Treasure the Moment

13th June 2011 Monday

Brief moments from my day as I’m really tired tonight.

The nurse picks out the little black stitches from the cut on my shin. They look like the blanket stitches I used to sew on pieces of felt when I was at primary school. I gaze at the light fitting on the ceiling while she does it. It’s sore but I’m glad they have gone.

I sit at a long table with four lovely women. An open pink lily in the centre throws its perfume over our meal as we delve into broad bean and asparagus risotto, garden salad, chunks of ciabatta bread and afterwards a bowl of allotment strawberries, lemon cake and cream. Their company delights me.

Late afternoon, I want to plant the begonias and geraniums I bought in the market over a week ago. My husband says he’s going for walk and do I want to come. I say no - I must get the plants in before their leaves all turn yellow. Then I remember the advice of a dear friend who knows about loss - she says make the most of each day and treasure the moment you have now.

So I change my mind and walk with my husband in our local park through drifts of cow parsley and hedgerows full of blackberry blossom. And I still plant the begonias when we get back in the evening garden, while he sweeps up hundreds of tiny green apples fallen from the tree into the grass. I’m grateful as every time I walk on one of these it sounds like the crunch of a shell and I think I’m killing snails.

While my husband is singing in his choir I cook up a panful of veggies, sweet potato, finger carrots, swiss chard, broad beans and garlic and stir in some tahini paste to make it creamy and comforting.

I watch Terry Pratchett’s TV programme about assisted dying. He’s 62 and has Alzheimer’s disease and can’t type any more so he dictates his books. He wonders if it would be an option - to have an assisted death - when he can no longer communicate. I cry through most of the programme.

I don't think he'd mind me saying but I can hear my husband snoring now and wonder if I’ll get any sleep tonight.