Goodnight Mum

Taken from Lynne’s weekly column ‘Green Scene’ for the Western Mail
15^th February 2025

Goodnight Mum

Sadly, on the 2^nd February, Mum died.  The 1^st and 2^nd of February are traditionally associated with Imbolc, a Celtic celebration of spring, nature, the passing of darkness and arrival of light.  It is a time when thanks are given for the peace and restfulness of winter and focus is turned to the anticipation and arrival of spring.  Not surprisingly, Imbolc is often associated with snowdrops.

Those of you who knew Mum will know how fitting that day is for her to have passed.  She also had little vases of snowdrops by her bed.

She was an avid nature lover and an amazing gardener, who could take cuttings from anything and nurture them to ‘adulthood’. She would also create the most beautiful, natural flower arrangements from gardens and hedgerows – the wilder the material the better.  Her creative side spilled into pottery – making little vases to compliment her flower arrangements – and homemade cards, and many people will have received one or the other from her at some stage.  I think it is partly a generational thing, but there was always a card in the draw – on the drawing board – for every occasion.

She was also infamous for wearing baggy, elastic-waisted trousers when visiting gardens – public or private – so that she could pinch cuttings and stow them in the waistband of her trousers.

Ian and I are extremely grateful to everyone who has sent their condolences and thoughts, and to the fabulous paramedics, Andrew Carpenter and team, and to Jo Slocombe the cool, calm and accommodating ambulance driver. Huge thanks go to Oaklands Care Home in LLangynidr for the incredible professional and personal care they gave to Mum.  It was very much her home for nearly 6 years, and the carers became ‘family members’.

I am also grateful to Ian, who has been a ‘top brother’.  Despite age, circumstances and ‘warnings’, you are never ready for these events and practical support, as well as emotional understanding, is so very helpful.

Not for the first time, I am grateful for my ‘vocation’. It is, of course, too simple to claim that gardening may be an antidote for grief, but working in a garden juxtaposes the precarity of everyday presence with the certainty of loss in ways that evoke the tenuous human relationship between life and death.

Mum loved spring.  She wrote a lot of poetry with many of the poems we have found being connected to springtime.  Here’s one of them:

Spring has arrived again. Lambs gambolling, racing, who will win?

Daffodils dancing in the wind. In woodlands anemones and celandines you’ll find.

Trees standing by with buds fit to burst, usually will find the elder is the first

Hawthorn hedges showing fresh and green, another first to be seen.

Looking around my garden in sheer delight, primroses, violets – a lovely sight.

Wallflowers, Christmas roses too, a few I’m not sure of – one a striking blue.

Forget-me-nots so dainty beneath a red flowering shrub.

Pansies and violets smiling in their tubs.

Hyacinths with their heady perfume, the Clematis beginning to climb, buds will appear soon.

From my window I can watch, rooks, crows and Jackdaws as twigs they fetch.

Making their nests in tall trees, shortly we’ll hear their young calling their needs.

As parents search for food to bring for open beaks –

The next step they are on the wing. So beautiful is spring.

Late at night from my bedroom I see quirky shapes from car park lights and swaying trees

The little bungalow across the road, stood empty for months, it looks sad as if it carries a heavy load. It’s in need of love and care and I’m sure will make happy whoever eventually lives there.

It seems to me to be to be a flawed ‘plan’ to have to arrange a funeral amid such an emotionally chaotic time and I highly recommend putting your wishes in place beforehand and updating them annually.  I was able to do this with Mum but to paraphrase Robert Burns, ‘The best laid plans of mice, men and Mum …’

Mum wanted her body to go for medical science and had filled in the necessary consent forms with Cardiff University. However, due to the cause of death being a ruptured aortic abdominal aneurism, medical institutions were unable to take her body.  Undeterred, I pursued the Brain Banks (who knew there were such things). Sadly, Parkinson’s Brain Bank were unable to take her as she also had Bi Polar. And vice versa. As a last effort, I contacted Organ Donation, which she had opted out of due to the assumption her whole body would go to medical science. They were also unable to consider a tissue or organ donation as she had Parkinson’s.

All the people I spoke to were kind, empathic and very helpful, but ultimately we were unable to fulfil Mum’s wishes.  Despite accompanying her on numerous visits to various medical professionals over the last 10 years to discuss her aneurism, no one mentioned that if it were indeed cause of death then her body would be unsuitable for donation to medical science.  Similarly when she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, no one ever mentioned that it would affect any organ donation wishes.  I would like to address this in memory of Mum.

We were also led to believe that if her aneurism ruptured, then death would be quick and she would know very little about it. Not surprisingly, she accepted that as ‘not a bad way to go’.  Sadly, her aneurism had a dissection (leak) prior to rupture and she did know about it – for 5 days.

The reason for sharing this degree of detail is to raise awareness of having the ‘death’ conversation with those that you love, to have a ‘back up plan’ – life seldom works out as expected, and it seems death is the same – and to ask as many questions as you can when you can.

A dear friend and colleague died suddenly aged 56, two years ago and prompted me and my brother to sort out our wills, funeral details and List of Wishes.  It was difficult and somewhat surreal but the relief and freedom felt once it was done made it all worthwhile.  Now I just update my List of Wishes as and when necessary.

It is said that ‘Facing death allows you to face life.’

Mum didn’t want a photo of herself on the front of the Order of Service, but instead wanted a photo of catkins and primroses. At least I could fulfil that Mum. Rest well. x