15 October, 2007

Thanks and a short break

Thank you to everyone, for your kind comments after G's death.

The funeral was typical G, complete with Toni Basil's 'Mickey' and Robbie Williams' 'Let me entertain you' played at times. It was still sad though, hearing about other people's stories about her.

With all this, I'm feeling like I need a short break from blogging. I'm just not in the mood at the moment. I will be back soon though, I'm sure! Be well, and I'll come visit your blogs again soon.

05 October, 2007

There's one less wonderful person in the world today. G passed away earlier this morning.

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments on my last post. They were much appreciated and really helped me.

02 October, 2007

Down

Pardon me, but this will be a bit of a gloomy, rambling and probably self-indulgent post.

If you've read my blog recently, you may know that a friend (G) is currently in palliative care and has only weeks to live. I've visited her a couple of times and the last time I saw her, she seemed brighter but drifted in and out of sleep several times during the half hour visit.

I came away from the last visit in two minds. On one side it was good to see her brighter. She'd been able to have a 'bath' of sorts and the staff wheeled her bed outside since it was such a lovely day. Such small things, but they can bring joy.

Then the down side of things... G obviously doesn't have a lot of energy. It was hard seeing her drift in and out of sleep in such a short time. The conversation faltered as she drifted off to sleep and the other visitors (her nephew and his family) and I fell silent. We looked at each other with the sort of half smile you make when you're trying to be cheerful for someone else. Then a few minutes later G would resume the conversation - obviously unaware she'd drifted off.

Then today I received an email from a friend - K (who is more like a second daughter) and she said that when she'd talked to the nurses today, she was told that G wasn't doing too well. K said she'd let me know if it was anything serious and I haven't heard from her, so no news is good news at this stage, I guess.

The fact that G has weeks to live is so strange to me. She's always been so strong, even when she wasn't physically strong. It's like everything's on hold, and we're just waiting. I can't imagine how it must feel for G herself, or her family.

I'm not really that familiar with death either. I've been to a total of 3 funerals in my life - my grandmother about 10 years ago, a work-mate's father's funeral last year and my friend B's earlier this year. I've had other (usually elderly) relatives die but I've not been around before anyone actually died. It's all so... weird. I know this is all very self-indulgent - it must be ten million times harder for G's family. I feel almost guilty for feeling upset that G is going to die soon (god, that's hard to say).

Hey, if you got this far... thanks for reading my ramble. I like that blogging gives me a way to just get some of this out.