I am writing this in the home of my 97 year old aunt. She is in her bedroom and she is dying; there are only the two of us in the house. The nurses came earlier this evening to set up a syringe driver to make her remaining time less stressful for her as she was hallucinating and becoming agitated. So now she is very peaceful, virtually unconscious, as she starts her final journey.
Until 4 days ago she was very independent, living in her own home and caring for herself with minimal help from a twice weekly cleaner and home deliveries – she hasn’t been out of the house for a year. She is highly intelligent and a week ago we were both sat here in her living room doing a crossword puzzle and discussing the death of Margaret Thatcher. My aunt has very strong political opinions and they are not those of Maggie!!!
I keep going in to check her breathing – her body has started to shut down and the doctor thinks she will probably die in the next 24 hours.
The person lying in the bed bears no resemblance to the woman I know and love. Marie was born in the middle of the Great War, in January 1916, the 4th of 5 children. She has seen so much and is a wealth of stories about life in London from the 1920s onwards. She married the love of her life after he returned from the Royal Marines in the 2nd World War. They had no children. She has been a widow for nearly 20 years and for all that time she has been fiercely independent and feisty.
So as I watch the life force leaving her I feel immense sadness for me that I will no longer be able to have long phone conversations about world affairs with her, no longer be able to ask about family history – she is the last in the line, my last relative. I am happy for her as she says ‘I have lived too long’ and is looking forward to being reunited with all those who have gone before her.
ALIVE AND CREAKING 