It was a depressing looking Sunday morning, it was 14th of April 1994. I had risen early and sat about in my grotty bedsit watching films I had recorded the night before. I was out of it a bit, I had exceeded the dose on both my anti-depressants and painkillers; in honesty I had spent much of the year so far in this state.

My peaceful day was interrupted by a visit from the police, when I went to see the police officer I was expecting to be arrested though I was not quite sure what for; lets just say for 5 years prior to this day I had had several brushes with the law. However today the police were here for a different reason; the term the policeman used was "Hi Spence, we just wanted to let you know that your mum is a wee bit poorly; you might want to go to the hospital to see her." I took the officer at his word of being a bit poorly and headed upstairs with no real urgency where I got dressed and ready for my hospital visit. I asked the landlady of my bedsit if she would mind giving me a lift to Dorchester hospital some 10 miles away.

It was as I was leaving the island I felt a strange sensation and without reason a few tears rolled down my face. Some twenty minutes later I arrived at Dorchester hospital; I searched a few wards before finding the correct one. I was immediately led into a room where my Grandmother, Sister and her boyfriend were all waiting. We had a bit of a discussion and it transpired that my mum had been taken bad early that morning and was losing a lot of blood. They had been in with my mother but had been taken out of the room when my mother had got a bit worse. You know exactly where this story is leading, and of course while we innocently sat waiting to be readmitted to the room where my mother was she had of course passed away. As it transpired she had passed 20 minutes before my arrival roughly the same time as I had cried.

When we were allowed back into the room my mother was laying peacefully on a bed, she looked like she was asleep. I held her hand for what seemed like an hour, the news just never sunk in. When it finally hit me was the moment that a drop of blood poured from my mothers nose. I couldn't take anymore and had to leave the room.

For reasons I touched upon earlier, I was a bit of an outsider the combination of my less that desirable dealings of late. As a result when everyone else went on to grieve the death of my mother I had to go home to a cold empty bedsit to grieve alone. This was the lowest point

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