Simon Blake

 My darling Mum died peacefully at home yesterday (New Years Eve) at about 6am.  It wasn't quite how I had imagined it. Dad and I were asleep, Dad in the same room as Mum, me less than 3 metres away and I heard a gentle knock on the door. Alison from Marie Curie had been with us a few nights before and I knew she only knocked if there was something wrong.  I also knew from the gentleness of this knock that she was going to tell me Mum had died. Those dreaded words we knew were coming but never wanted to hear. Alison had woken me so I could tell Dad. Dad's first reaction through howls of pain was exactly the same as my quiet thought had been. 'I wasn't there. I wanted to be there, I should have been there'. He was there. He was in bed right next to her but we weren't awake and holding her hand.  Truth is we had started the day time vigil but we didn't think she was going to die that quickly. And we were both knackered. We had been awake for over 48 hours beca...

Very soon after I found out Mum was dying a colleague and friend wrote me a letter about their own experience of a parent dying and what they had learned from their experience. I was grateful when I got that letter through the post. So much wisdom. And I read it often. When children are born we know what to do. When people die we know we have to register the death and have a funeral. As a society we know a bit about grief and bereavement even though we can get much better at talking about it and supporting people through it.  We talk less about the process of dying. There is still, it seems, a worry that if we talk about what is happening we make it happen, which is poppycock of course. If we talk about death and dying we pass on the knowledge, we learn from the person dying and we can gain great comfort which will help us through the grieving process.  I have learned that having conversations about dying do not necessarily get easier, but the more we do it the easier it becom...

It is over three months since Mum's diagnosis of late stage cancer. Three months since our lives changed and we started adapting to a new version of reality.  The words have perhaps not quite yet sunk in, but whether they have sunk in or not, the truth is there in our day to day lives. Mum is dying and the best clinical prediction at the time of diagnosis is that she had 'months rather than years' to live. Three of those months gone already.  As Doctor Kathryn Mannix says in this brilliant short video  https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/dying-is-not-as-bad-as-you-think/p062m0xt    'we have stopped talking about dying and that is in fact a problem'.  That is why I am writing this blog. W e have to talk about death and dying so we can take better care of the dying person, help them prepare for their death and ensure their wishes are heard and taken care of; so we can take better care of each other through the process of a loved one dying and prepare ourselves...

A couple of weeks ago, the ever wise, Julie Bentley wrote a blog about the end of life https://juliebentley1969.wixsite.com/website/post/thinking-about-the-end-of-life, and why we need to talk about illness, the end of life, death and dying.  Unsurprisingly given how wise Julie is and that we share a lot of values, I completely agree. My brother died 5 years ago, and I was surprised just how hard some people still find it to talk about death, about dying and about grief.  When Andrew died lots of people acknowledged his death, asked questions, asked me how I was, and shared their own personal experiences. There was also a lot of silence or skirting around the issue. Other folk seemed to want to make it better with warm and incredibly well meaning platitudes: I was regularly told 'he wouldn't want you to be sad' or 'at least he isn't hurting now'.  I was (and still am) sad, and I am glad he isn't hurting any longer, but it still hurts. Few people seemed comfo...

5 years ago I was on my annual summer jollies in Cornwall. My brother Andrew was in hospital. He had on several occasions been in hospital over the previous few years with water retention connected to his pacemaker. I wasn't thinking anything about it as I went in. The sun was shining. A quick visit, some Lucozade, a few magazines and then off to the beach. This time was however different, the nurse with his permission told me that he may need a heart transplant. I still shudder remembering that moment and realise how fragile and uncertain everything really is. As I have written previously on this blog everything accelerated quickly over the next few days. Two weeks later we sat together as a family while the doctors turned off the machines. The first few days and weeks felt like they went on a lifetime, so it is hard to believe that was 1,811 days ago. I don't have any words to describe how much I miss what we had or what I hoped we would have together for another 20, 30...

Today I am 46 years old. I never want to wish time away, however I found the last few months of being 45 difficult and I could not be happier to be 46. My brother Andrew died when he was 45. My 45th birthday felt important and I celebrated it well. All the literature tells us that grieving is an individual process - that it is not an A to B. My experience of grieving for Andrew has taught me first hand that is true which is annoying because I quite like to be in control. He died of bi-ventricular cardiomyopathy (heart failure) in 2015, and the grieving process has been - and is - a ride. It has shown me the full power of my sub-conscious: horrible recurring nightmares, survivor guilt (he has children and grandchildren, I don't), a dramatically altered perception of risk, a huge sense of responsibility for my parents happiness and much more. I can often get overwhelmed by panic - which creates breathlessness and worries about my heart health - when I run which is really bl...