It’s been a week…

This morning around 2.00am mum took her final breath and that followed on the heels of dad just 4 days previous. Two parents gone in the space of a few days. And while it’s what we have been hoping and praying for – the end of suffering – it’s still a wrench. Mum had very advanced dementia and was losing even the capacity to eat. It had been 9 or 10 years of the fog settling on her and then slowly taking away what was once a razor sharp mind.

On Friday morning she was deemed in need of morphine and end of life procedures and we knew the end was close. The trip to Busso for Ellie’s birthday got cancelled as it all looked inevitable. While dad I only got to see in the unconscious drugged state, mum I got to see Friday morning before the morphine hit. I had a short time with her and was able to look in her weak eyes as they seemed to lock on to mine and tell her what a beautiful woman she was and how much I loved her – what a wonderful mother and grandmother she had been and how much she would be missed. I was able to assure her she would see my brother Steve, my son Sam and her husband George very soon – and of course Jesus… I prayed for her, read a Psalm and then hugged her one last time.

Dad left us on Wednesday evening around 10.00pm shortly after we had been in to say our goodbyes. Dad’s mind was in the early stages of unravelling and he was slowly losing his grip on reality. It had only been 5 or 6 months of real significant deterioration but it was clear that he was going to really struggle with the confusion. So while mum lived for many years with dementia, dad was fortunate enough to have a brief experience of it.

If you have watched your parents decline and enter the dementia stage then you’d know the bittersweet relief of seeing them finally at peace.

In all of this my wife Danelle has been amazing in her unfailing love for both of them. To be frank – I could understand it with mum as she has always held her near and they have had a beautiful relationship. Dad has been very difficult at times and harder to love. But Danelle kept going back and caring for him and giving to him. So this marks the end of a very significant part of her life and I know that while there will be relief there will also be deep loss.

So it’s been a bit of an emotional cyclone this week as we process all this. But to be able to know one day we will see one another again in heaven / the new creation is a hope that just gets stronger every time another close one dies.

If you have never read Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15 then here is a small snippet of what he says. It is the assurance and hope that the best is yet to come. Go here to read the whole chapter.

²⁰ But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. ²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ²³ But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him

We will be having a joint memorial service for them at their old home church, Scarborough Baptist- time TBA.