Together with 16 other organisations we call on Government to improve end of life care
http://bit.ly/mHHlWi
http://bit.ly/mHHlWi
Friday, July 1, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
'Here it is. I am dead': Canadian blogger announces own death in heart-rending post from beyond the grave
A Canadian blogger has announced his own death in a heart-wrenching entry written before he succumbed to cancer - and posted on the day he died.
Derek K. Miller, 41, had chronicled his battle with the disease since he was diagnosed in 2007, winning thousands of loyal readers.
Despite his best efforts, his blog, penmachine.com, crashed for hours yesterday when the entry went viral as his grief-stricken fans - and thousands more who had never read his work before - logged on.
Heart-wrenching post: Derek K. Miller announced his own death on his blog, penmachine.com, in an entry written before he succumbed to cancer
Family man: Mr Miller leaves behind two young daughters, Marina, 13, and Lauren, 11. In the entry, he paid tribute to them and to his wife, Airdrie
Brave battle: Derek Miller posted photos of himself on his blog and Flickr page as he fought colorectal cancer
Mr Miller was a writer, musician and photographer who started his own website in 1997 and became a blogging pioneer in his home town of Vancouver, describing himself as a 'passionate geek'.
He died at home at 6.40pm on Tuesday, surrounded by his wife, Airdrie, daughters Marina, 13 and Lauren, 11, and his parents.
He composed the moving entry weeks before he died, and asked his family to post it online shortly after his death.
Mr Miller wrote: 'I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died on May 3, 2011 of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.'
He said he wasn't frightened of death, but of becoming gradually weaker, and he mourned all the changes in the world to come that he wouldn't see.
He wrote: 'I haven't gone to a better place, or a worse one. I haven't gone any place, because Derek doesn't exist anymore.
'As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn't make it through a particularly frosty night.'
Final act: Mr Miller wrote this heartbreaking entry several weeks ago, and asked his family to post it on his blog on the day he died
'MY FINAL SPRING': DEREK MILLER'S LAST DAYS
April 27
My stupendously difficult climb from car to main floor in our house today tells me I won't be leaving in anything but a stretcher from now on - it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm now officially housebound, and even floor-bound.'
April 23
I'm amazed JH would take time and spend money to see me, or that everything could come together as it has.
But it is our last chance, because it's my last chance, my last Easter, my final spring.
April 22
If I can drag myself out to vote - and that's not metaphorical, because I did have to f***ing drag myself out of the car and up the stairs at times - then you can too. If you're a Canadian citizen, you have the duty, and plenty of chances.
April 21
Sometimes Air and I acknowledge that we're distracting ourselves with all these other things, because I'm dying, and it's obvious now. And then we sit on the hospital bed, which is quite comfortable, and we cry.
April 14
The end of the road is somewhere up ahead, not too far, and I'm not going back to smooth speedy travel, ever.
My stupendously difficult climb from car to main floor in our house today tells me I won't be leaving in anything but a stretcher from now on - it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm now officially housebound, and even floor-bound.'
April 23
I'm amazed JH would take time and spend money to see me, or that everything could come together as it has.
But it is our last chance, because it's my last chance, my last Easter, my final spring.
April 22
If I can drag myself out to vote - and that's not metaphorical, because I did have to f***ing drag myself out of the car and up the stairs at times - then you can too. If you're a Canadian citizen, you have the duty, and plenty of chances.
April 21
Sometimes Air and I acknowledge that we're distracting ourselves with all these other things, because I'm dying, and it's obvious now. And then we sit on the hospital bed, which is quite comfortable, and we cry.
April 14
The end of the road is somewhere up ahead, not too far, and I'm not going back to smooth speedy travel, ever.
Karl Miller told The Province: 'He was proud of his blog, and now it is his legacy. It connects him to the world, and to his family, forever.
'We were there for him, but Derek was comfortable sharing his thoughts with a worldwide community.'
In the hours following his death, Mr Miller's blog, Twitter and Flickr sites kept crashing, despite his careful planning.
Several fans quickly reposted his entry so everyone would be able to read it.
The day before he died, #welovederek trended on Twitter across Vancouver, as readers paid tribute to him in a gesture encouraged by his wife, Airdrie.
So many people responded some supporters thought he had died, until Mr Miller responded 'I'm not dead yet... but thanks for all the good vibes on Twitter.'
In his last post, he wrote: 'The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place.
'There is always more to find out. I don't look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same.'
At the very end, he wrote: 'Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection.
'I don't know what we'd have been like without each other, but I think the world would be a poorer place. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.'
Mr Miller's blog is penmachine.com.
THE LAST POST: MR MILLER'S FINAL ENTRY IN FULL
Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote - the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.
If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.
That includes my family and friends, and my parents Hilkka and Juergen Karl. My daughters Lauren, age 11, and Marina, who's 13, have known as much as we could tell them since I first found I had cancer. It's become part of their lives, alas.
Airdrie
Of course it includes my wife Airdrie (née Hislop). Both born in Metro Vancouver, we graduated from different high schools in 1986 and studied Biology at UBC, where we met in '88. At a summer job working as park naturalists that year, I flipped the canoe Air and I were paddling and we had to push it to shore.
We shared some classes, then lost touch. But a few years later, in 1994, I was still working on campus. Airdrie spotted my name and wrote me a letter - yes! paper!—and eventually (I was trying to be a full-time musician, so chaos was about) I wrote her back. From such seeds a garden blooms: it was March '94, and by August '95 we were married. I have never had second thoughts, because we have always been good together, through worse and bad and good and great.
However, I didn't think our time together would be so short: 23 years from our first meeting (at Kanaka Creek Regional Park, I'm pretty sure) until I died? Not enough. Not nearly enough.
What was at the end
I haven't gone to a better place, or a worse one. I haven't gone anyplace, because Derek doesn't exist anymore. As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn't make it through a particularly frosty night. The evidence is clear that once I died, it was over.
So I was unafraid of death - of the moment itself - and of what came afterwards, which was (and is) nothing. As I did all along, I remained somewhat afraid of the process of dying, of increasing weakness and fatigue, of pain, of becoming less and less of myself as I got there. I was lucky that my mental faculties were mostly unaffected over the months and years before the end, and there was no sign of cancer in my brain - as far as I or anyone else knew.
As a kid, when I first learned enough subtraction, I figured out how old I would be in the momentous year 2000. The answer was 31, which seemed pretty old. Indeed, by the time I was 31 I was married and had two daughters, and I was working as a technical writer and web guy in the computer industry. Pretty grown up, I guess.
Yet there was much more to come. I had yet to start this blog, which recently turned 10 years old. I wasn't yet back playing drums with my band, nor was I a podcaster (since there was no podcasting, nor an iPod for that matter). In techie land, Google was fresh and new, Apple remained "beleaguered," Microsoft was large and in charge, and Facebook and Twitter were several years from existing at all. The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity were three years away from launch, while the Cassini-Huygens probe was not quite half-way to Saturn. The human genome hadn't quite been mapped yet.
The World Trade Center towers still stood in New York City. Jean Chrétien remained Prime Minister of Canada, Bill Clinton President of the U.S.A., and Tony Blair Prime Minister of the U.K. - while Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, Kim Jong-Il, Ben Ali, and Moammar Qaddafi held power in Iraq, Egypt, North Korea, Tunisia, and Libya.
In my family in 2000, my cousin wouldn't have a baby for another four years. My other cousin was early in her relationship with the man who is now her husband. Sonia, with whom my mother had been lifelong friends (ever since they were both nine), was still alive. So was my Oma, my father's mom, who was then 90 years old. Neither my wife nor I had ever needed long-term hospitalization - not yet. Neither of our children was out of diapers, let alone taking photographs, writing stories, riding bikes and horses, posting on Facebook, or outgrowing her mother's shoe size. We didn't have a dog.
And I didn't have cancer. I had no idea I would get it, certainly not in the next decade, or that it would kill me.
Missing out
Why do I mention all this stuff? Because I've come to realize that, at any time, I can lament what I will never know, yet still not regret what got me where I am. I could have died in 2000 (at an "old" 31) and been happy with my life: my amazing wife, my great kids, a fun job, and hobbies I enjoyed. But I would have missed out on a lot of things.
And many things will now happen without me. As I wrote this, I hardly knew what most of them could even be. What will the world be like as soon as 2021, or as late as 2060, when I would have been 91, the age my Oma reached? What new will we know? How will countries and people have changed? How will we communicate and move around? Whom will we admire, or despise?
What will my wife Air be doing? My daughters Marina and Lolo? What will they have studied, how will they spend their time and earn a living? Will my kids have children of their own? Grandchildren? Will there be parts of their lives I'd find hard to comprehend right now?
What to know, now that I'm dead
There can't be answers today. While I was still alive writing this, I was sad to know I'll miss these things - not because I won't be able to witness them, but because Air, Marina, and Lauren won't have me there to support their efforts.
It turns out that no one can imagine what's really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can't expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won't. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That's neither bad nor good, but it is real.
I think and hope that's what my daughters can take from my disease and death. And that my wonderful, amazing wife Airdrie can see too. Not that they could die any day, but that they should pursue what they enjoy, and what stimulates their minds, as much as possible - so they can be ready for opportunities, as well as not disappointed when things go sideways, as they inevitably do.
I've also been lucky. I've never had to wonder where my next meal will come from. I've never feared that a foreign army will come in the night with machetes or machine guns to kill or injure my family. I've never had to run for my life (something I could never do now anyway). Sadly, these are things some people have to do every day right now.
What is true is that I loved them. Lauren and Marina, as you mature and become yourselves over the years, know that I loved you and did my best to be a good father.
Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection. I don't know what we'd have been like without each other, but I think the world would be a poorer place. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.
If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.
That includes my family and friends, and my parents Hilkka and Juergen Karl. My daughters Lauren, age 11, and Marina, who's 13, have known as much as we could tell them since I first found I had cancer. It's become part of their lives, alas.
Airdrie
Of course it includes my wife Airdrie (née Hislop). Both born in Metro Vancouver, we graduated from different high schools in 1986 and studied Biology at UBC, where we met in '88. At a summer job working as park naturalists that year, I flipped the canoe Air and I were paddling and we had to push it to shore.
We shared some classes, then lost touch. But a few years later, in 1994, I was still working on campus. Airdrie spotted my name and wrote me a letter - yes! paper!—and eventually (I was trying to be a full-time musician, so chaos was about) I wrote her back. From such seeds a garden blooms: it was March '94, and by August '95 we were married. I have never had second thoughts, because we have always been good together, through worse and bad and good and great.
However, I didn't think our time together would be so short: 23 years from our first meeting (at Kanaka Creek Regional Park, I'm pretty sure) until I died? Not enough. Not nearly enough.
What was at the end
I haven't gone to a better place, or a worse one. I haven't gone anyplace, because Derek doesn't exist anymore. As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn't make it through a particularly frosty night. The evidence is clear that once I died, it was over.
So I was unafraid of death - of the moment itself - and of what came afterwards, which was (and is) nothing. As I did all along, I remained somewhat afraid of the process of dying, of increasing weakness and fatigue, of pain, of becoming less and less of myself as I got there. I was lucky that my mental faculties were mostly unaffected over the months and years before the end, and there was no sign of cancer in my brain - as far as I or anyone else knew.
As a kid, when I first learned enough subtraction, I figured out how old I would be in the momentous year 2000. The answer was 31, which seemed pretty old. Indeed, by the time I was 31 I was married and had two daughters, and I was working as a technical writer and web guy in the computer industry. Pretty grown up, I guess.
Yet there was much more to come. I had yet to start this blog, which recently turned 10 years old. I wasn't yet back playing drums with my band, nor was I a podcaster (since there was no podcasting, nor an iPod for that matter). In techie land, Google was fresh and new, Apple remained "beleaguered," Microsoft was large and in charge, and Facebook and Twitter were several years from existing at all. The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity were three years away from launch, while the Cassini-Huygens probe was not quite half-way to Saturn. The human genome hadn't quite been mapped yet.
The World Trade Center towers still stood in New York City. Jean Chrétien remained Prime Minister of Canada, Bill Clinton President of the U.S.A., and Tony Blair Prime Minister of the U.K. - while Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, Kim Jong-Il, Ben Ali, and Moammar Qaddafi held power in Iraq, Egypt, North Korea, Tunisia, and Libya.
In my family in 2000, my cousin wouldn't have a baby for another four years. My other cousin was early in her relationship with the man who is now her husband. Sonia, with whom my mother had been lifelong friends (ever since they were both nine), was still alive. So was my Oma, my father's mom, who was then 90 years old. Neither my wife nor I had ever needed long-term hospitalization - not yet. Neither of our children was out of diapers, let alone taking photographs, writing stories, riding bikes and horses, posting on Facebook, or outgrowing her mother's shoe size. We didn't have a dog.
And I didn't have cancer. I had no idea I would get it, certainly not in the next decade, or that it would kill me.
Missing out
Why do I mention all this stuff? Because I've come to realize that, at any time, I can lament what I will never know, yet still not regret what got me where I am. I could have died in 2000 (at an "old" 31) and been happy with my life: my amazing wife, my great kids, a fun job, and hobbies I enjoyed. But I would have missed out on a lot of things.
And many things will now happen without me. As I wrote this, I hardly knew what most of them could even be. What will the world be like as soon as 2021, or as late as 2060, when I would have been 91, the age my Oma reached? What new will we know? How will countries and people have changed? How will we communicate and move around? Whom will we admire, or despise?
What will my wife Air be doing? My daughters Marina and Lolo? What will they have studied, how will they spend their time and earn a living? Will my kids have children of their own? Grandchildren? Will there be parts of their lives I'd find hard to comprehend right now?
What to know, now that I'm dead
There can't be answers today. While I was still alive writing this, I was sad to know I'll miss these things - not because I won't be able to witness them, but because Air, Marina, and Lauren won't have me there to support their efforts.
It turns out that no one can imagine what's really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can't expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won't. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That's neither bad nor good, but it is real.
I think and hope that's what my daughters can take from my disease and death. And that my wonderful, amazing wife Airdrie can see too. Not that they could die any day, but that they should pursue what they enjoy, and what stimulates their minds, as much as possible - so they can be ready for opportunities, as well as not disappointed when things go sideways, as they inevitably do.
I've also been lucky. I've never had to wonder where my next meal will come from. I've never feared that a foreign army will come in the night with machetes or machine guns to kill or injure my family. I've never had to run for my life (something I could never do now anyway). Sadly, these are things some people have to do every day right now.
A wondrous place
The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. There is always more to find out. I don't look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same.What is true is that I loved them. Lauren and Marina, as you mature and become yourselves over the years, know that I loved you and did my best to be a good father.
Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection. I don't know what we'd have been like without each other, but I think the world would be a poorer place. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384031/Derek-K-Miller-announces-death-blog-post-grave.html#ixzz1La08QUth
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
British woman kills herself at Swiss suicide clinic to avoid 'prolonged dwindling' of old age
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:13 PM on 3rd April 2011
Choice: Nan Maitland had long been suffering from crippling arthritis before choosing to end her life in a Swiss clinic
Nan Maitland, founder of the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide (SOARS) which campaigns for a law change over doctor-assisted death, travelled to a Swiss suicide clinic in February. She died on March 1.
The 84-year-old had long been suffering from crippling arthritis and in a moving letter to friends said she chose to escape the 'long period of decline, sometimes called "prolonged dwindling", that so many people unfortunately experience before they die'.
In the note, printed in the Sunday Times, she added: 'For some time, my life has consisted of more pain than pleasure and, over the next months and years the pain will become more and the pleasure less. I have a great feeling of relief that I will have no further need to struggle through each day in dread of what further horrors may lie in wait.'
Ms Maitland is survived by three children, whom she brought up in Kent before moving to London 40 years ago, and a sister.
An occupational therapist until her retirement, she also founded Homeshare International, a charity which offers accommodation to older people in exchange for help with household chores.
There are two euthanasia clinics in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal. They are Dignitas and Ex International. But Ms Maitland did not reveal which she traveled to.
At least 115 Brits have visited Dignitas for their final days since its foundation in 1998.
Dr Michael Irwin, who founded SOARS and traveled with her to Switzerland, told the Sunday Times: 'Besides those who are terminally ill, there are many elderly individuals who, experiencing increasing physical and psychological suffering get to the last years of natural lives and have to seriously consider whether departing this existence will be much more attractive than struggling on.'
Decision: In 2008, Dan James, centre, became the youngest Briton to travel to Switzerland to end his life after a rugby accident left him paralysed from the chest down aged 23. Pictured with parents Mark, left, and Julie before the injury
In September 2008, Rugby player Dan James became the youngest Briton to travel to Switzerland to end his life after a rugby accident left him paralysed from the chest down.
His parents defended his right to chose after a barrage of criticism. In a statement, they said at the time: '(Dan's) death was an extremely sad loss for his family, friends and all those that cared for him but no doubt a welcome relief from the prison he felt his body had become and the day-to-day fear and loathing of his living existence.'
Dr Peter Saunders of Care Not Killing, a group of organisations campaigning against the practice, said: 'Any change in the law would place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives so as not to be a burden on loved ones, carers or the state.'
Palliative medicine consultant Baroness Finlay added: 'This is an extension. Where do you stop?
'The danger is that you can make people feel they are being selfish by wanting to carry on living or by wanting to be cared for rather than ending their lives.'
A poll by SOARS revealed that 66per cent of Brits agree that elderly people who suffer from serious but non-life threatening illnesses should have the right to choose assisted suicide.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1372871/The-pain-overcome-pleasure-Leading-euthanasia-campaigner-85-dies-Swiss-suicide-clinic.html#ixzz1ISqLT6qw
Tim Lott: Thank you, Mum, for giving me life, and for a love that was endless
Our writer remembers his much-loved mother, who died by her own hand two decades ago
Sunday, 3 April 2011
It's been more than 20 years since you left us – by your own hand, in the upstairs bedroom where you used to hold me close beside you when I was a child and scared of ghosts. My father found you there, one afternoon in March 1988. Mother's Day fell soon after.
But had you been in possession of your right mind – and you were severely, clinically depressed – you would have known and understood that a mother, particularly one with grown-up children, has no need to be the perfect mother. For wasn't this at the heart of your despair, as you fell towards the earth? That you would appear, as you broke down, vulnerable, shattered, without dignity in front of your family?
Like many mothers, you imagined you might be the ideal mother, a mother who could and must always cope with the blows that life threw at them, for the sake of their children. But it was a life in service of a lie. A mother doesn't have to be perfect. A mother just has to be there. And you aren't there any more. Because, perhaps, in the end, you chose oblivion rather than imperfection.
I'm so regretful of all that you have missed. For by now, you would have been the grandmother of eight beautiful children, all of whom you would have adored, and they would have adored you in return. You wanted grandchildren more than anything else but you lost faith that they would arrive. Our generation left things very late.
But by leaving us so early in your life – you were only 57 – you not only stole your future happiness from yourself, but you deprived all those children of a wonderful grandmother who had come to believe herself worthless. For death doesn't only rob the dead of life: it robs all those that they loved, and all those that they might have loved in the future, of a part of their souls.
Now that I have been married twice and watched two women bring up four daughters, I understand somewhat better what it means to be a mother. A mother is at the heart of a child's universe in a way that the children themselves don't even understand. They may their love their mother and father just the same, but they don't know that the mother is usually the one that makes the wheels of their world go round. And if they do know, they soon enough forget.
It is usually the mother, even in this modern, post-feminist world, who remembers the birthdays, organises the lessons, washes the clothes, buys the gifts, and so much more. The father looms more warmly then he once did, but, when all is said and done, he is usually the secondary parent. And if this isn't always so true now, it certainly was when I was growing up.
It took me a long time – too long – to learn how important my mother was to me. The truth is, I took her for granted. But that is perhaps the fate of most mothers. In a way it is a compliment, a fulfilment of a motherly wish. Because to be taken for granted means that their love is not in question, that it is beyond destruction through neglect or even hostility. Mothers are condemned to love, and to watch their children grow beyond the intense, ever-stretching grasp of their love. That is their tragedy, and it is a tragedy perhaps fathers can only partly share.
You took your life a few years after your last child, James, had finally left home: hence the importance of the hope of grandchildren to you. You were of a certain generation where your progeny, and their progeny, took precedence over any career possibilities, which were few in any case. But all of us were barren, even though the eldest was in his mid-30s, and I a few years younger. It was the modern way, and it tested you sorely.
We took you so much for granted, we didn't understand that you could never take us for granted – for we were gone, and with us, and as for many of that generation of women, a sense of purpose. They call it the "empty-nest syndrome", far too innocent an appellation for such a manifestation of dread.
A few years ago, I wrote a letter to you, forgiving you for what you did – for in your final note, you asked forgiveness – even though you weren't there to read it. And in the same letter I asked you to forgive me in turn for my snobbery towards you, thinking I had "bettered" myself by going to university, for my lack of understanding of your vulnerability (how hard it is to see one who raised you as weak and suffering), for failing to see the dark tunnel you were entering. And I take much comfort from the fact that I know you forgave me in turn, and would wish me only happiness, even though I know I broke your heart, even though I know it wasn't my fault or yours. Depression robbed us both of so much.
I dream of you sometimes, and it is as if you are there with me again, vivid and warm and smiling and happy, instead of the stretched, worn, saddened person you were in your last few years. It is so lovely to see you again, and hold you in my dreams, I feel you are really there, and I know that in that place at least, you will never leave me. Perhaps in the dark of Mother's Day night, you will find me and hold me once more.
As time passes, memories loosen their hold. I can remember less and less. I never had a chance to find out who you really were in truth, because I never saw you as a real person, only a "mum". Now, you are more than anything a warm, blurry presence, that I can never remember being angry, as never harbouring malice. You were endlessly kind, and terribly fragile, it turned out. Your ambition was only to give, and that innocent, perhaps now-archaic desire, cost you so much.
I miss you less now, but still you come to me, vividly in my mind's eye. Your compactness, your determination to be cheerful, your competitive spirit, your deep love for my father, Jack, and my two brothers. You did everything for your children, but above all you gave us leave to be free. You never tried to make us feel guilty for living our own lives, you never tried to bind us close, however much you secretly needed us. You were dignified and kind to the end. I shall never forget all that you brought to my life, even though I often forgot about it while you were alive.
Thank you, Mum, for giving me life, and thank you, for giving me a love that was endless: I can feel it even now as I write these words. To say "Happy Mother's Day" to you , or to myself, sounds false, since how can there be a happy Mother's Day when there is no mother? But if you could hear me – and perhaps you can, if only in dreams – I would tell you that you gave birth to children who will forever be grateful to you. We will always hold you brave and true and the best of mothers. Thank you, Jean, from all of your children, and the eight grandchildren who will never know you, but who would not be here without you.
Your loving son Tim
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