Monday

The phone rang at 6am sharp. It was Mary, the nurse from The Home that I’d met yesterday evening.

“I’m very sorry to have to tell you that your mum has just passed away. It was just a few minutes ago. I can tell you that she was peaceful at the end. I’ll let the undertaker know now if that’s OK?”

I thanked her. Poor woman. What a miserable job for her. She clearly wasn’t used to doing it because at the end she said she hoped I had a nice day.

Peaceful at the end though? Rightly or wrongly, my immediate thought was that they must always say that. If you want to believe that when you’re told that your loved one has died then I recommend you stop reading now. If you haven’t already, definitely don’t look at the posts from the past two days either. I know what I saw.

Lesley called the funeral director at 9 when their office opened to let them know they were going to get a call. It was the first time we’d actually spoken to them directly. We’d only got their out of hours call centre over the weekend.

“That’s alright. We’ve already got her.”

“Wow! OK, what happens now?”

Everything goes into slow motion is what happens now. They can’t do anything without all the paperwork and that could take days. We were told it was likely that we wouldn’t be able to start planning anything before Christmas.

I spoke to Mum’s vicar from home and confirmed the news that I’d already warned her was coming. I’m not a believer myself but I found that comforting.

Messages were coming in from the family. I highly recommend WhatsApp for this sort of news. There’s no argument about who got told first or comparing notes about who got told what. Call lists got volunteered for and I let them know where Mum was. My view was that it wasn’t going to be a lavish funeral. If you want to show your esteem and respect for someone then do it to their face when they’re alive. Not when they’re dead. Anything over and above the bare minimum was being done for you, not them. I did say that I might go for some optional extras and if there was a significant cost then I’d ask them first even though I hadn’t given any thought to what my Maximum Discretionary Spend figure looked like.

Once I’d got myself together, I phoned The Home and got straight through to The Manager.

“If it’s OK with you, I’d like to come in and collect Mum’s belongings this afternoon.”

“No, no, it’s too soon. Give yourself a few days first.”

“I’d rather do it today. I know what I’m like. Once the adrenaline drops I’ll collapse in a heap. I’ll feel like I’ve got flu and that’ll be me finished for a week. I just need to keep busy. But before that I just want to take The Dog out for a good long walk.”

She didn’t argue or try to block me thankfully.

“Yes, taking the dog out sounds good. We’ll see you later if you still feel like it.”

I went through to the main nurses’ office when I got to The Home. Barbara was there.

“Nick! No. No Nick, no. It’s too soon.”

I gave the speech about adrenaline, heap, busy again.

“We’ve been worried about you. Every time we had a meeting about your mum we asked ourselves what we could do for you. Always what are we going to do with Nick?”

“That’s so sweet of you. But I just need to do something.”

“OK. What can I do to help?”

“Packing her clothes won’t take long. She hasn’t got much. Could I have a cup of coffee please?”

“OK, right. Do you take sugar?”

“Two please.”

“TWO!!”

“You sound like the girls upstairs. They have a way of saying Two Sugars that makes me feel bad too.”

That made her laugh.

I met Al upstairs.

“Nick… Nick… I’m so sorry. Please, let me help.”

I grabbed the photos and the Echo first. Then we folded the clothes in Mum’s wardrobe. Very few of them were hers now. The only things that were definitely hers were the things she never wore. Everything else had fallen foul of the laundry mix-up when everyone transferred across from the Other Home last summer and the room numbers got confused. Mum was at the end of the laundry round and she seemed to end up with the clothes where the tag had fallen off. I never thought she was aware of what she was wearing anyway. She was comfortable and looked decent so I didn’t kick up a fuss.

One suitcase was all it took. At least I’d had the presence of mind to get a proper case for her stuff and wasn’t walking out with a couple of bin bags.

I popped my head round the door of the lounge to let Al know I was leaving.

“Don’t be a stranger Nick. Come back and see us.”

“I will. Don’t worry.”

That was enough for me to get spotted.

“Have you come to see me!?”

“No, not today Audrey.”

“Is your Mum alright?”

“Yes Eleanor, she’s much better now thank-you.”

They both looked crushed. I could tell by Eleanor’s face that she didn’t believe me. She’d been anxious about Mum all weekend.

I should’ve stayed to talk to them and reassured Eleanor that Mum really was better even though it seemed like telling a child that their beloved pet has ‘gone to live on a farm in the countryside’. I didn’t have it in me though.

I should’ve stayed but I didn’t.

I walked out feeling completely and utterly shit.

Bloody hell.

Author’s Note

My Mum is in a nursing home in a small village in the Thames Valley. The photo is not of the home. I used an AI image generator to give the reader some idea of the home she’s in.

All, some or maybe even none (you’ll never know!) of the names have been changed to protect privacy and hide real identities. If you think you recognise someone then let me know and I’ll edit the post or remove it entirely