Well, that was 2020!
It's been a long time since I posted - and this is by way of a personal dump from me, so feel free to scroll on by... Can I remember how to do a cut, that's the thing...
As with so many people, the pandemic scuppered a lot of my plans for the year. I retired at the end of April and had lots of things in the diary but there we go - they're all transferred and rearranged. I happened to be up with Mum when lockdpwn was announced so ended by staying 7 weeks. She was in good form apart from being fed up at not being able to go out, so we enjoyed ourselves. It was good to have the time with her. We were already working from home on laptops so I finished my working career perched on the spare bed with said laptop on my knees. Glad to be out of it as they have been having a crazy time.
Not travelling turned out to be a blessing in the end. My sister finally got her hip replacement operation at the end of September. By then, Mum had deteriorated and was bed bound. She couldn't be left at all so my other sister and I were doing a fortnight about until J was fit again. Normally, M would have been away on holiday quite a bit but the situation made it easier for us to just do what we needed to do. Mum was 94 on 12 October and we had a wee tea party for her and she was quite bright. By the end of the month though you could really see the deterioration, particularly mentally. I came up at the end of November to do my spell and on the Friday f my first week the District nurses came in the morning and suggested it was time to put in a syringe driver. When they came back in the afternoon they walked into the room, stopped dead, looked at each other, looked at me, and said they thought it best to call my sisters. Mother, being mother, defied everyone and lasted over the weekend, finally passing away on Tuesday morning 2nd December. M and I had both been with her in the night, and she waited until we weren't there to slip away.
It's the strangest feeling. I remember the tsunami of grief when I lost Dad, and the same with Christopher, but this is different. It occasionally washes over me, but hasn't settled and I haven't really cried. I just feel sad, and there's an empriness at the core of me. I'm half hoping that just writing all this down might set me off...
Mum's funeral in usual times would have been huge, so keeping it to 20 was tricky - thank goodness for live streaming etc. We had a lovely celebrant and the funeral directors were amazing. Mum had made her wishes clear and had made music choices so that helped, too - entry to the Kalendar Prince from Scheherazade, 23rd Psalm (Crimond, of course, none of that Howard Goodall nonsense!), Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam for the committal, and Louis Armstrong 'It's a Wonderful World' at the end.
There are so many things to be thankful for: her care team - 2 women 4 times a day, many of whome bacme dear friends and were amazing; the doctors at the practice who came out regularly to see Mum despite the circumstances; the district nurses who looked after her, with the two who knew her best making sure it was them who came to do the last offices; we had Marie Curie nurses a couple of times a week, and they were all amazing women. The care she had was the NHS and social care in Scotland at its very best - I couldn't fault them. I'm grateful that we managed to keep Mum in her own home until the end, and that we had all spent time with her in those last weeks, and right up until the end, however confused she became, she still knew us all. Most of all, it was a quiet, peaceful end. Whereever she is, I believe she is happy... and probably redecorating...
So, for the first time in my life, I spent Christmas on my own in my own home. Which was actaully fine - and I had the amusement of coaching my neice who had decided to do the traditional dinner (for 6) that I usually did for 12-16, and was getting into a terrific state!
So, definitely be glad to see the back of 2020
It wasn't all doom and gloom - I managed a few days on the Isla of Wight in September, where the sun and the sea were warm. And later in the year I had a few days in a lodge in Suffolk with my friend (in between lockdowns!) - a hot tub, long walks on the beach and not mixing with anyone else...
Hope everyone else has managed to get through the year. Onwards to 2021 and please when can I have my vaccination!