The End of the Day

It has been a few days since we entered anything into this blog. And it's not because we have been overly busy. But we have been very tired and have slept a lot. Perhaps the stress, perhaps the travel? We knew we would have some time on our hands. What do you do with a person who is dying, but not very quickly (that sounds wrong: we see Electra, and she is weak and clearly fading, but is almost like a chronic patient at this time). So we don't just want to sit around,as if we are waiting for her to die. But we want to be there with her, and with Dan, as much as we can. We are aware that we will likely not see Electra again. And we want to support Dan (who we think is doing a wonderful job), as well as Electra's parents. To the extent that we can.

We have, as I said, slept a lot. We have walked a bit on our own, down around the canals (Birmingham has apparently more canals than Venice), and through the town to some extent. Birmingham had many air raids during the war, so lost some of its older buildings that way. I understand that it also had poor government at times, which led to a loss of other older architecture. There are a lot of new buildings here, erected in the last twenty years or so, and quite modern in appearance.

And then there's the weather. It's been grey, cool, and occasionally rainy. We had sleet today. Then sun. Not good for SAD sufferers.

We have spent a lot of time with Paul, Anastasia, Electra and Dan. As well, there has been part of Anastasia's extended family: her sister Helen, and Helen's daughter Ariadne; Electra's cousin John, and his sister Theodore. We have had a lot of time in Electra's apartment. She has been good at excusing herself and going to sleep when she needs to, and we have spent time then without her presence. Fortunately, no one has tip-toed around the issue of death. They are all comfortable with talking about it. Mostly, Paul has done the cooking, and refuses help. We ate at the apartment the first two nights. Then went out to a restaurant called "Bank" with Helen and Ariadne on the third night. Dan and we went to a place called "Jackie's Kitchen" which is actually Chinese, and had a Hot Pot meal the next night. And the night after that, cousin John flew in from New York and took us all to a Japanese restaurant for a feast there. And that is on top of the pub lunches and so on, so I have put on weight.

Electra had a blood transfusion on Tuesday, after getting platelets on Monday (as she does weekly). She was pretty good after that, with more energy and better disposition. But it didn't last long, and she was tired today and more grumpy. We ate again at her apartment tonight. And there was a lot of tension from who knows where.

Tomorrow we leave. Darlene is going to go to a Quaker meeting in the morning, and I will spend some time with Dan. Then we get on a train to Manchester, for an early flight the next morning.

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Location:Ridley St, Birmingham,United Kingdom

Birmingham in February

We arrived yesterday. This is not a vacation in the true sense of the word. We have come here on an urgent basis to be with our son Dan, and his girlfriend Electra. She was diagnosed a year ago with Acute Myelogenous Leukaemia.
This Christmas, she found out that the treatments had not worked as expected, and she had a relapse of her disease. January was spent in hospital getting the strongest chemotherapy they could offer, but it has also not helped. She has come home to her apartment in Birmingham to die. Dan is with her much of the time. They have both been incredibly mature and loving though this time. Electra's parent are both here. We also wanted to be here to support our son where possible. Hence the travel to this grey city at a grey time of year.

Of course, this means getting a flight across the Pond. Air Transat to the rescue there: we got two tickets return to Birmingham for less than $1200! And that included upgrading our seats. Or so we thought. When we got to the airport, it turns out they had sold our seats three times (they claimed there was a computer glitch). So we ended up in regular steerage. However, the bonus is that we will get our money back for the upgrade, and for the flight we got special service. And the seats we had were not bad. Arrived in Manchester, went through the long line of Customs, and still managed to catch our train to Birmingham in time.

Dan met us at the train station (good thing since it was a maze of passages and stores, and lots of people there as well). It w a ten-minute walk to the apartment. Have rented for the week. Initial impressions of Birmingham are not favourable: I suspect this part of the city was bombed during the war, and it is now filled with grey, modern buildings. Too bad Dickens is dead, he would have a good time with this town. And the sky was grey as well. Dan tells us they have a new word for weather: "bright". This is where it is grey, but not as bad as the dark grey they sometimes get.

After a restorative sleep on both of our parts (we felt like we had fallen off a cliff), we walked down to Electra's apartment (about ten minutes' walk). The rest of the day we spent in her living room, with Dan and Electra and her parents Paul and Anastasia. A lot of talking, some good connecting with Paul and Anastasia, and some nice time with Dan and Electra.

However, we were still quite time-shifted and had to leave at about nine to collapse into our bed.

It's amazing what almost twelve hours' sleep will do to help. We are now up and ready to go finally, and it it only 11 AM! We'll go get some quick breakfast, and then go down to see Dan.


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Location:Downtown Birmingham