Renovation project - Disaster strikes
We are having a great trip visiting family and
I have visits planned with friends and my big birthday treat, tea at the
Hilton, I am really excited about this and have new clothes and everything, but
then the unthinkable happens, my mum is taken ill following a simple hospital procedure
yesterday, this means a trip to the hospital, but I have had a glass of wine,
luckily my daughter can meet my parents at the hospital, hopefully they won’t
be too long.
We keep in touch by phone until my daughter
tells me my mum is being transferred to another hospital much further away, I
wait a few hours and drive to be with my dad, still hopeful that it will be
sorted quickly.
It isn’t and a few days later she is
transferred again to a specialist hospital in Liverpool.
I arrive to meet her there, this is not a nice
drive, I am going into a city I don’t know and driving on the wrong side of the
road!
I wait all day until I know the operation was
successful. She will still need to be kept in for quite a while. This is the
thing that we have been most scared of moving too France, what happens if
serious illness strikes, both sets of parents are not getting any younger.
I am just so glad that we were actually in the
UK, but those nagging doubts start to creep in, we only have one set of parents
and we are leaving them behind when they may need us the most.
We stay in the UK until I know that she is as
recovered as possible, but it is now difficult to leave, we have been here much
longer than we had ever planned, but I am still in two minds about going, what
if something goes wrong, what if she needs me? I have been acting as go between
with all the different departments will this now fall to my daughter, should I
put her in that situation? So many questions and no answers, I am leaving my
brother and sister and my daughter to do what should traditionally be my job.
Am I selfish?
Is this how life should be?
Will we be able to carry on enjoying
our new life if we are living with guilt?
The real answer is nobody knows what will
happen in the future, but you can’t live a life based on what if’s, if you do
nobody would do anything, we are going back to France, we know we can get to
the UK quickly if needed and we know that my parents will need a nice holiday
as soon as they are up to it.
So if the idea of aging parents has put you
off making this move, this is something you will have to live with, but if you
stay in the same country it does not necessarily mean you will be available, we
can go back at any time without the worry of work, so maybe I am in a better
position than I thought.
