Going Gently

I was worried about my job yesterday. Hospices all over the country are in dire financial need at the moment and I worked hard getting my job in order to keep the cottage .
The prospect of possible redundancies was almost too much to bare

Today, it's best foot forward.
I've cleared out my bookcases this morning and tucked away was a book , which has always been the inspiration for the blog

Most people think Going Gently derives from the poem by Dylan Thomas

" Do not go gentle into that good night,

             Old age should burn and rage at close of day
 
             Rage, rage at the dying of the light"

But it is the novel Going Gently by David Nobbs that is the true inspiration
"The novel is a series of memories, memories recalled by an eighty odd year old stroke patient Kate Thomas, who is paralysed in a hospital bed.
Isolated and unable to communicate , Kate plays in her mind the video of her turbulent life as a welcome relief from the sad and bad old women around her . But it is more than an escape . It is also the search for the truth about life,death , the acceptance of death and which of her three sons murdered her fifth husband...."

The book was a gift from a patient , I thought I didn't get on with very well
Her name was Julia
Paralysed in a car accident , that was in essence her own fault, she was a patient who wasn't patient  at all . She's moaned and complained and became so negative in her rehab that staff started to avoid her. I remember that her son once described her as being able to " suck the lifeforce out of a saint " so difficult she was but I also remember that she was plucky enough to follow the gaggle of younger male paraplegics to gym every morning without fail and to be able to put up with their colourful ribbing and telling off if she complained too much to them, disabled men who would not accept self pity and "kvetching"

I remember one day she called me  " a hard hearted bastard"  to my face , I can't really remember just what it was about , but I suspect I had " encouraged" her rather robustly to do something for herself
" I've been called a lot worse!" I shot back
"I bet you have!" Was Julia's reply

I looked at the book and dusted it off , planning to read it again , in this period of isolation
I hadn't noticed, or indeed remembered that Julia had written in the front of it,
A dedication of sorts
" You Gave Me my life back"
It said
Funny I never got that impression when I nursed her