Mum and Dad

This pic was taken at my wedding to Catherine in Oct 1999. It's one of the few pics I have of my mum and dad.

Today is the anniversary of my mum passing away, yesterday was dad's anniversary. They died 11 hours apart after 33 years of marriage.

Both, unbelievably, we're diagnosed with separate unconnected terminal illnesses. My dad in Feb of 2000 with Mesothelioma, an asbestos related cancer, almost certainly contracted while working as a teacher in a school that had it's asbestos removed, but remained open while that happen. I know as I was a pupil there, as was my sister Judith.

At one time we had a file of around 70 witness statements from other staff about the process of removal and how that might not have been done as it should. Today's regulations....the school would have shut, not stayed open for 3 years while it was done classroom by classroom.

Whilst all this was going on mum also started to feel unwell, by june she had been diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome with Amiloyd Deposits. In short a rare condition where eventually your organs fail one by one. Not nice.

In truth she was sicker than he was, and with cancer finally claiming dad on the sunday night, the news of that meant she could let go, and by the morning she had joined him.

Ironically they're both ill in this photograph but we didn't know at the time.

So live life every day, they did, they did loads.

While we have missed them, and missed them being grandparents, we've also missed old age, infirmity, dementia and all the other stuff my friends are now 17 years on struggling with.

What we went through was pretty unique, but everybody does face the end at some stage.