“There are moments which mark your life. Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same and time is divided into two parts – before this, and after this.” For me, that moment was 07:46 on 18th November 2014, when I received a text message from Mum.
“We meed y6n”
It’s now 4 years later and yet I can still remember that morning, so clearly. The fear, the panic, the asking God to spare my father until I arrived… Then, thinking that was too much to ask, asking Him to at least let my letter arrive, and for Dad to read it before he died. Driving north on the M5 and M6, miraculously clear of heavy traffic despite the time of day; unheard of. Arriving. Hurrying up the steps. The door of their flat opening. Wondering if he was dead or if I’d got there in time. Confusion – my Aunt and Uncle were there. Dad, half sitting, half lying in bed exactly as he’d been 2 days earlier. It was Mum who had almost died, not Dad. I keep thinking of how she spent the last night in her home… Lying on the floor in the hallway in the early hours, with the door unlocked, afraid she wouldn’t survive the night….
On 16th November 2014 she had texted me:
“I would like to speak to you when you can don’t order any more things xxxx”
I’d ordered so new pyjamas for Dad, and a new TV for them, for Christmas. She wanted to speak to me because Dad had signed a DNR… I telephoned and she explained. I’m not sure, really, that it sank in properly. She didn’t want me to buy anything else because she knew that by Christmas, life would have changed, for the three of us, in the most dramatic way imaginable.
“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald