Goodbye

We received some sad news early this morning. Gail's mum Eileen had died in the nursing home that she had been in for the past few years.

She was only in her seventies, but had been diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimers disease some years ago. In fact, remembering back, it wasn't long after Gail & I got together that, the early signs were developing. Forgetting things, or repeating what she had said.

So alas I didn't really have the opportunity of getting to know her as my mother in law. Which is sad in itself, as I have never had one before and wondered whether the stories about them were true or not.

Besides Gail, she had another seven daughters and three sons. A whole football team of offspring in fact. Sadly for them, their father died in the late 1960s, so some of them, including Gail never grew up with a father. So their mum did a wonderful job of bringing them up alone and probably with very little money.

Fortunately love struck again some years later, when Eileen met her second husband. And were together a number of years, until he too passed away.

I didn't see my new mum in law that often, as we lived in a different part of the county. But when we did meet up, you could tell that she wasn't very well. Then one day she just had to go in a nursing home, and then her quality of life deteriorated over time. Not through lack of care, as it was a lovely home with caring staff, but through the illness getting worse and worse, until she ended up bedridden and unable to do anything. Just lying there, her spirit trapped inside a dying body.

So the news came through in the early hours that she had passed away. I'm not a religious person in any way, but if there is such a thing as 'heaven' in whatever form it takes, then hopefully she is reunited with her two husbands, her brother who died in an accident and all her friends that had gone before her. And that they are all having a great time, happy and illness free.

So I would just like to thank Eileen for creating my darling Gail, who I love so much, and sorry that I didn't get to know you as much as I would have liked. Rest in peace Eileen.