This might sound terrible, but I'd rather Mum had died whirling around a dancefloor than lose her to the drip, drip decline of dementia By Marianne Jones Published: 01:22 BST, 9 September 2024 | Updated: 01:22 BST, 9 September 2024 e-mail View comments The missed call from the nursing home on my mobile at 1.58am told me what I already knew. Our tiny but mighty mum had died in her sleep just hours after my sister and I had left her bedside.
We returned later that morning to a room with an empty bed, this time to pack away her slippers and favourite green cardigan, take down family photographs and remove the cards we'd given to mum exactly two weeks earlier for her 83rd birthday. With grim humour my brother declared we were too old to be orphans. But whatever your age, nothing prepares you for losing a mother so deeply loved that you become a child without a hand to hold.
Mum's death has floored me despite it being entirely expected. Marianne, right, with her late mother Maria, a sharp cookie, who lovingly and single-handedly steered her three children into adulthood when their father left She was my biggest defender, my fiercest critic, my most trusted confidante. Last week I burst into tears at the railway station at the sight of a mother and daughter sharing a joke and had to hide my eyes behind sunglasses, despite the rain.
We'd never again enjoy that easy banter. The extent of my grief has caught me off guard because for the past five years mum lived with the drip, drip .