Home Thoughts Weekly

‘You should enter the Richard Burton 10K,’ suggests another runner after Porthcawl Parkrun one morning in July. But, in what’s been one of the most difficult years of my life, I’ve barely stayed in touch with running. As for entering a race? That’s unthinkable given that I’m functioning on a day by day basis. Yet somehow, with a lot of encouragement and training help from Tom, here I am on the first Sunday in November, lining up for my first race of the year and the last race before my next birthday. I’m wearing a brooch with a photo of Mum who was famously sparing in her praise of me and my sister when it came to our academic achievements (Us: ‘Mum, I got 99%! ‘ Mum (heavy sigh) ‘Next time try to do better.’), yet touchingly proud of my running. The Richard Burton 10K, as it states on its home page , “epitomises the spirit and beauty of our famous Welsh valleys, with the heritage of the legend that is Richard Burton”. If you look at the course , you can see that some of the climbs a...

Well, Ma Mère, There have been so many times when I’ve gathered up all the little shiny moments I’ve collected during the day, ready to present to you in our evening phone call and then I remember all over again that you’re not there. But, Mum, so much has happened since you’ve gone - maybe you know, maybe you don’t - that I’ve decided to write to you instead.  A few days after you died, we sold our house! After all those months! We even joked about you rattling cages somewhere. At first, nothing happened and then suddenly everything happened at a breathless pace and the next thing I knew I found myself driving (yes, me, driving!) along the M4 to Bridgend and the Time Capsule House, the one you said you and Dad would have bought. I remarked, when we first viewed it that if it was meant for us, it would come to us. Over a year later, when it had been under offer twice, we moved in. Oh, Mum, you and Dad would have loved this house; it’s peak Seventies and the decor - the pampas ensu...

‘How many days to my birthday?’ Ma asks. I do a quick calculation. ‘Eighteen,’ I reply. ‘Eighteen days until your ninetieth birthday.’ Ma pulls a face and shakes her head. Every sentence is hard work for her now, when each breath is a struggle. ‘You’ll have to write a book about this, you know,’ she says, with one of her quick, mischievous smiles. ‘“Carry On Dying”. Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry.’ The smile fades. ‘Who knew,’ she adds wearily, ‘that dying would be such a palaver?’  It’s only eleven days since Ma was diagnosed with a high-grade, aggressive lymphoma, four days since she was overwhelmed with pain and breathing difficulties and was admitted as an emergency to hospital. Until a few weeks ago, she lived completely independently; shopping, cooking, cleaning and tending her much-loved garden. The deterioration in her health is shockingly rapid. The eight days preceding her death are a living hell, a constant battle with the ward staff to get Ma the pain relief she’s been p...

It turns out that writing a book is not the first thing I’ll do in 2024. The first thing arrives promptly, on 2nd January. It happens amongst the slew of bodies in an everyday, overcrowded, overworked A&E department. It imparts devastating news about a precious loved one. It brings a flurry of all manner of scans and tests, sucks the air from normality and distorts time. We wait for days to pass and wish they were longer. This is not particular to us: we are where all families have been and will be again, so I have no wish to remind others of their pain or dwell on ours, but this is where we are, drifting on an uncertain tide. My firstborn daughter celebrates a big birthday so, inevitably, I think back to her arrival when she brought sheer joy, utter terror and a fall of snow that seemed to symbolise how greatly my world had changed. Now, as Tom and I look after my daughter’s daughters, someone knocks on our bedroom door in the night and, shortly after, a small figure folds herse...