...of 'Mother Becomes Stardust'
1. Friday the 13th Does Its Worst
Thursday evening, August 12th, I watched a DVD of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, 'Notorious', with my Mother. I said to her after the film had finished: "We'll watch the extras later." Later never came, as this was to be my Mother's last evening in the family home.
I'd never seen what all the fuss was about regarding Friday the 13th - until August 2010. I woke up late on that day and saw that the time was 10am. It was a time my Mother and I would normally be on our way to the nearby town of Spalding to do some shopping. Not this time. I couldn't find my Mother anywhere and, when calling her, I received no response. I went into her bedroom and found Mum collapsed by the side of her bed. She could have been lying like that for hours. All the signs indicated that she had suffered a stroke.
This was confirmed when I called 999. I was asked, by a helpful guy, to try and get a series of responses from my Mother. She made drunken responses, but her smile reassured me.
The paramedics arrived very quickly and got Mum to Peterborough District Hospital in Thorpe Road just as quickly. It's a distance of some 16 miles. I remember that the driver looked like a New Age traveller and that we talked about music. A surreal image, but this was just the start of a what would be nothing less than a surreal journey for the next 18 months.
'Mother Becomes Stardust' is available at Amazon. Links to both the paperback and Kindle versions of the book can be found on the Amazon pages below:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
