Later on today, I am anticipating that the Equipment Agency part of the NHS will call around and reclaim all, if not most, of the various equipment which has been supplied to us to make Meg comfortable in her final days. Thee include a special hospital bed, a specialised air-flow mattress, a hoist and slings, a specialised chair, a wheelchair and a host of smaller items. I have been looking forward to this as, once removed, I can restore our living accommodation to what I might term the 'new' normal. Anticipating this, our domestic help abandoned her normal duties and together with my son set to work with gusto reclaiming the one half of our main lounge which had been converted into a downstairs bedroom. They started by removing the temporary blackout curtains I had installed this time last year. As Mg started to be put to bed at about 7.30 starting late last May, the sun was still very bright so I bought and installed these as a matter of urgency. Admittedly they looked decidedly makeshift for the whole of the last year but they served their purpose in helping Meg to get swiftly off to sleep. Then the screen I had purchased to separate the room into 'lounge' and 'bedroom' areas was removed and, later in the day I was to deconstruct this but it took almost as long to disassemble as it had done to assemble in the first place last year. In fact much of the early afternoon was spent doing this and I finished off with a supply of screws (saved), and some plastic fitments and linen panels (junked) and a large number of metal poles which I un-slotted. My son and domestic help turned to their attention to a stainless steel trolley that looked all the world like a hospital trolley and practically the whole of its contents were discarded. Then some bedding was discarded, the blankets were saved and stored safely in a room upstairs and attention was turned to Meg's day-to-day clothes. I have to admit that seeing these discarded including her favourite jumpers was painful in the extreme but had to be done otherwise they would have stayed there as a permanent reminder of Meg and therefore needed to go. So the 'good' clothing was bagged up so that it could be donated to the AgeUK and as well as this we were left with a huge bag of items for disposal, a huge bag of medicaments and specialised drugs and dressings brought along by the District Nurses so that Meg's immediate needs could be addressed. We also finished off with a large bag of about a dozen soft toys, principally teddy bears some of which we had as 'sleeping companions' as she was put to bed. All of these came via charity shops or were donated to us so to the charity shops they will be returned. In the afternoon after I had dissembled the screen and was left with a series of metal poles, I thought these would not fit into our normal wheelie bin so I loaded up the car and set off for our local tip which is quite some distance away. So I managed to dispose of these metal parts appropriately and also the large bag of 'rubbish' items. On the way home, I called in at our local AgeUK shop and was delighted that it was still open and would accept my large plastic bag filled with clothing and other items. So at the end of the day, I was left off with the bag of medicaments as well as the bag of soft toys for eventual disposal.
My son phoned in the afternoon and was delighted with the progress I had made and then I had a welcome and surprise phone call from one of my ex University of Winchester colleagues who is immensely knowledgeable about these things having recently having to cope with the death of her mother and an extremely ill sister) My friend is really keen on recycling and made the most excellent suggestion upon I acted. She informed me that once the medicines were returned to the NHS they would just immediately be destroyed which she thought was criminal and suggested that I see if there was a local Ukraine relief society which would be desperate to accept the donation of drugs and medical supplies. I did find a person in a a village quite nearby and we established email contact - she is due to call around on Friday afternoon to pick up the large bag of medical supplies for onward transmission to the Ukraine. Naturally, I am delighted about this as I am sure that Meg would have been and I am sure my friend will be when I see her at the party organised in Hampshire on Saturday which I can now attend. When the room has been cleared of medical equipment, we can do a final deep cleaning and subsequent rearrangement of some items of furniture next week when our domestic help calls again.
The disposal of those items of clothing with which the deceased family member wore frequently is always particularly painful. Meg had two woolly jumpers one decorated with sheep and the other a wonderful design which made it resemble a cricketer's jumper and in my mind's eye, I shall always remember Meg in one of these two, obviously worn a lot in the winter months and on our trips out. But to be honest, it takes friends and family members to dispose of this apparel because it can be very difficult for the bereaved person to experience this final 'letting go'. But as I think Lady Macbeth may have said 'If 'tis to be done it is best done quickly' so my son and domestic help have done a magnificent job in removing these frequently worn items from my purview. In time, wardrobe items and underwear will need to be cleared out but these do not have the same emotional pull as those items in which one pictures one's departed one. To quote another expression that comes to mind 'What the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over' and this proverb is found literally all over the world. It might have first been uttered in the 14th century by a certain St Bernard but I find it to be particularly true and apposite today.
© Mike Hart [2025]