I am remembering my mother, Peg’s Birthday, today, the 8th December 2024 when she would have been 92 years old if she had survived. Peg or Margaret Mary Moran, died on Friday 5th January 2024 in the MRI hospital, Manchester at around 10am. Her death was sudden and shocking; being in reasonable health the preceding month or so, there was no indication she would die so quickly.
At this time and day, last year (2023), I visited my mother at Gorton Parks Care home in the evening at 8pm, bringing her birthday presents, cards to her room, number 36. She was in bed and stayed in bed all the time, not wanting to go out. Her legs were bad and she couldn’t walk unaided, needing to use a wheelchair to go to lounge, bathroom or anywhere. But she was still alive and today she is not.
Her life had deteriorated since my father died in 2020 from a failed heart valve operation, Peg ending up in a psychiatric hospital because of self-neglect, she wouldn’t eat, wash or look after her personal care. After months of extreme treatment including EST for depression, she was discharged to the care home where she remained until her death this year.
I miss the visits to my mother in the evenings; we sat together, listened to the radio, watched TV, talked about her life, how she was feeling today, her ‘funny feelings’ as she put it. She would often say she did not feel real and checked with me if it was real. Unfortunately, it was reality. I would stay until 10.30pm when toast and tea would be brought by the care home staff, whom I got to know over the 20 months Peg stayed there.
After she died, I went back to the care home to collect her clothes, belongings and went to her room but she was not there anymore. I stood outside looking in the half-opened door. The same LG TV was on she had watched but an old man was lying in her bed now. It was hard to comprehend, was it real or imagined. Perhaps my mum was somewhere else in the building, in another room, maybe they had moved her without telling me. But I knew this was not so because I had buried her a month earlier in Southern cemetery at her funeral in a coffin with her name on it.
Mum hope you are happy up in heaven with Bill by your side.
Rest in Peace
Tony
Margaret and Anthony 