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Thread. Yesterday in the hospice was bittersweet, as you’d expect. The New Year’s birth, my patients’ imminent deaths. A day of tears and torment, you might imagine. (1/10)
In fact, the creak of a turning world was irrelevant. But arriving husbands, wives, children, parents, friends, colleagues, loved ones? Boy oh boy, were they important. (2/10)
There was laughter, chatter, much kissing, much embracing. The drinks trolley did its rounds. (3/10)
The swaying trees outside the hospice looked particularly beautiful. A robin made at least one patient smile. (4/10)
Someone tried lemon squash over ice chips for the very first time. His smile could have lit up Manhattan. (5/10)
There was the freshest fruit salad, draped in thick double cream, for anyone who felt like eating. (6/10)
I saw love beaming out from the nurses to the patients, and how much it meant that they knew they were worth being cared for. (7/10)
Life is short and spectacularly sweet. Even - perhaps especially - at its end. Trump, Brexit, immigration, taxation, the cares of the world slip away in a hospice... (8/10)
… and only what matters remains. The people you love. Our unfeasibly beautiful world. The web of tiny kindnesses connecting us. (9/10)
So tell your loved ones you love them. Save your fretting for them. And resolve to make 2019 a kind one. Because being mortal means we’re all in it together. Here’s to a loving New Year. (10/10)
