Baked Beans

Since I last posted a blog, much has happend in my life. My darling Mother, Inge, died in June in her 92nd year. She had been ailing since Easter when she contracted double pneumonia and eventually had to be put into a nursing home as she was in need of 24/7 care. My husband and I had arranged last Fall to attend the wedding of my niece, Louisa, at the family home on the 29th May this year. We had arranged with my sister (Mother of the bride) to be responsible for picking Mum up from the nursing home and bringing her to the family home where the wedding reception was to be held in a large marquee. Despite her inability to walk and some discomfort from swelling in her legs, Mum had a wonderful evening - staying until after 11p.m. when the loud music began and she could no longer stay awake. She chatted with all her family and all her friends, and drank a few glasses of champagne. Although she was in a wheel chair, she took part in the celebrations just like everyone else. When it was time to take her back to the nursing home, she was pensive...and eventually said to my husband and I in the car ..."Well, now that the wedding is over, I have done all I wanted to do". We did not read anything into that statement, but we should have. Five days later, she died, but not before her grand-daughter, my daughter Andrea, flew over from Vancouver and was rushed to her bedside. Mum was waiting for her, and she knew she was there. That was her last day on this earth, and at 10:15p.m. that night, she died. She had all her family around her, and she had waited for the exact moment when she had fulfilled her wishes - to be at her grand-daughter's wedding, to see her daughter and grand-daughter from Canada, and to have all her family around her.

A wedding and a funeral within 10 days is a lot to (a) organise and (b) experience. Our family gathered its energies together and put all its talents and experience into play and there was a wonderful Celebration of Life Service in our local church for Mum (Nin to her family). After all was over, and everyone had gone home, I wandered into Mum's cottage for some quiet time, to think and to grieve. I wandered through her rooms, picking up little things that she had always kept in certain places, and looking at what she had left the last time she had been there at Easter. I opened her cupboards and checked what was in them - the last cupboard being her supply of tinned food. As I stared into the cupboard at the 6 tins of mini Heinz Baked Beans (one portion each) -- it hit me. Mum was gone, and she would never eat those beans she had bought on her last shopping trip. Somehow, those Baked Beans were the saddest thing I had ever seen, and they were what made me finally realize the finality of her death.