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The Art of Dying – Drs Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick

My mother died, at 2 a.m. on 10 December 1993. She had been suffering from breast cancer and was undergoing treatment. I had not been informed that she was terminally ill. However she took a turn for the worse around 7th December and was admitted to Poole Hospital, Dorset and I visited her there on 8th December.

I went to bed on that eve of 9th December and was fast asleep when I suddenly awoke, sat bolt upright in bed, and, called out 'Mum'. I actually physically reached for the phone to call the hospital, but on checking the time it was 2 a.m. I therefore told myself to 'get a grip' and that I was being hysterical and neurotic, and I eventually fell back to sleep a couple of hours later. I was awoken at 7.30 a.m. on 10th December by my aunt and stepfather to say that Mum had died at 2 a.m.

The experience was deeply upsetting and I shall never forget it. I am crying now while typing this - the whole experience of waking suddenly like that was what I can only describe as 'violent'. Maybe it was psychosomatic, who knows? But it was very real to me, and still is. I have no doubt that she reached out to me at that moment.

The intensity of emotion that these experiences so often generate is indicated very clearly by the fact that the memory of hers still has the power to reduce Julie to tears years later. Julie is one of the few people who described her experience as 'deeply upsetting' rather than comforting.