Love, Loss, Hope

I realise I haven’t posted here all year! I just wanted to take a moment to let you know why that is.

My husband Miles and I have had the honour of my parents living with us for the last ten years. It was something that Miles and I first talked about many years ago, before we were married. I had always felt that, if Mum and Dad needed to, I would like them to come to be with us. So for the last decade we have been, with our son, three generations under one roof. We are so grateful we have had the opportunity to do that.

At the very end of last year, my Mum experienced severe back pain to the point where we needed to call the ambulance. She was taken to Emergency and, already having had some dementia over the last couple of years, she immediately went into a state of delirium. She was admitted to hospital and, for the next seven weeks, we visited several times each day. My dear, amazing Miles would go morning and evening to make sure she had her hearing aids (which are notoriously easy to lose in hospitals) and Dad and I would go each lunchtime. Obviously, it was an intense and emotionally exhausting time, but through it all we saw God’s hand of blessing in many precious moments.

Precious moments of praying and crying with my Dad. Hearing Mum, in her delirium, frequently recite Psalm 23 by heart. The kindness of hospital staff and especially the pastoral staff at the care home where we were so fortunate to gain a place for Mum. These beautiful ladies would sit with Mum, sing to her, read Scripture to her and pray for her. Our experience there was one of extraordinary, breath-taking Christian love and kindness. If Mum was agitated or confused, prayer would immediately bring peace. Mum began to say that she just wanted to go and be with Jesus, and on March 8, at the age of 91, He took her home to glory. In yet another precious moment, on that day we felt we would like to bring Mum’s jewellery home with us. One of the staff immediately gave us a beautiful, lacquered box she had felt prompted to bring to work with her. The box, and her kindness, will always be treasured.

We planned and held a Thanksgiving Service which was attended not only by Mum and Dad’s friends from their lovely church, but also many of our friends, neighbours and relatives who were able to be there. My sister Gill and I prepared a slideshow telling the story of Mum’s interesting life. Mum and Dad’s four grandchildren all gave heartfelt tributes, and Dad read some of the poetry he had been writing for her during her time in hospital. Such a precious day.

In the six months that have followed, we have grieved and continue to do so. The other day I was at the mall and walked past a café where a couple of women were each having coffee with their elderly mums. A pang of grief that I was no longer able to do that caught me off guard and I fought back tears as I walked among the other shoppers.

We have sorted Mum’s belongings. We have taken her ashes to New Zealand and had them interred in the grounds of the Anglican church where she served as a layreader for several years. We have had moments of realising the intensity and exhaustion of the season we have been through, sometimes when driving past the hospital and being reminded of all those visits and tears. We have started to do practical things like makeover our garden which has been completely ignored for the first six months of the year (still very much a work in progress!). And we have started to experience those ‘first’ days without Mum – Dad’s birthday, Mum’s birthday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day. Soon it will be our first Christmas without her.

We will also soon visit New Zealand again. As my Dad is now 99, there is no time like the present. The fact that he even wants to get on an aeroplane (and is fit and well enough to do so) is amazing to us, and we want to support him in his desire to see the memorial plaque that has now been laid for Mum, and to meet his first great-grandchild who has recently come into the world! And many hours have been spent documenting both Mum and Dad’s life stories, curating them for those younger generations and those who are to come.

So the year has passed very quickly, and I hope that explains the silence. I know this will be an experience many others have been through, and one that many can understand. We are starting to find a ‘new normal’ without Mum and, very recently, starting to find headspace and energy for creative things again. There are still tears some days, and I expect that to continue. But we are grateful for so much grace, so much kindness, so many precious moments in the midst of such intensity and, most of all, so grateful to know that Mum is with the Lord and, one day, we will meet again. What a hope we have in Jesus!