allanhunter.net Blog

I’ve had so many wonderful and supportive comments from people who read about my Mum’s fall that it seems only fitting to acknowledge the generosity of those people right here.  It has warmed my heart.

I got to England just at the right time - something to be thankful for right there - since my Mum seemed to be at that perilous point of trying to decide whether to keep on getting better or to slip into helplessness.  My Aunt Iris and cousins Monique and Martin had done a magnificient job, but Mum had caught some sort of virus the day she left the convalescent home, and was in a fragile state… My arrival helped to tip the balance in the right direction, I think, if only because Mum was outvoted, outnumbered, and couldn’t escape.  So I spent most of Thanksgiving week persuading her to eat small amounts of something - anything, really - and to build her strength up.  And it worked.  When I left England she was beginning to complain about things like the National Health Visiting Nurses (who are magnificent, by the way) and so I knew she was getting back to her usual self.  I think the point I really felt comfortable was when she got critical of my cooking.  It showed she was well in touch with reality again.

Still, it was an anxious time.  I can smile about it now from the safety of having got over the bump, even though it was a bit scary in the moment, to say the least.  My Grandmother, I recall only too well, had a fall at about the same age, and her response was to give up.  She died about a week later, and she’d been much fitter than my Mum at the time. I was only about 14 at the time and bewildered at how that strong, ornery lady had crumbled.

My gratitude is immense - and to MaryLou, Cheryl, Jean, Cathy, Andrew, and others, it is on-going.