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I slept through an early morning call today, but Mum didn't. Well, she goes to bed earlier than me, doesn't wear earplugs and has the phone by the side of her bed!
The husband of one of her oldest friends died just after 06.00 this morning. He'd been in hospital for two months and they'd only just managed to diagnose him - complications in the brain following years of immuno-suppressant drugs to manage his rheumatoid arthiritis. The slow diagnosis isn't because they're slack (he was at the country's leading brain injury/ disease hospital in Oxford, luckily only 20 miles away) but because there was so much to rule out. In the end his heart just gave out.
Mum was over at Maureen's comforting her today, so even if we'd had no human feeling it would have affected Dad & me. Truth is I didn't care much for them (just in a child looking at her parents' friends kinda way I mean) but I've been hearing about the whole situation since I arrived. They've driven her to hospital a number of times (she hates dual carriageways and driving in the dark) and Mum also went with her on the bus and again when her son drove them - he doesn't live in the area so couldn't go every day.
She was Mum's first friend when Mum moved from London to Aylesbury. Maureen had done the same thing (there was an active campaign to fill up the towns in those days). Colin was a year older than my Dad, Craig - the son - a year younger than me, but married and with children.
Well, that's Christmas screwed for the next few years, at least for M & C.
And Colin had only just retired as well.
I am so lucky in comparison, I gave my Dad a kiss on the cheek when I got up and heard the news. He didn't ask why. I assume he knew.
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