People asked us why we didn't go to grief counselling after the death of our mother. Well our mother gave us all the help we needed before her death.

Mum had been feeling a severe pain in her back for over a year and she had also lost a lot of weight. Tests had been carried out and a benign tumour was removed from her ovary and we all thought - well that was lucky. The pain did not go away in fact it got worse. Further tests eventually revealed the real cause of the pain, but it was too late. She had an inoperable, untreatable pancreatic cancer which would all too quickly claim her life.

It was early May when the doctors started her on pain management drugs along with a high protein, high calorie diet to try to maintain her already weakened system for as long as possible. They could not tell us how long she would have. We were told it could be weeks, possibly a couple of months; they doubted she would see her birthday in November.

Mum had her own goals and one by one she reached them. The first was going to my graduation ceremony at the end of May; I had gained a degree from the Open University after 10 years part time study. The next to go to a reunion of the North Russia club, my father having served on the World War Two convoys going into Murmansk, which was taking place on the Channel Island of Jersey in June. The birth of my brothers' only child was a big highlight in August and although the doctors thought the journey would be too much she was determined and with an overnight stopover at my home in London we got her down to Southampton to see her newborn granddaughter. In September her eldest grandson Christopher went to Oxford University she was so proud that day.

People visited expecting to have to support us but left with laughter in their hearts and smiles on their faces. She still worked in the garden planting bulbs for the next spring although she knew she would probably never see them flower. The only time I saw her really angry with her situation was when her wrist became too weak to hold a paint brush and she was unable to finish a portrait she was painting of her youngest grandson Benjamin.

Even on the ordinary days she insisted on doing something, taking my sisters' children to the zoo, going to art or horticultural exhibitions, or trips around her favourite Suffolk countryside. As the days grew shorter so did the trips but they were still an important part of her life and ours.

Against the odds she made it to her birthday that November and she saw all of her family that special day. It was the last goal she achieved; her body just could not carry on. Four days after her sixty-seventh birthday she died in my fathers' arms. Those last four days she was never left alone my father, her brother, or one of her three children was always with her.

Although I still miss her; looking back on that year it is not the tragedy of her death I remember but it is the joy of her life that is foremost in my mind. I know that is what she wanted for all of us. In her own loving way she gave us what we needed to move on with our lives. She gave us a final summer to remember, a summer filled with love, life, laughter and yes a few tears.

Learn more about this author, Alison Bowler.
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