Sophie Ashdown

So I am way behind in my blog posts. I’m way behind with my day job. I’m even way behind with laundry!

Last week I started off well with the intention of blogging every day and had a plan of what I wanted to post, including two from the previous week.

I knew it was going to be a busy week with the course, my day job, some volunteering on Wednesday, and preparing for an art fair happening on 15/16 November – but I had a plan and thought I could stick to it.

That unfortunately got derailed on Tuesday when I received the news that my uncle Bill had days/hours to live. He had had a major stroke in May this year and was recovering well to the point that he was walking and talking again with no apparent cognitive impact. But then he had a second stroke, then there were some complications, and then he had a lung infection and things went downhill fast.

My parents were on holiday in Spain and I had to scramble to book them flights to get back that same day. On Tuesday evening I picked them up from Gatwick and we drove directly to the hospital in Southampton.

Bill was in palliative end-of-life care, and in a room where he could have unlimited visitors 24 hours a day. This was lucky for us since it was 11pm by the time we got there. It is an eerie experience walking through a hospital at that time of night.

I knew Bill as a lively, active, outgoing, fit, healthy, loving, and funny man. The Bill I saw at the hospital was a little old man struggling to breathe. It was very sad and especially sad to see how upset my dad was when he saw his younger brother.

We stayed for over an hour and talked to Bill’s son and his wife. They were so lovely but also clearly very upset and worried.

I stayed overnight nearby at my sister’s house then had to drive back on Wednesday for my boys. I was at a school committee meeting that evening when I got the call that Bill had passed away. He was 74 with three children, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

It has been a sad time for my family. Everyone is processing the news in different ways. We are all in constant contact and supporting each other. We’ll all see each other again soon at the funeral, which will be a very different experience to when we were last all together in August to celebrate my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary.

I was able to take a day off from my day job on Thursday to decompress and also prepare for the Art show on the weekend. Sadly there wasn’t time to catch up on blogs so I’ll be doing that this week. I have a lot to write about including some new pieces and a summary of how the Art show went. I’ll get to those this week.

Added into the mix was the washing machine breaking down. For anyone else who has two big sporty teenage boys in the house, this was a major issue. In the 36 hours it took to get it fixed (temporarily) there were some alarmingly big piles of stinky laundry everywhere. You don’t realise how important clean laundry is until you don’t have it. Hopefully the machine can last until I can get a new one in the Black Friday sales. In the grand scheme of things this was not the least of my problems last week but it certainly was one I didn’t need.

When there is a death in the family it does make you stop and take a moment to consider what life is all about, what is important, who is important, and that really no one knows what is about to happen. I tend to get stressed about having so many things on and so many things to do all the time but really are those things actually important? I’d rather be doing the things I love and spending time with the people I love. I have taken some time to think more about this and how I can simplify my life so I have more time to enjoy and appreciate what is important.

If you’ve got this far in reading this blog, I wish for you a long and happy life surrounded by people you love. I wish for you that when your time comes you’ll be at peace with your life, with what you’ve done, what you’ve achieved, and that you have let go of regrets. Tell your family and friends that you love them, and give everyone as many hugs as you can. Life can be long or short, but it can be beautiful if we let it. x