Sunday 31 May 2015

Goodbye Patricia Wellock

Monday March 23rd very late in the night G and his brothers lost their beautiful mum.

This one is really hard.
There are tears and broken pieces.




Winter 2013 an amazing Mr in London found lump and successfully took it out.
Then we had a wonderful clear year, the first of many more, but in the latter days of 2014 a pain came that wouldn't go away and just like that as spring was approaching the sands started to shift all so quickly the pain got so much worse and there was nothing that could be done.
Except to come home, to care and to sometimes laugh and be together as a family.

Before the sun came up one Monday morning...................things weren't right, it was awful and away to the hospital they all went.
When the girls woke up that morning I finally told them what Cancer was, how it was different for everyone and Nana had it and that is why she hadn't been well of late.
At the hospital things were made stable and options were discussed and then..........it all went wrong again and Patricia said, no more, no, no more pain.
This would be on her terms and with everyone there.

In the car I told the girls that Nana couldn't be fixed and that today was her last day and that we would be going in to spend some time with her. I was so proud of them, they were amazing in there and so gentle.
That day they had dressed in blue and red woollen coats, red glitter shoes and tiny Jessie cowgirl hats.

I had my time with her........... I can't type that here but but I thanked her for our time together and we agreed to meet in the summer at a fete at the cake stall with her mother,  I would look out for her with the girls, Patricia liked plan.


If you can believe it there in a room with sunshine, the sea and music, the family sat chatting and story telling before more sedation was required.
At least that's how I have to have it in my head as I took the girls home.




I have so many photos and so many stories and I could write pages on our relationship good and bad and the regrets I have. We were so different but the biggest lesson I've taken from her is that with life  you just have to get out there.




I am lucky that my last two memories are of a great big family Christmas and Grandpa's birthday in February when he and the boys returned from France and more family all dropped round for dinner and the house was full of very lively banter.
I had been telling Patricia our calender of events for this year and slowly we are getting through them, as each one passes I have conversations with her about what happened be it the
General Election or the Chelsea Flower Show. I think the upcoming school sports day is the last one I asked her to mark in the calender and to be honest I am dreading it.
What happens next?
I suppose I look for the cake stalls.
Devastated.


23.05.2015 Never Alone. So young and so very brave. Missing you in our life.

CM

Fond Farewell to Freda Lavender

So I started to write this and didn't post it because it all seemed a bit lengthy for a cat, but I've written longer on other subjects. I've just re read the whole thing and it is important to post because because my memory is rubbish!
So this story starts on March 20th


I put the cat to sleep on Friday.

She was neglected in 2000, that summer we all watched the first Big Brother.
I'd leave the back door opened and by the end of Graham Norton she would make her way in for the night stinking of cigarette smoke.
I started to buy food for her, and on the day I realised I couldn't find her a new home and decided she was staying she slept at the end of the bed solidly for three days.

Pregnant with T, I'd come home from work at 3pm and lie on the bed in the summer sun and she would curl up on the bump at sleep there with me till 6.
Over the last 8 years she really has been T's cat as they have been friends from the off.

G adored her and when she was little try and stick her head in his mouth, because that is what you do when things are so cute.



This is what she looked like in the first year or so.

She didn't meow, she said, 'A!', as in apple and she liked to play a lot and nothing was more welcome than a brown paper shopping bag




This is T at about 7 months old
I was really obsessed by her fur and how young she has always looked.
It might be while before I can watch How To Train Your Dragon because the similarities are endless.




So I don't really know what happened, she started loosing weight and eating less and less despite appetite. The Mexican was here on the Wednesday and said how thin she was and thought she could feel a tummy lump and by Thursday afternoon she had wobbly back legs.
I thought that was it, but amazing Vets said could be something else treatable and took some blood with the advice to get food and water in her until the they phoned me with the results the the following afternoon.
She drank and ate, but the leg became more limp and she was hiding and sleeping in hard to reach places in the house.
South African amazing Vet spoke to me in the morning when I phoned for another appointment and said her results were good but it didn't explain why she looked so awful. We went up at lunch and did another thorough exam, and really long chat over all the options but ultimately with tears I looked at him and said today was the day and with tears he nodded because it could all go horribly wrong on the weekend especially as she was so dehydrated and not interested in water, the leg was painful, maybe it was some kind of kitty cancer but she was too weak to find out.
I sat on the exam table with her on my lap and off she went and I howled.




I don't even like cats and kittens are sweaty balls of fur.
Generally they don't pay you that much attention, so you'd think that it would be a blessed relief not to have to pay for all that food, vet and cattery bills.  Not have to clear up after them,  Flea treatment! Worming!

I miss the thump of her jumping down off the girls beds. I miss the warm fur, the tap at the back door window to let her in. Where she lays on floor where the radiator pipes were, where she would play in the garden if you were out there working.

T used to say, when Lala dies can we get a dog straight away.
She said to G she didn't want another cat, he asked her if it would be too painful to go through it again she replied no, because she would want it all to be exactly the same and it wouldn't

For years I have collected her whiskers and I keep them in a box, she would get excited when she sniffed them, I am about to hoover the house but I am checking every square inch for whiskers as I know that these will be the last ones.


I know that I have done the right thing, I know that she went before things got out of hand but I can't dry my eyes on this one.

I am devastated.

And reading this back two months on I still have a lump in my throat.

CM