I was hit hard to receive this e-mail a week ago from Richard Smith, who was a mainstay on this site in its early years. Morag was Richard’s long-standing partner:
Morag has untreatable cancer and is in a good hospice in Oxford. For the last few days, I’ve been trying to think of all my friends who have met her, and telling them.
She is in no pain and is unafraid. She has provided terminal care herself many times over the years and knows there is nothing to be afraid of. Useful training.
Despite the Covid restrictions I can see her every day. She has ‘a multitude’ of secondaries in her brain but, for the moment anyway, she is still herself, despite difficulties swallowing and speaking. She has a sort of electronic notepad for working round the sentences that have the wrong consonants in them for the state of her speech. It works quite well.