The last time….

I come into a room and the scent sends me back in time, tumbling into childhood and and for a fleeting moment I am there and everything is safe. 

Scent does that to you - it is evocative. 

I pretend that it is my grandparents visiting me, reassuring me in my own home a place they never visited, a place they never saw let alone knew existed.

I shouldn't be surprised that I can smell them or at least the scent that reminds me so strongly of their house for I have inherited much of their furniture and bits and pieces. A trigger when I am scared taking me back to a time when I was unconditionally loved and knew it if only on a sub-conscious level.

But the thing that gets me most is not a scent but a touch, a touch of fingers pushing my hair back behind me ear.

My youngest son does it and I am immediately transported back to the bitter sweet time when I remember her last doing that to me.

 ...and I see her watching me as she lies in her bed. Looking at me as if for the first time in her life and I see the wonderment on her face. She looks at me as if I am a rare gift, something beautiful and precious. Her hand is cool. I do not look at her as such, I watch the television at the end of her bed, embarrassed at her scrutiny.
We do not talk.
Her hand drops to the bed and I pick it up and hold it and don’t let go. And as the night progresses into morning I rearrange the covers, she grows hot and cold and tosses them off one moment and demands in a child’s voice to have them back the next.
I calm her when she gets agitated and hold her hand again. She says she needs to do: " Tuppence" then says plaintively that she is thirsty.
Something I don't-know-what in the tone of her voice makes me anxious and I swiftly pad to where my parents lie sleeping - all awaiting the inevitable yet hoping that it will never happen.
I wake my mother and she is given a drink. She takes first one sip like a child having to be supported then another and lets out a sigh and I know immediately that I have to run.
I have to get Daddy. I have to get her son.
I’ve had my precious moments with her and it is his turn now. I fear I maybe too late, I fear I haven't been quick enough.
He enters her room and watching from the doorway I see his step falter and his shoulders sag and I realise I am looking at a motherless boy.
So every time someone does that to me I remember that day and that night and the long wait, which I greedily kept to myself, but most of all I remember the love that linked us all.

So when I die...

So when I die, give everything away.

I mean everything!

There’s no point keeping it as it won’t do me any good. And anyway most of it will be old and well used I hope.

You won’t want to have to deal with it all. Let someone else who wants it take it.

I promise it will save you money. Dying is awful expensive these days.

I’m not talking about my worldly goods here nor am I talking about my soul. I am talking about something far more valuable to other people than that.

I’m talking about my body.

The cadaver.

Every piece of my body should be got rid of or to put it another way recycled and reused if it is of any use to someone else.

But perhaps, and it is something I sincerely hope, it will be too old and worn for  the internal organs and bits and pieces to be used for transplants but then my body should go for dissection and experimentation.

A healthy albeit old body will be a bit of a novelty for all those young doctors in training and I quite like the idea that  perhaps by using me  they may be able to save someone else.

I know there are those out there who feel a tad squeamish about giving away their bits and pieces but I promise if you were on the receiving end and it was your life that hung in the balance you would be exceedingly grateful.

It is so easy to become a donor and carry a donor card in your purse or wallet; just in case.

But now here comes the tricky bit/

Would you be willing to let your child be a donor? Would you be able to overcome your grief and let doctors take your child’s body and harvest it for organs so that another child or even children could live? Could you be brave enough?

Please say you will.

For there is a dreadful shortage of transplant organs for children not just here in the UK but in Europe too.

Many years ago my Drama teacher’s youngest son fell off a wall and died. I cannot imagine how losing a child in those circumstances must feel but both he and his wife agreed that they would offer their son’s organs for transplant. That beautiful little boy allowed four others to live. Their bravery is an inspiration.

When I heard about the accident and what they had gone through I signed up there and then to be an organ donor and  promised myself that should I ever be in that situation, which I hope and pray I will never be, but if I am I would want to be as brave and allow the doctors  to take my child so that others may live.

A body is not the soul for that can never die. It is something to remember…

Please become an organ donor

“You get Smarties on your pillow at bedtime in Heaven.”

It was said with such utter matter of factness that even if you wanted to there was no room for discussion. I had wondered if the fact that I had to put our old Jack Russell down yesterday afternoon had had any affect on either of my boys – they just seemed to have taken it in their stride.
In the morning there was Biggles and in the afternoon he was gone.
The Littlest has said nothing and I’m not sure if he has noticed. But the Boy has obviously been considering the matter very seriously.
After demanding biscuits and other foodstuffs on immediate entry to the car at pick up time from school this afternoon and as we meander back along the windy Suffolk lanes, he suddenly pipes up from the depths of the back seat.
Him: “What happens when you die?”
Momentarily flustered and veering slightly in the road, bringing us rather too close to the answer in a practical way, I avoided the question with one of my own.
Me: “Who’ve you been talking to about that?”
Him, nonchalantly: “Daniel, Henry … what happened when you killed Biggles?”
Well there you go then. No beating about the bush, no putting a gloss on it, no putting him down or putting him to sleep, just straight out there – when YOU killed him.
Me: “Well,” - not actually trusting myself to commit to the word kill and unsure quite where the conversation is heading – “what do you want to know?”
Him: “Everything!”
Everything?!
Me: “What from the start?”
Him, slightly losing his patience: “I want to now everything from the beginning, what happened.”
What happened? So I start by telling him that Biggles was old and probably not very well. I tell him that Biggles had got too grumpy and that when dogs are grumpy it means that something is wrong, perhaps they are in pain. I remind him about Biggles snapping at people and how horrid that was. The Boy takes it all in and I have a feeling he’s not interested in the reasons behind the decision. It seems as if he takes these as read. Would that it were so for me. I am uncomfortable with the word kill – but that is what I did. I don’t want to say it was because Biggles had become too unpredictable and that I was scared.
My musings are brought to a sharp halt.
Him: “Muuuum, what happened at the vets, when you killed him…”
Me: “Right well, um, well, er, I took him into the vets’ on his lead and we went through to a room, which was nice and warm and comfortable, then the vet put him on the table and got a needle out and injected him then Biggles sort of fell asleep and that was that.”
Him: "Where? Where did he put the needle in??"
Right details as well ok then. Blood thirsty little monster.
Me: "His front leg you know sort of like your arm when you have injections…."
WARNING WARNING NOT A GOOD ANALOGY NOW HE’LL THINK THE DOCTOR WANTS TO KILL HIM!!!!!
Him: "Like my injections?"
PANIC!!!!!
Me: “ER, well no, um, not really, but in the same place but we don’t do that with humans, you see we have a duty of care with animals and we have to look after them and you see it’s important that we do these things so they never suffer..”
Him: “Like being God?””
Oh Phew!
Me: “Yes. Like God.”
That was close…
Him: “So now he’s dead - is he in heaven?”
Right. Now Heaven. OK. Dogs and Heaven. Should I say yes ‘cos that’s what I believe or should I sort of fudge it? What has he been told at school? Maybe dogs are not heaven material as far as the Church is concerned? Well I bloody hope they do though ‘cos I love my dogs and it wouldn’t be much of a place if they wern’e there. Right then here goes…
Me: “I’m sure he is.”
Him: “What’s heaven like?”
Why has he chosen now for this conversation? Why when I am driving home has he chosen now to ponder these questions? Next he’ll be asking me how many Angels dance on the head of a pin!
Me: “It’s the best of places. Just think of all the good things you like doing and eating and stuff like that and that’s what it is like I expect.”
The Boy ponders for a while then starts rattling off a list of things he likes doing and it feels like we are on safer ground.
Him: “You get Smarties on your pillow at bedtime in Heaven.”
Not bad…
Him: “Mummy, you wouldn’t have to wash up in Heaven!”
Heaven!