Good night, Betty

I don't mention Betty much in these posts, and I regret that.

Betty came to live with Jen a few years back, and like us all, got old, gently.

When we went to play cards, Betty would be in the living room watching some game show or crime show. At full volume, as she wouldn't wear her hearing aid. So, we would have to compete with the TV in the next room, and occasionally the radio in the dining room too.

She used to look after herself, but as she neared her 100th birthday last year, she baceme less and less mobile. In fact, she had not left the house in years, as she was scared of steps, and even the low wooden step into the conservatory was deemed to be too high. So she became a prisoner in the house.

But she didn't complain, just called out when she needed a drink or be taken to the bathroom.

The last year, her memory started to fade and she would call out for Jen every few minutes, mostly to check that Jen had not run away.

All the time, Jen was scared that Betty would have to go in a home, until this year, Jen looked after her Mother on her own, but stressed that one time she lifted her Mum, she would do her back and there would be no choice by for Bett go go into care. And after seening what Nan had to go through at Applecross, that was to be avoided.

Bet suffered with a unirinary infection, was taken into hospital for a month earlier this year, and agains the odds she didn't catch COVID. But in order to be released there had to be a care package, so each day, four times a day, carers came to tend to Bet, as her mind wandered, and sometimes saw things that scared her, and people she knew back when she was a girl.

Last year, Betty celebrated her 100th birthday, and her family came from Wales and Lancashire to see her. Bett slept through most of it.

When she was released a couple of months ago, she slept 23 hours a day, and the expectation was she would fade away.

But under Jen's care, and when Sylv came down to help, Bett rallied. She became aware of people, held conversations, and things seemed to be going well.

And then the final decline came. She was in pain, constant pain from about two weeks ago. A daily injection of morphine became two, then three.

Last night, her last carer of the day reported Bett was having trouble swallowing, and was making odd noise. She had curled into a ball, and looked no bigger than a chold laying in the huge hospital bed.

This morning, Sylv found Bett staring at the ceiling, chin jutted out in defiance to the angel who came during the night to take her to eternity.

And so another face from our wedding pictures has gone. Not many of us left now, sadly.

We have been to see Jen. She is cut up, of course, but sometimes it takes you by surprise. I even welled up at one point when I called John to give him the news.

So, that is that.

Jen will take her time to decide what to do. Maybe move back north to Bolton, or maybe back to Australia to be with her three chlden, though they live with their families at the opposite corners of the country.

Things change. Sometimes expected, sometimes not.