Retirement Life in the Week Ended 4 May 2025

My Dad passed peacefully this week at the age of 94. He’d been on the palliative care caseload for a while in Essex so this was, to a degree, expected. It was a good death. I think that he decided that it was his time to leave planet Earth. Until two years ago he’d been an active man and walked miles each day. But then sight loss and heart failure took its toll. It got him down to be ill and he never really adapted to the sedentary life that his ageing body imposed on him.

He’d had enough. He succumbed to a chest infection. While he officially recovered, for the last two weeks he’d pretty much decided to stop eating. He said he didn’t feel like it and it seemed cruel to force him beyond offering him a fruit pastille or a grape or two. He got weaker and the hope of rehab passed. We visited him daily while he was in hospital. He was looked after by caring and attentive staff who demonstrated the NHS at its best. ‘I love it here.’ he told me when I asked him about the ward he was on.

Dad only lived in his new home around the corner from me for a few weeks but got to see that Mum was safe and settled and would be taken care of. She has family nearby and a carer that she adores. So the focus of our life at the moment is looking after her. My blog posts may be a little sparse for a week or two.

We won’t be having a funeral. Dad didn’t want one. And so the frail body he’s left behind will be cremated without ceremony. The ashes will be returned to us. We’ve already toasted him with his daily tipple of choice, a nasty fortified wine. At sometime soon we’ll scatter his remains and eat the Greggs sausage rolls that were left in his freezer. He was very partial to them.