I managed to ‘rescue’ my 97 year old aunt from hospital. They warned me ‘she could die in the ambulance’ (they wanted to put a camera down her to see where the bleed was coming from!) I knew she needed to get home – she was fading away in hospital. I asked to see the consultant and took responsibility for taking her home and they delivered her in an ambulance. 24-48 hours later she was sitting up in her hospital bed at home, surrounded by flowers, and friends and family gathering in the sitting room, waiting for their turn to go and see her. She was glowing! She said, “I can’t believe all these flowers! It’s like being in a garden – and all these people!” She had had wonderful conversations on the phone with her grandson in Australia, and died peacefully after a week. I helped nurse her with a carer and we washed her together after she died. And when I went into her room first after she had died – I felt this incredible rush of pure joy and liberation – and I burst out with “oh baba, you are free at last!!” She had found her last few years quite difficult with rheumatic pains, arthritis etc.
