It's been a busier week that usual for me; I've taken on longer hours at work (needs must) and thrown in a parents evening and stretching the pennies til payday.
Nearly every day at 5:56pm my elderly parents ring me.
Often this is massively inconvenient; often I feel against some sort of deadline so I am available at exactly four minutes to six to answer the phone otherwise they will worry.
Both my parents are in ill-health; my mum spent months in hospital in 2011.
Sometimes I forget how heart and gut wrenchingly dreadful a time that was.
Then something comes along to remind me how thankful I should be that she is still here to 'make sure I'm all right' at 5:56pm.
24 Hours in A&E (C4) did just that.
Rose had collapsed at home and her daughters had taken her to A&E at Kings College Hospital in London.
The term 'fly on the wall' is so familiar now it is a cliche; but that is exactly what it felt I was - watching Sandra, Christine and Debbie , Rose's daughters , listening to their memories, hearing them chat, talk on their mobiles to unseen family members, tell Mum that she was in the best place.
You take someone to hospital to be fixed. You don't take them there to leave without them. That's what the sisters had done. Whatever fears they had for Mum deep in the pits of their stomachs, they were there to see Mum patched up and sent home. Heck I don't think they even took their coats off. They were even getting the bubbly ready.
Rose was laying on a gurney, ventilated,barely able to breathe let alone speak, with a plethora of internal problems. Her body was giving up.
There is little dignity in being elderly and in hospital. I know my own Mum felt that way during her many weeks on a geriatric ward.
It was the memory of what and who she once was, and how she now felt that hurt the most. My Mum was born the same year as Rose , 1932; like Rose, she is a Londoner, was a seamstress, was always beautifully dressed in her younger days, took great pride in her clothes and her curly long (red where Rose had black) hair.
Like Rose, she looked even tinier on a hospital bed in an ill fitting NHS gown.
An entire life lived , love given and received, heartbreaks, happiness, pride and joy, places seen, hopes - not always fulfilled - and this is how we say goodbye; in a soul-less room with harsh, strip lighting.
It took several moments for the sisters to absorb what the doctor was telling them. Mum wasn't going to be fine. Mum wasn't ever going to be coming home.
Sandra rang her husband and arranged for 'the cakes' to be cancelled.
There was still that palpable sense that the three sisters thought Rose was going to pull through, even when she was wheeled to the 'family room' where she would breathe her last.
The decision was made not to tell their Mum that this was the last place she would ever see.
I envied the sisters - they have an immediate and enduring support system that I won't, sibling-wise, when my turn comes as it inevitably will.
It was a brilliant piece of telly that reminded us that death is a certainty; that we will have to face death as part of life. We don't like it. But we can deal with it.
And it was a stark reminder that when the phone rings at 5:56pm (probably just as I sit down to dinner) I should answer it with gratitude.
Nearly every day at 5:56pm my elderly parents ring me.
Often this is massively inconvenient; often I feel against some sort of deadline so I am available at exactly four minutes to six to answer the phone otherwise they will worry.
Both my parents are in ill-health; my mum spent months in hospital in 2011.
Sometimes I forget how heart and gut wrenchingly dreadful a time that was.
Then something comes along to remind me how thankful I should be that she is still here to 'make sure I'm all right' at 5:56pm.
24 Hours in A&E (C4) did just that.
Rose had collapsed at home and her daughters had taken her to A&E at Kings College Hospital in London.
The term 'fly on the wall' is so familiar now it is a cliche; but that is exactly what it felt I was - watching Sandra, Christine and Debbie , Rose's daughters , listening to their memories, hearing them chat, talk on their mobiles to unseen family members, tell Mum that she was in the best place.
You take someone to hospital to be fixed. You don't take them there to leave without them. That's what the sisters had done. Whatever fears they had for Mum deep in the pits of their stomachs, they were there to see Mum patched up and sent home. Heck I don't think they even took their coats off. They were even getting the bubbly ready.
Rose was laying on a gurney, ventilated,barely able to breathe let alone speak, with a plethora of internal problems. Her body was giving up.
There is little dignity in being elderly and in hospital. I know my own Mum felt that way during her many weeks on a geriatric ward.
It was the memory of what and who she once was, and how she now felt that hurt the most. My Mum was born the same year as Rose , 1932; like Rose, she is a Londoner, was a seamstress, was always beautifully dressed in her younger days, took great pride in her clothes and her curly long (red where Rose had black) hair.
Like Rose, she looked even tinier on a hospital bed in an ill fitting NHS gown.
An entire life lived , love given and received, heartbreaks, happiness, pride and joy, places seen, hopes - not always fulfilled - and this is how we say goodbye; in a soul-less room with harsh, strip lighting.
It took several moments for the sisters to absorb what the doctor was telling them. Mum wasn't going to be fine. Mum wasn't ever going to be coming home.
Sandra rang her husband and arranged for 'the cakes' to be cancelled.
There was still that palpable sense that the three sisters thought Rose was going to pull through, even when she was wheeled to the 'family room' where she would breathe her last.
The decision was made not to tell their Mum that this was the last place she would ever see.
I envied the sisters - they have an immediate and enduring support system that I won't, sibling-wise, when my turn comes as it inevitably will.
It was a brilliant piece of telly that reminded us that death is a certainty; that we will have to face death as part of life. We don't like it. But we can deal with it.
And it was a stark reminder that when the phone rings at 5:56pm (probably just as I sit down to dinner) I should answer it with gratitude.
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