![]() ![]() Then there were the precious moments spent on our own with Mam. There were stories and a lot of laughter during those weeks. We not only spent time with our mother but we also spent time with each other in a way we had not done since we were children. ![]() Events and appointments which previously had seemed so important were dropped or postponed so that we could be there by her bedside. ![]() In a sense, for me and my siblings, the world came to a halt when Mam was in hospital. Those final weeks of my mother’s life did provide opportunities to create some very precious good memories. A priest, visiting the hospital, said to me: “I see your Mam is gone to the departure lounge!”Īfter my mother’s death, I made a solemn promise to myself that, in future, I would be extra careful in the language I used with sick people and their families. In those final weeks Mam was moved from a multi-bed ward to a private room. The insensitive language was not just confined to the hospital staff. After some weeks a nurse said to me: “Your mother is on a small dose of morphine, not really enough to push her over the top.”Īnother day, the same nurse said to me: “Your mother is dying, just not as quickly as we thought she would.” My mother went on a morphine pump and we had been led to believe she might last only a few days. Perhaps we become over-sensitive to every word and phrase spoken, but when you are losing the one who gave you the gift of life, the person most committed to you in your life, then yes, every word spoken about them is precious. When someone close to you is dying I learned that you become very conscious of the language that is used by nurses and doctors as they speak to you. There were, however, exceptions and sadly those are some of the memories that remain. In the weeks my mother was in the hospital we encountered a lot of wonderful staff members who despite working under huge pressure, were very kind and caring to both my mother and our family. I have good and bad memories of that time.įirstly, there is my somewhat unresolved anger about aspects of her hospital care. I’m not sure if it is some kind of seven-year-itch combined with the effects of Covid isolation, but I have been reflecting a lot recently on the time of my mother’s illness and death. My mother died seven years ago last week. ![]()
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