What Matters

Two days ago I was more frightened that I can ever remember being in my life. I was with my Dad at the care home where he is living. He had not been feeling well all day due to an allergy he had developed suddenly. He asked my mother and me to help him get to the bathroom, and as we did so, he lost consciousness, his body went completely weak and he collapsed.

I thought he was going to die in my arms. Without being a doctor I had no idea what had happened. All I could see was that he was drifting away from us. I was shouting for help and it took a few minutes for anyone to come - it felt like three hours.

All I could say was " I love you Dad.." because at that moment I thought that these would be the last words I would ever be able to say to him. My mother was praying. The nurses called for an ambulance and the paramedics arrived. It is very rare that I panic about something, but in this situation I was anything but calm. I was scared.

In the end it turned out that my Dad's fainting was probably just due to low blood pressure - certainly not the heart attack or stroke I had feared. Obviously this was good news, but that does not change the very real feelings that we all felt at the time. For those few minutes when we all thought that the end had come for my Dad, we automatically turned to what is really important to each of us. Love, family and the hope that there is a higher power.

There was no thought at that moment about whether it was raining outside, whether the place was tidy, whether our clothes had been ironed or how much money anyone had, or didn't have. None of that mattered   In the end, what matters is appreciating life and being with the people you love, on the bad days as well as the good. All the rest is secondary.

For me, this was one of those moments that I will never forget. But just one day later, my parents' memory loss meant that they had both forgotten (literally) all about it! As though the whole thing never happened. So I guess it all turned out well in the end. Neither my Mum nor my Dad has a traumatic memory to deal with, and I have learnt some lessons that will stay with me for the rest of my life.