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At the moment, I’m both happy with things in my life, while being sad about the reasons for that, but now also terribly upset about an awful medical situation for a loved family member.

I’m fine, and husband, son, and daughter-in-law are also fine. But death has marched into my life twice this year, and demanded I deal with my thoughts and ideas about such deaths. The idea of ‘a blessed relief’ has never before been as well understood as on the death of these two.

Living with pain, with inadequate pain relief is a terrible thing, and at the moment I’m definitely in favour of the idea of euthanisia and voluntary assisted dying. The two deaths I’m referring to here are firstly than of my mother, and secondly, that of a dog who has been living with my husband and I for about a year.

The second death, that of the loved pet, who was an old dog, suffering from a nasty cancer in her shoulder that was causing her much pain. She was humanely ‘put down’ recently, in my home, with the people who loved her present, with a vet doing the medical procedure.

It was a sad, but also glad time, because we all knew how much pain this poor dog had been suffereing from in recent times. And at her age 14 years, and considering the cancer, there was no way she was going to recover and be completely pain free, for more that a matter of a few months, and only if she’d gone through the removal of the affected leg.

That was deemed to be far too much, by her owners, my son and his wife, and having lived with this lovely dog for so long, I also wanted her pain to be gone, even if that meant she would have to die. That pain, even with pain killers, was awful to see, and would have been terrible for her to experience, I’m sure.

Her final day. She loved to lie down on the grass, in the sun!

So all of us present on this day could agree, this was a beautiful and compassionate ending to a life lived with those who cared.

Sadly, my mother’s death was something quite different to this loved dog’s ending, even though Mum also had people in her life who loved her and wished her well. My mother, at 85 years of age, died, also having suffered pain, even though she had been taking pain relief.

That pain relief though seems to have actually have been adding to some of her medical symptoms, is my understanding, although I am far from a medically trained person. My mother had been taking paracetamol, and the cause of her death was this:

Combined effects of paracetamol toxicity and cardiac failure led to my mother’s death

While this was an awful way to die, at her age, death was only around the corner anyway, so in a metter of only a few years, it was bound to happen.

The death of this lovely dog mentioned, at her age of 14, it was on its way too. A new death has occured though, a third death, with this death being the death of a young man, my nephew from a torn Aorta, that was unexpected, devastating and awful. My nephew was a young man, happy in life now, living his dream life in fact, until, suddenly this disease hits him, and despite operations to try to save his life, he died.

I’m having trouble with this death, it has hurt me to the core, and I am incredibly sad for his parents and siblings who’ve lived with him, and know the beautiful soul that he was, so much better than I. I can only think of the pride and love I’ve felt for my nephew, and feel grateful to have known him.

So, yes, there have been good things in my life, but overall, at the moment, the bad is weighing heavily on me, and on my family. If bad things come in threes, then are the better times on their way? I don’t believe in that either

I wish I was a believer in heaven, but the best I can do is to imagine my mother, the young man, and that loved dog all getting together and have a lovely time with pats, treats, and love galore!

May we all have such beautiful times, in life, many times, before the Grim Reaper comes to do his job and takes us away.