if she hadn't fallen?
Who knows?
Did you know that falls after 60/65 are often the beginning of the end and the older one gets the less likely one is to survive a fall, the stats really aren't a good read, stay upright folks. Also, she had many other health concerns, but suffice to say, none of us were ready to loose her.
With Mum's passing we were all also rudely reminded of our own mortality and that death isn't very kind or pretty at all. We'd like to think it is, but no, it was just awful, like some living nightmare, for us anyway. I do hope that in the end Mum wasn't aware of her impending demise.
I still wish to this day, that I hadn't agreed to be on camera when she was dying, I just can't get that image out of my head now. How someone larger than life itself could end up so small, thin, vulnerable and wearing the horror mask of death is beyond me. I think we are all a little traumatised to be honest. I really wished for better for her when the time came, no pain, peaceful, fading away in her sleep and dreaming of Cliff Richard.... It was nothing like that or maybe it was, anyway she was surrounded by family, music and a lot of love. I truly hope she felt the love in the room and rose off this mortal coil knowing that we were all there in one form or another.
It was hard on me, no more, no less than for any of us of course, but I wasn't there. Way back in April of 2024 I begged my parents to sort out their living arrangements and offered help, knowing I'd soon be knee deep in the French renovation, no turning back. They didn't want it. They wanted to end their lives one day, looking after each other best they could in the home they worked for all their lives, god love 'em. I respected that and got on with my life here in France, which I have since been made to feel terribly guilty for. My dad, brother and I were both well aware of the danger of those narrow steep stairs. Too narrow for a stair lift. We begged them to get a bungalow years ago as we both feared the worst would happen on those stairs one day and it did. No amount of cajoling could change their minds.
We spent a lot of time together leading up to us leaving in April. So I'm rather baffled that I was accused of neglect and not seeing my parents for years!
Still, in the end we have to respect their wishes whatever they are. It is or was their choice. They are entitled to live how they wanted to and it's is not for us grown kids, to tell them how to live. Of course it's hard on all of us, knowing that this didn't have to happen, but again not for us to force anything on them. Elderly folk have rights too. My brother and I are not to blame and I'm clear on that.
I understood my brother's want for a Long Standing Power of Attorney, I had no issue with it in principle, if that's what they wanted but they said they didn't. For me that's where this argument ends. It also caused a major row between mum and I because she thought it was me demanding it. It wasn't. We didn't speak for months which is a shame. My brother's heart was in a good place I'm sure, but I'm not into strong arming and as long as one or both could hold a reasoned argument, then we have no business in their business. That's my take on it anyway.
My brother's partner played my bedside part for me very well, I was grateful and I have to respect my Dad's wishes going forward. He's a grown assed man. If he wants her to help then she has my blessing, I'm sure she has his best interests at heart anyway. Theres no hate in my heart, but I am deeply upset by the accusations I've suffered since mum died and as I explained to my dad, I can actually help from here if he wants, the internet exists to aid us both. He's 81 this year and doesn't much care for paperwork but it still has to be done. My Dad needs to do what he wants to without any interference from me. Here if he needs me.
There will be an inquest into mums passing as the coroner has ordered it. I just feel it will drag out the grieving process and offer no real answers. We all need to heal. Of course, it will be good to know which parts of her care were not good enough, sure, but it feels like it will just be a blame game in the end. The NHS is literally a broken institution these days. I'm not sure how this will go but I hope it helps somehow? My mother bless her was an elderly lady with many serious health issues, most of which I knew nothing about. It won't bring her back. Still, I have to accept Dad and my brother need this and so it's okay with me. I doubt we will get the answers quickly, so the waiting game begins. I want just her soul and ours to rest now.
Of course in the background the family angst has been way too high and so the funeral was a tale of two camps. It was very stressful for all and super, super sad at a time when we all needed to lean into each other. I'm just glad we all got through it without a scene really. I decided early on to remove myself from the organisation of said funeral because my brother's family were on a crusade to take me down. Some people loose the plot in grief and I forgive them, but I am not the monster they are portraying me to be.
My poor Dad had just lost the love of his life for whatever reason and my poor family was grieving in only the way they know how, which is by throwing buckets of insults like confetti. I said to Dad, put the grandkids in charge and they did a really good job, especially my niece Sadie. Nana would have been so proud. It meant I didn't have any real input or a chance to tell a story about Mum, but I'd rather that than a farce of a funeral.
I was always close with my brother until around 2018 when Brexit reared its ugly head and he called us traitors and communists at the Xmas dinner table. Covid differences almost finished us off and then of course Mum's tragic death has made things irreparable. During Covid, he said I'd murdered my dad because he chose to have a vaccine to visit us in France! I can't deal with such rhetoric, it's nonsense. One can choose to make up their own mind and live with the consequences, we do not need to be vilified in the process.
We may have been brought up in the same house my brother and I, but we are of differing worlds. I believe in informed choice, I have my eyes wide open. I don't do the dark web and I feel very much able to value my own opinion without having to force it on someone that doesn't agree with me. Does that mean I don't love him? No of course not, but I don't like him and for reasons I'm not ready to write about, that also sums up my relationship with mum. Love is often complicated. I really do wish him well.
One thing I have realised since her passing it that she was definately telling my brother and I different things all the time. She wore two mothering hats, very different styles. I laughed the other day at just how sassy pants she was, the little minx. To me she wanted to be seen as strong, brave and proud, needing nothing from me. She didn't want me to worry. Whereas she was begging my brother not to put her in a home. It was like that when growing up, super strict with me but leaving my brother to be almost feral and free.
The thing is, death is the stop to any conversation that should have been had, it's just too bloody late to put any of it right sadly. I hope one day my brother and I can put this all to rest before it's too late, but that would require him to find a level of maturity he seems to have never achieved. He's cut me off so many times because I don't agree with his stance, quite militant and a waste of precious time. We don't have to agree, we just have to leave those strong opinions at the door. The sad thing is, we always think we have time when often we don't. When its over it's just platitudes and wishing it was different.
Anyway, I was lucky enough to be the one that last saw her conscious. I'm grateful for that at least. I brushed her hair, creamed her hands, made sure she remembered to have her meds, which were still sat in their little white cup and I ensured the blinding sunlight was out of her eyes. Her drink was out of reach again which annoyed me. She was fully aware of her pain and surroundings sadly. I really thought she might manage to get home in the coming weeks but clearly that was never going to happen. I asked her if she needed anything and she just asked for me to keep coming to visit. I would have found a way.
I could also tell she was struggling with her breathing, sweating profusely but she wasn't on any antibiotics, oxygen or drips in the time I was there. I mentioned my concerns to the nurses who were super distracted and disinterested.
The windows were wide open in the ward and blowing an absolute gale. I shut the windows, leaving one slightly ajar, shaking my head at the neglect. The nurses were all very preoccupied with their tablets and busy shutting down the ward due to a raging influenza infection. It was just all very strange and one of the other patients was livid that I had managed to force a visit. The lady asked me over and over to go get her son from downstairs. It marred my visit. No matter how much I explained to her, that I was only let in because I was going back to France the next morning and it would be my last visit for a while, she wouldn't let up. I only stayed 10 minutes in the end which was double the time I'd promised the nurses I'd stay. I wish I'd stayed longer. I wish there were Matrons in wards, bringing organisation, hygiene, compassion and care back. I watched over the days I visited at the lack of hand washing especially by visitors, it needs managing properly.
I ended up carrying the roses I'd brought with me back to the airbnb, as the ward wouldn't let me leave them and didn't even have a vase! I have never known flowers pass on infections, only joy!
Death has a way of bringing folk together or driving them further apart. Say your piece sure but don't insult my life or the choices I've made just for the hell of it. Yes I do live abroad and mostly always have. I have followed my husband's career for 36 years and won't apologise for it. We all make choices in life as did my parents. We get one go at life. I am not the fall guy for their or your choices. I'm just living my life the best I can and no, I will never stop writing. You do you as you expect to and I, my love, will do me, quit the guilt tripping and victim playing, it's pointless and it doesn't change a thing, so destructive.
Live and let live. Love and be kind.
D x
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