Driving to Masterton

Mum rang on Sunday afternoon to check on me, because a mother can worry about you forever.

She told me they had an isolating covid case too. She told me she hoped they wouldn’t end up cooped up again. She told me the really frustrating thing about life now was the inaction. Her whole life had been running and riding and netball and skiing and gardening and crossing rail viaducts on a dare. Even taking up swimming in her seventies after watching Mary-Margaret’s indoor lessons. She told me she really missed it all.

We also talked about New Plymouth because my brother's family was there for WOMAD. After I'd explained what made it such a magical festival, we enthused over Pukekura Park and the Bowl of Brooklands where she and Dad and most of the parents of the lower North Island went to see the Seekers in, what, 1968? I said remember that holiday in 1975? The motel right opposite the park, and the lights at night?

She didn't, but then we reminisced about how much she loved being a private boarder there to go to New Plymouth Girls' High, and how much she had loved it there, and the all-round achiever cup that had made her so proud. 

And we talked about how they were now just four years away from the 70th wedding anniversary, and boy, wouldn't that be something, even if Dad would need to be 103. And we said love you and I went back to my covid rest.

Yesterday morning, my brother texted to say they found her unresponsive earlier that morning, and she was on her way to the hospital, that it might be pneumonia, might be a stroke, that it might not be good. My sister was on the plane from Nelson that afternoon, I got ready for the drive down this morning.

I mentioned this in an email last night with the wonderful Linda Burgess. She wrote:

It's extraordinary that you still have two parents. I do hope everything goes smoothly and - I'm searching for the word - as kindly as it can,

This morning at 2 am, Mum fell asleep holding my brother's hand and two hours later, she was gone.

I'm bereft, I'm fine. I'm so glad she got to go that way, I'll miss her forever.