I woke up yesterday to the news that Claire Rayner had passed away. Yesterday was also the second anniversary of my mother’s passing and I was feeling the loss of her. I listened to Clarie’s son Jay, on the Today programme saying that his mother fought her illness right up to the end. Illness is hard to witness at close hand and the irony is that Claire and my mother, who had each dedicated their professional lives to improving the health provision of others, albeit in different ways, ended up as patients themselves. They had much in common. While Claire had national prominence, my mother had a local notoriety in her rural community as they both strived to improve both the quality and longevity of patients’ lives.
Alex and I sat in our front room in candlelight last night recalling my mother’s last few hours two years ago. We flicked through photos on the i-phone remembering her fighting spirit as she lay attached to oxygen and drips in her hospital bed. We talked and waited for the moment of her passing at 9.15pm. I felt lighter when the moment passed.
