The train is at station …………….

10th January 2015 – the phone rang, it was my big sister, informing me that our Mom had collapsed and was on her way to hospital.  Of course I was concerned and worried, however this had been a fairly regular occurrence over the past couple of years and in the back of my mind I kind of thought she’ll be ok and we’ll find her sat up in bed, flirting with the paramedics 😊

Mom was 82 – a true cockney sparrow, full of fun and laughter.  In earlier years she was the first one up on the dance floor, full of life and so gentle, kind and understanding – just simply the best we could have wished for 😊

Her health had been declining steadily over the last few years – both physically and mentally.  But she retained her fantastic sense of humour and was so bloody funny, holding the court with her stories of her childhood as a little war evacuee and the mischief she got up to – course she also had memory loss and the beginnings of dementia – so you heard the same stories over and over again 😄 but she made them funny every time 😄

However when I walked into that room at the hospital it was a very different scenario 😞 this couldn’t be my Mom? She looked so very ill and was completely unresponsive.  The doctors assessed her, there was nothing they could physically put their hands on and say “we can do this and make her come back from wherever she had gone.”

For two weeks she lie there.  We took turns around the clock to stay with her, she flitted between talking to us and sleeping heavily.  She didn’t know who we were a lot of the time – she thought I was a nice lady from Age Concern 😊 We played her favourite tracks which she would try to sing along to – we took turns to run to the loo – to bury our heads in our hands and sob and cry for our darling Mom – returning to the room with red eyes and wiping snotty noses on our cuffs like the children we had become again.

The hospital decided there was nothing more they could do and she was transferred to a small cottage hospital to end her journey – wherever it was going to be.  She told me she had travelled by train but I’m fairly sure it was an ambulance 😊  Days turned into weeks, she would go up and down – playing “silly buggers” not knowing where she wanted to be.  It was a complete roller coaster of emotions.

She would go through stages of seeing the “two little girls” in the doorway waiting for her – I’m sure they were Angels – but I kept visualising those two little girls on “The Shining” but to my knowledge she had never been to The Overlook Hotel or had any business with Jack Nicholson 😊

Her diabetes was completely out of control and her sugar levels through the roof, without any cream cakes being consumed, which was usually the case – she never listened to anyone when a cake was involved 😃

She kept dipping her toes through the gate and we would lose her for a while – but I’m guessing she kept changing her mind, maybe she was going at “rush hour”  she was always a stickler for queuing 😊 I began to think God would be getting a tad pissed off with her – causing a draft in the doorway 😊

When she would return briefly to us, the two little girls were sometimes joined by a dog and a cat – but then the doctors would put another drip in her poor little hand and pump her full of yet another load of antibiotics and she would recognise us again.

She told me not to talk to strangers and reminded me how much I am loved ❤️

I didn’t want her to get on the bloody train she kept going on about – but I now know that was selfish of me 😞 I hoped it was British Rail – they’re always late …………..

Her train pulled into the Station on the 21 March 2015 – this time it waited for her to climb on board xxxx 💔

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