Following a stroke on Saturday January
7th, my Mother passed away on January 11th 2006.
Over the previous two years she had suffered
a series of strokes from each of which she seemed to make reasonable recovery. However early in December 2005 she suffered
another major stroke, which left her very weak, tired and emotional.
On evening of Saturday 7th January
she fell, striking her head and breaking her left arm. In hospital she was somewhat confused and both my father and the doctors’
initially thought that this was due to a concussion as she had suffered serious bruising to the left eye and side of her face.
However following a CAT scan on the Tuesday it was evident that she had suffered a massive stroke and this was now affecting
her left side.
Early on the Wednesday morning my father
was called into the hospital as her condition had started to deteriorate and before I could get to Newcastle
she passed away.
According to her wishes, her funeral was
held at Saltwell Crematorium in Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, which was the place where her
mother and father had been cremated.
She leaves behind my father, her husband
of 51 years, her brother, Gerald, my wife, Fran, and I, as well as many other relations, both family and through marriage.
When you are a child you think that your
parents are immortal, as you get older you begin to see their flaws and frailties and then you realise that they are all to
susceptible to illness. I am fortunate in that there were no outstanding issues between my mother and I, we had respect and
love for one another and where our viewpoints differed, we respected each other’s opinion. The last time I got to speak
to her was on my Birthday and I was looking forward to talking to her again on the Sunday after to let her know what I’d
been up to.
I saw my mother in the Hospital Chapel
of Rest and she looked peaceful. However, I choose to remember her not as the frail and elderly woman she had become, but
rather as person she was in this picture taken on the day she and my father got engaged.
