Category Archives: Friends

What does it matter.

01 Friday Jun 2018

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I’m on holiday in the South of France with the two youngest boys and my mum; the eldest ditched me to stay at home. Can’t say I blame him, I would’ve at his age!

We have had a lovely week. The sun is shining, we’ve swum, played games, sunbathed, read books. It has been awesome. I’ve read three books in 6 days and started a 4th. This never happens. I love spending time with my mum and kids. I don’t get enough of it.

Whilst I am officially on annual leave, I have spent a lot of time emailing and calling work over the past two days as I am changing jobs and had issues with my start date. I’ve done this laying by the pool in between diving in and out, or watching the kids attempts to learn to dive themselves.

Whilst I’ve been doing this the boys have been playing with their friends and my mum has been reading on her kindle, watching TV on her ipad or crocheting. She’s never without a crochet hook within easy reach. She is bloody amazing at crochet. She makes loads of fantastic stuff. She can’t help herself.

Anyway this evening on the last day of our holiday my Mum said to the boys in front of me “I have to say your Mum is always on her phone”.

For some reason this raised my hackles. I have fully participated in this holiday. It is my holiday too after all. Despite the fact that I drove for 14 hours to get us here, whilst they were all watching TV, or reading or crocheting in the car. I’ve swum, taken the kids go-karting, and climbing. I’ve read over three books. I’ve cooked every night (with help from my Mum, of course), but I was being judged because I was using my phone a lot.

Whilst it annoyed me immediately, it’s not worth stressing over and so I forgot about it until I was in the shower. Whilst I was washing, I started to think about how some things appear to be acceptable for others to comment on, but somethings not. For example, I never watch TV. Anyone who has been to my house knows that I actually don’t know how to work my TV. And I don’t have Sky or Virgin, just the standard TV channels. People always comment on this. “You don’t watch TV?” As if I have some affliction..nope I don’t watch TV, not on a regular basis. If I’m not working I read or I catch up with friends, that may be in person or on the phone or via text. I don’t sit and watch crap on TV.

But somehow it’s socially acceptable to sit all evening watching TV. Or all day, and to judge me for not doing the same.

Lots of people spend all their spare time knitting, or like my Mum, crocheting. No one would ever dream of saying to them in a slightly acusatory and judgemental way “Oi Doris, all you ever do is knit” or “Brenda, you are always doing those jigsaws, can’t you do something else”.

What does it matter to anyone else if I’m on my phone rather than doing something that they feel more suitable and appropriate? How is me being on my phone different to any other pursuit, such as reading or sewing?

I don’t get a lot of time that isn’t occupied by work or childcare or other life admin; I keep in touch with those I care about using my phone. Instead of buying newspapers I read the news on my phone. If I’m reading, I often do so on my phone. If I want to watch a documentary I’ll do it on my phone. If I’m working, I can often do it on my phone. I really don’t see a problem with that.

Riding the waves.

01 Tuesday May 2018

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I live life to the full. I pack in more in some days than others do in a week. I socialise, I work, I organise and plan. I plan and re-plan and change plans. If I’m your friend I will be there for you if you need me. I throw myself into everything and people always tell me to slow down. To relax. To take some time to be myself. To look after myself. But I don’t. I can’t. I’m terrified of not having people around me. Of solitude. Of having to face up to the demons inside of my head. Of finding the time in my life to look at what I am doing and working out where I want to be. Because, in all honesty I have no bloody idea.

I seem to lurch from one thing to another. No concerted plan or design. Rolling with the onslaught of waves that never seem to stop coming. Just as I pick myself up from one thing another comes rushing up to take its place, pushing me back over, throwing me back. Like a wind whispering in my ear “know your place” forcing back. And I’m standing here drowning and everyone thinks I’m doing a great job at staying in the water. Well I’m not.

I don’t know how to get out. I don’t know if I want to. Because getting out will mean examining all of the things that took me to this point, and I’m not sure I’m ready to do that. I’m not sure I ever will be. And so I’ll keep riding the waves and battling with the tide in the hope that one day, soon, it will turn. That it will run in my favour. That I won’t have to work so God damned hard to just stay where I am; on an apparently even keel.

And the pretence will remain, as will the illusion of peace. Because all the while no one knows you are drowning, they don’t have to reach out a hand to help you.

Completely unblemished. 

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Body image, Friends, Life, Relationships

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I think today is a safe day to post this. I can’t be sure, as I’ve not really had any time to go on social media to check but here goes anyway, because if I did actually check no doubt it would be another day that passes without me being able to post this for fear of upsetting someone. For fear of someone, anyone, on my friends list thinking it is directed at them. To be clear; it isn’t. 

Anyway, I really need somebody to explain it to me because I’m not really understanding the attractiveness,  in more ways than one! What is this obsession with putting effects on every picture that people seem to take? 

Above: an alien, below: a filtered me. Spot the similarities!


When did it become acceptable or even desired to make your face look like that of an alien  just visiting from out of space? You know; over large eyes, small pointy chin (slimmed, I believe they call it). Slimmed my arse, it’s weird. And it’s not as if anyone believes that that is you, do they? Because it’s not. It’s an exaggeration of a person. You are making yourself look more like a cartoon than a person. 

Am I being overly critical to think that anyone you meet for the first time after having seen a photo of you is highly likely to be disappointed!  Because no one actually looks like that. If you did, you would probably be ostracised and bullied by the very people you seek approval from.  

Am I the only person who looks at someone’s filtered photo on Facebook or twitter and just feel slightly sad for them? What is wrong with their faces that they feel the need to filter out any true reflection of them? Because every single one of my social network that I have seen posting these doctored images are pretty outstanding people in their own right. They are beautiful inside and out, and yet they insist on posting images that don’t resemble them. 

So I have a message to all of you who can’t post a photo on social media without editing it and filtering it within an inch of its life and turning it into an imaginary image: 

There is nothing ugly about being you. Naturally you,  with no editing or filtering or slimming needed. You don’t need to change. 

In 5 years, or 10 or 15 years time you will not be able to look back on photos of yourself and see how you really were, because you no longer exist. You wiped the real image of you from existence and you are comparing a computer generated image to a real one. And do you know what, you are going to feel bad; because you will be comparing yourself to an image that never really existed. Because that is not you!! 

You are a beautiful individual, whose beauty doesn’t just exist on the surface. Your face is a reflection of a tiny part of you, and it’s not even your best part. Your wit, empathy and understanding. Your big heart and terrible singing. Your clumsiness, your messiness. They are the things that make you beautiful and attractive; not larger than life eyes, completely unblemished faces and abnormally small chins!

So please; stop filling up my news feeds and home pages with imaginary pictures, especially if you are not admitting that you’ve used a filter or six!! Everyone of my friends has blemishes and spots and imperfections. Because we are human. 
If I’d wanted alien friends I’d have joined a space program!

A tiny fraction. 

07 Thursday Jan 2016

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I went to see Justin yesterday. I actually didn’t want to. I was terrified. Silly really, given that I’ve been around dead people before, I know that they can’t harm us. But I have never seen a person 3 weeks after they have died, and certainly not after the circumstances in which Justin died. 

You see he died of what they assume was a heroin overdose in someone’s flat. That somebody, didn’t call the emergency services, instead they panicked. They set about pretending like it didn’t happen, they cleaned and tidied and they left it 2 days. 48 hours. They did nothing for 2 days. And then they called the police and ambulance. By then it was obviously far too late. In all honesty it probably was by the time they realised that he was dead. 
Anyway, in my head I couldn’t really get it sorted out. Despite being close to Justin I’d not seen him for months. He lived hundreds of miles away. We’d spoken via text and Facebook and had phone calls but I didn’t see him regularly so I was used to him not actually being there. That made it hard to register that I’d never see him again. That he was gone. Forever. And then the circumstances of his death haunted me. 48 hours. That’s a long time in death. And three weeks had passed since then. I didn’t really build a picture in my head of how he would look, but I imagined that in death he would not be my Justin. The man I have known for nearly 2 decades the man I cared for, who looked after me, who saved me despite not being able to save himself. My mind played nasty tricks on me and it made me scared of someone that I loved. 

Anyway Justin’s eldest son was the one who made me go. He was insistent that he had to go and see him and he couldn’t be persuaded otherwise. And so after a few phone calls the mortuary said they would let us visit before he got taken to the funeral home (who coincidentally charge an awful lot to go visit your loved ones). We booked a slot and I picked up the boy and his mum and we went together to the hospital and I was nervous and terrified and didn’t really know what to expect. 

The lady at the hospital was amazing. Caring and loving and sympathetic. She took his son through and his mum and I sat sobbing and holding each other admitting that we didn’t want to do this. And then his son came out and instead of crying he was smiling. He called us in and told us it was ok. And so we all went in together and the minute I saw him I knew i had done the right thing. 

He looked like he was sleeping. So much so that I almost imagined I could see him breathe. He looked peaceful and calm. Most of all he looked like Justin. And we all laughed at the fact they had clearly taken his dentures out which we’d discussed on the journey there that he looked like an old man without them. And we talked to him and admired the lack of grey in his hair, pondering whether he’d dyed it. We joked about the fact he’d accidentally shaven half an eyebrow off before he’d died and it hasn’t grown back. He told him he should have shaved for our visit and we told him off for leaving us. 

And it was a whole bunch of things; funny, sad, heartbreaking, comforting, reassuring and cathartic.  None of which is how I expected to feel; but the one thing it wasn’t was scary or distressing. And it helped me to heal. Not a lot, but a tiny fraction. Enough to let me know that in time I will not only feel the acuteness of grief, but the warmth of the light and love he gave to me. That the things we did together and laughed at have not changed in value just because he has gone. And I am glad that I went. 

Crushed. 

21 Monday Dec 2015

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Crushed. I am crushed. 

The grief comes in waves, great big tsunamis that don’t just knock me over, they throw me off my feet with a staggering ferociousness, ripping chunks out of me. 

To the outsider perhaps, I have too much grief. Too many tears. But they just cannot understand the connection that we had. The shit that we went through.they don’t know the times that I just had a feeling that he needed me, and I tracked him down, sometimes just to check that he was actually alive. 

Then today, out of the blue, the ending I half knew was coming but fought at every opportunity materialised . And the finality is almost too much to bear. It’s not fair. How come so many get to live, hateful and cruel and yet you, you who loved so much despite all the reasons not to, weren’t given that chance. 

And I’m raging at the insanity of a world where evil lives and kindness dies. Where you don’t reap what you sow. The randomness of it all is baffling.

And it terrifies me, because there was never anything I could do.  And I tried. I honestly did. Me; who’s job it is to help save addicts, albeit not personally, but through my work; I couldn’t even save you. And if I can’t do that knowing how much I cared, I don’t know how I can help others. 

But I know I need to try. I know that you would want to give anyone the chance to be free of addiction. And if I can’t save you maybe I can help someone else. Maybe it will be their turn even though it was never yours. 

You told me so many times how proud you were of me, but I want you to know that I am proud of you too; for being you despite of all the pain. For living in the face of despair and continuing to love. 

Most of all I want you to know that no matter what happened I love you, in our own fucked up way we loved each other despite not being a couple. Despite everything I hope you know I still cared.  

The best laid plans.

25 Monday May 2015

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Some days it is like I wake up and it just doesn’t matter what I do, what good intentions I may have,  I mess it up. Every thing I touch turns to crap.  In my head I will see a picture of how something is going to be; it could be anything,  a day out with the kids,  a meeting at work,  and yet no matter my intentions it all goes to pot.

Take a day out with the kids for instance. The kids might all moan about getting their shoes on when I ask, they might sulk and whinge that they can’t find them,  or they don’t want to go out they’d rather watch TV. And I’ll get pissed off. Don’t they know that this is supposed to be fun?  Don’t they realise that I took a day off work to spend with them. How ungrateful are they?  So what do I do?  I shout at them,  they don’t understand how this is supposed to be fun and so I tell them; In no uncertain terms I shout at them and let them know how they are ruining the day. They are selfish and ungrateful and they should appreciate me wanting to take them out.

They will then,  9/10 times all jump up and get moving and apologise to me. We will get going to wherever we were going to go,  but the day will feel slightly tarnished,  slightly forced and I will spend most of it chastising myself for being a terrible person/mother.

It happens in other areas of my life too. When I am tired or feeling low and all I actually want is to feel loved and needed and wanted,  I often seem to express it in extremely unlovable ways. I might pick a fight with a loved one,  then end up in floods of tears because,  actually the last thing I wanted to do was alienate them. I just needed something from them (love,  reassurance, support) and couldn’t express it in a way that showed how much I needed it.  Maybe I tried to be loving and it was missed,  or I’m sad and want to know that someone is there for me and so I behave badly. It is a child-like response that I am aware of but seem to have little control over it. I want the dream. I want it perfect.

And yet it’s almost like I self sabotage things that are good in my life. Seriously, why am I so bothered by the fact that kids would rather stay home watching the TV rather than come out and do something that I think is better for them. They were happy, perhaps I should have been happy too. But no,  I have an image in my head as to how the day is going to go and so I relentlessly pursue it against all opposition.  I need to learn to chill out more. To let things go. To know that the way things are in my head isn’t the way that things have to be. If anyone should know that it’s me.

Its not just me that does this though,  I see it or hear it all the time from my friends, or people on the street. Somehow we are conditioned into thinking that things are always going to be perfect,  that we will get married and live happily ever after,  that our friends will drop everything because we need them, our kids will be beautiful and angelic and well behaved. And maybe that is a reality for some people.  Maybe all of my friends are as bat shit crazy as I am and actually there is a whole community of “normal”  people out their living the lives of their dreams. 

Whatever. I honestly don’t think I care,  because do you know what?  Sometimes it is from the shadows of our failings that the best things happen. Perhaps if I didn’t feel that guilt for shouting at the kids I wouldn’t have made the extra effort to ride the zip wire with them. We wouldn’t have made those memories that hopefully they will remember forever. Perhaps I wouldn’t have reached out to a friend and reaffirmed our friendship over the stories of my fuck ups and their commiserations and affirmation that I am, indeed bat shit crazy.

The Good Deed Feed. 

19 Tuesday May 2015

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A few months ago I took the decision to do something nice for someone everyday. It seemed like a big deal at the time, I mean, I’m not normally horrible to people, but having to do something nice everyday felt like a big task. Especially given that I have the worlds worst memory; how was I going to remember to do it? 

So I started out on this good deed journey a little daunted, thinking that possibly this was going to cost me a lot of money, because one of the easiest ways to be nice is to buy someone something, and I’m all for the easy route! 

Sometimes it does cost money, but not the bucket loads I was expecting.  In January I asked for 5 friends to let me know if they wanted a random gift from me at some point in the year. I signed them up, and I’m gradually going through them sending them small gifts that are not for any reason but that I was thinking of them. So that’s 5 days of the year sorted. 

There being another 360 days in the year to account for, I started to look out for more opportunities to do a good deed. Things like helping carry a buggy up the stairs at the train station, or going out of my way to open a door for someone struggling with bags etc. 

Some days no specific opportunity to do a good deed arises, or maybe I have just been tired, and can’t see for looking, so I have had to think of other ways in which I can do something nice and I soon realised that I don’t actually have to do a lot to be nice. For example I might just tell someone that they look lovely (only if they actually do), whereas maybe in the past I would have just thought it. I stopped to check that someone at the tube station was ok, when I noticed they were so drunk they couldn’t stand. He was fine, waiting for friends, but I was glad I’d checked. 

In our services we have Peer Mentors who work with others to help them achieve recovery from addiction. At a couple of meetings I’d seen and heard what a fantastic job one of them was doing, so when she told me that she was moving to another one of my establishments I told her that I would email them to tell her of the good work she was doing and that I’d love it if she could continue it after her move. I wrote a 10 line email to the service. It took me 30 seconds or less and I copied in her manager. The next day I received a lovely email thanking me for putting myself out to help her. That she was amazed I’d bothered and it meant a lot to her. It made me think about how the little things we do can have a ripple effect. 30 seconds of my time could mean the difference between her sinking or swimming in the move to another prison. It reaffirmed my commitment to being nice. 

This good deed feed has had unintended consequences too. I stopped to help someone broken down on the M25 and unbeknown to me it was an old friend I hadn’t seen for years, we had a quick catch up before I jumped his car and he went on his way. It did my soul good to see him alive and well. Another time I helped someone with some work and they helped me out when I desperately needed it. I like to think of it as a kind of karma. 

I’m no angel. Some days I go to bed thinking of all the harm that I’ve done by arguing, shouting or my other actions. I struggle to cope, I feel like crying; I’m sure that I am a terrible person. Poor C may think I’m actually a slight psychopath what with the neediness I portray. At times like those I cling onto doing a nice thing everyday, no matter what else I’ve done, hopefully I’ve made some one smile, or their day a bit easier, even if only, sometimes because of my complete stupidity. 

Papering the cracks. 

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

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Since my last blog about splitting up with P I’ve been amazed at 2 things:1) the number of people who took the time to connect with me, to check that I am ok, to let me know they are there (thank you all), and 2) the number of people who said they were stunned. That they thought that we were a perfect couple. 

It’s made me think about how social media can allow us to share the life that we want people to think we have rather than the life we actually have with our friends and colleagues. I mean, we have all probably done it; we have a day off, at home with the kids, it’s been a hell of a bad day, they have spent nearly all of it fighting or arguing over important things, such as who is going to get to sit next to Mummy or who broke who’s biscuit. You wonder how you could possibly have borne these Devils, You are just about ready to kill them, and so, in desperation you make them put on their shoes and take them to the park. 

The only reason you are taking them to the park is the hope that they might put 100 metres between you and their constant bickering. This is not about fun, this is survival! It works, you can finally see the arguing but not hear it, and if you don’t look up you can pretend not to see or hear the constant whines of “Muuuumm, he, pushed/hit/punched/licked/looked at me funny!” Ignorance is bliss and so you sit back and enjoy the peace. And then it happens; they stop arguing for 1.5 minutes, the sun pops out for 2.5 minutes, and so you seize the opportunity to take a few pictures of them, in the sun, playing together like angels. 

30 seconds later they are back to bickering and arguing and generally being little sods, what do you do? You retreat back to the park bench, you ignore the yelps and screams coming from the other end of the park and you upload those few rare peaceful moments to Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram. Look at how perfect they are, look how nicely they play together (Yeah right!). 

The point is, I didn’t bother taking photos of them arguing, and I certainly didn’t post them to social media. Anyone who looked at my profile would probably assume that my kids and I had a whale of a time at the park, smiling and playing together. Which we did. I mean those perfect 1.5 minutes of not bickering or arguing, in the sun were indeed perfect. However I unconsciously edited my day/life down to those few small moments in an otherwise poxy day when I uploaded those pictures to Facebook. 

 Too many people accept that what people portray on social media is the reality of other people’s worlds. And that is quite a scary thought. If I was friends with someone who was depressed or not coping particularly well, they may well be under the illusion that I am coping perfectly, that I manage to be the perfect mother/wife/girlfriend/sister/employee/whatever. What they may fail to realise is that they are only seeing the highlights. The best bits. The parts that I want to show the world. They don’t see the me, snot hanging down my face, sobbing down the phone that I am a failure, that I can’t cope, that I am too tired, too sad to deal with this crap; because that’s not they way I want most people to know me. So those times get conveniently missed out from my Facebook feed and instead you see the times I’m winning at life, you see the good and I edit out the bad. To someone who is depressed or struggling to cope this can make them feel a failure, they may see everyone else’s lives through the rose tinted glasses of social media and this can make them feel worse. 

And that’s how people form the impression that everyone else’s life is better than theirs. That they must be doing something wrong. They don’t see the cracks in the lives of their friends, they only see the paper that their friends have covered over the cracks with. But nothing is perfect, everything has cracks, and so you know what? Those 1.5 minutes of perfection, in the park, sun shining and kids loving me were the closest to heaven I’ve been for a while. And so I’ll carry on sharing those moments, however perhaps we should all bear in mind that what we see is not always a reflection of our full time reality, it’s the reality we’d like. 

The thin red thread. 

16 Monday Mar 2015

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I went to my ex partners wedding last weekend. J invited me months ago and immediately I knew that I would go. It was 600 miles away, no problem, I’d drive, pick up his son on the way, it wasn’t even a consideration really, he invited me, I was totally honoured, of course I was going to go. Nevermind that I’d never met his wife to be (luckily she didn’t mind) nevermind that I hadn’t seen him for months and before that years. 

 J is someone who I’ve known for all of my adult life, we first met when we were in different relationships, both drug users with other drug users. We lived in the same house for a while, him with his partner, me with mine. Then our partners fell out and do we moved on, our paths crossing occasionally. 

Roll forward a few years and I was in hiding from my new partner, the father of my son, I was living in a refuge and I was desperately unhappy. I was alone, and withdrawing from heroin and I needed some kind of human connection and there, when I was most desperate, I bumped into J, walking down the street. It was as if I was drowning and someone had thrown me a lifeline. I believe that he saved my life. Not in a literal, physical way, but emotionally. I had spent a considerable time in emotional hell and he appeared and he put no pressure on me and he was there when I was alone and lonely and desperate. He was exactly what I needed at that point in my life. 

Life rolled on, we stayed together, we made bad choices, we took a lot of drugs but throughout this time he was the rock that I hung my life upon. He was gentle and in truth he soothed my soul. He treated and lived my son as his own. We weren’t the best parents but we tried our best in difficult circumstances. 

I’m sure that during this relationship, my family thought that we were making each other worse. But what they didn’t realise is that J was the one rooting me, stopping me from going over the edge. I like to think I did they same to him. I have to admit that without his undoubtable love my son wouldn’t be the child he is now. 

After few years life changed for us. J went to prison for a significant time and my life just kind of escalated off the scale of chaoticness. J tried his best from behind the prison walls to get my life back on track, he arranged for people to take me to NA meetings, he wrote to me about change about how life could be different. I never truly believed it. I ended up in prison myself. Somehow, even in there J managed to convince the authorities to let him call me. He spoke to me from his prison to mine, told me that this was an opportunity, that it was the best thing to happen. I didn’t believe a word of it. 

I got out of prison and moved in with my Dad. I realised that I needed to move forward and I cut J out of my life. Looking back, I was vicious to the one person who had been there for me. At the time it was survival. 

As I was getting better, J was left alone. His life continued in a spiral of drugs and crazy women. Occasionally I’d bump into him, or actively seek him out to make sure that he was alive, ok. I felt guilty that my life was getting better whilst his stayed the same. 

So it was fantastic to hear that he had finally managed to extricate himself from our old lifestyle. That he had met an amazing woman and planned to marry her. And most of all that she was sure enough in their relationship to want me to join them in their celebration of their marriage. I’d have understood it if she hadn’t but it meant a lot that she did. She understood the link between us and didn’t feel threatened by it. She had no reason to, life was different now to 14 years ago. 

There is an old Chinese proverb that  says an invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, despite the time, the place, despite the circumstances. The thread can be tightened or tangled, but can never be broken.  in life we meet up with people, they might be there for a while, they might go and sometimes they may reappear at times when they either need someone or you do. J has always been one of those people in my life. That is why I drove 600 miles to celebrate his wedding.  I will always consider him one of my closest friends, I wish for him and his new wife all the joy in the world. They both deserve it. 

Elephant in the room.

02 Monday Feb 2015

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Death is nothing at all… That’s a line from a popular choice of readings at many of the  funeral services that I have attended. The thing is,  death is a big thing. It’s that elephant in the room, the thing we all know is coming, and yet we try our best not to acknowledge.  We ignore it,  we try not to even speak it’s name, we say someone has passed on gone to meet their maker, become an angel. Very rarely do we say someone is dead, it’s euphemisms all the way.

The thing is, we need to deal with Death. We need to accept it,  after all,  as a friend of mine says, good health is just the slowest possible way to die!  It’s an unfortunate truth. No matter how much we don’t like it, it is one thing we can guarantee. 

I have recently been faced with Death and the dying fairly frequently.  I’ve been working on the ambulances and have seen a lot of ill people. Most of these are old people,  people who have lived full and varied lives,  and are proud, strong and fascinating human beings.  All too many of them have been reduced to the remnants of the people that they once were. Some may be unsteady on their feet,  and so have fallen and injured themselves, or just don’t have the strength to get up. Others may just be weak with age or exhausted from breathing or heart conditions,  many have dementia. 

But it’s not all elderly people who die. My 7 year old son came home today with news of a school friend who died at the weekend. Younger people die too, no matter how much we want to ignore it. And it’s heart wrenching and horribly sad,  and doesn’t bear thinking about,  but think about it we should. 

In my mind, death shouldn’t be taboo. It should be a subject that we talk about, without dread, we plan so many things in our lives, but very few people plan for their deaths. We leave this most important part of life to our family and friends,  people who, with the best will in the world are the least likely to be in the frame of mind to make rational, life or death decisions. 

My Nana was probably the person who I have been closest to that has died. I loved my Nana fiercely,  and she loved us all fiercely back. None of us would ever want her to be in pain or distressed.  She was very ill,  she had been fairly I’ll for a long time. She had COPD and was on oxygen constantly, but she was still firing on all cylinders and bossy as hell!

Then one day, she got a chest infection,  and was admitted to hospital. Despite treatment, she didn’t improve.  The Dr’s wanted to withdraw treatment and in that moment,  I would have done anything to save her. Even in the poor health that she was in, I wasn’t ready to let her die. It wasn’t about her. I was selfishly thinking of myself, i didn’t think that my Nana was suffering and would hate to be like this. I just felt that I could not let her go. Luckily I was able to cry it out,  talk to my friends and family and ultimately, it wasn’t up to me to let her go. Probably a good job,  as I don’t think I would have had the strength. I’d want them to keep her alive, not for her but for me. My Nana slipped away quietly in her sleep early one morning soon after.

The funny thing is that after she died I felt relief. Not that she was dead,  but that she was gone without suffering:  she never lost her mind to dementia, or her independence. She died after a short illness and was peaceful. It took my mum and aunt a lot to allow them to withdraw treatment but ultimately it was the right thing to do. Nana would have hated to be a burden and if she had survived she wouldn’t have had the life she was used to.

And that’s why it is important that we face that elephant in the room, that we talk about death and dying, and give our loved ones an idea of what we want or don’t want to be done to keep us alive. It’s not fair to leave a grieving loved one to make decisions on your life or death completely in the dark. It’s not fair on them,  and it’s certainly not fair on you. As humans we are ultimately selfish.  We don’t like pain,  and the pain of losing someone we think we can’t live without is too much. Some people can’t put that aside and think of the other person.  And that says nothing about them,  and more about being human.

So we should all make our feelings clear. Talk about them,  write them down.  Be unequivocal.  Speak about death, and life,  and the conditions in which we would choose death over life. How much should we be prepared to let Dr’s intervene to prolong our life?  If we lose our ability to choose the best for us,  who do we trust to choose it instead. What do we want done with our bodies when we die, are we leaving them to medical science?  Being buried, cremated?  How do we feel about organ donation?  All of us,  none of us, or only some parts? All of these things are important, they mean that we know what will happen to us, and it takes the guilt and pain and decision making away from a loved one who is in an impossible situation. 

So I’ll start it now: if I get dementia,  or have a stroke or any other condition that means I have no mental capacity and no hope for recovery,  I would like treatment to be withdrawn.  I would like my family with me and I’d like to die. If I am able to,  I would like any of my organs to be donated. I don’t mind if I’m buried or cremated but I’d like a grave that people can visit if they want to. And most of all,  I want my family to know that it is my choice and not theirs. There is no guilt,  it’s what I would want.