The final day was my 75th birthday on August 14th last year, 2014. on that day lots of my friends came down to the sea front either join me for the last one or to stand and shout encouragement on the promenade in Littlehampton. Even my original GB team manager Ian Pettit came done to join me.
Once that was over, my main focus landed on the lead up to the ITU World Triathlon Championships in Edmonton Canada just a few weeks after my big challenge. My husband/coach Steve flew to Edmonton on August 28th and the Standard Distance Age Group Triathlon Championships were held in Hawrelak Park on that bank holiday Monday September 1st.
Transition opened at 5am which meant that the older age group women then had a four hour wait in a very cold park before our wave start at 9.08am. At the race briefing it was stated that competitors could not put on a coat for the bike and take it off for the run. Any coat should also have been transparent so that the national tri suit colours and the athletes number could be seen.
I did well in the race and I think in all honesty that it was partly due to being a Brit! I did not have a coat anyway, or arm warmers. It was cold. It did rain. And at 75 years and 17 days I was wearing just my thin lycra GB tri suit. The older women from the USA somehow managed to get away with wearing their track suit coat, that was not transparent and also should have kept it on for the run. Good job their team manager! So I was thankful for being a hardy soul from the UK since I won my age group 54 MINUTES, not seconds, ahead of the next woman in my age group... which makes me 2014 World Champion in the 75-79 age group. Steve and I left chilly Edmonton the next day for a few days holiday in Quebec that we loved to bits. A few days after that race in Edmonton, the race organisers posted a photo of the event van standing there in a couple of feet of good looking snow.
By the end of September when autumn began Steve's 94 year old mum was definitely seeming to move into a serious decline. I will not go into the manner of the decline because it was too unpleasant to rake over again. She became very frail by the end of October and November was seriously horrid for her and those caring for her. She had three trips in to hospital in rapid succession and the third time was a stay in Worthing Hospital, where she was so kindly looked after for the last five days of her life.
People just don't know what to say to you when a parent dies. A lot of people said," Its so hard, even when you are expecting it". I was not expecting it. Mother had told me endlessly through her life that she intended to live to a hundred, and I believed her. It was hard. She had lived with us in our home for twenty two quite difficult years and ten years before that almost together with us since she was in an adjoining cottage with a shared garden. She was in fact a freaking miracle since she drank spirits, smoked most of her life, ate whatever she like and would not be fed healthy food, never did any exercise, stayed up half the night, slept in late.
Even though we were not always the best of friends, I did my best to look after her, do my duty if you like. I did pretty much everything for her, washing, ironing, shopping, cleaning. It was me she turned to with any difficulty, me she asked to help as she became an invalid, me she called out for when she was feeling ill.
It has taken me a surprising amount of time to get myself together and back into a normal life, with hobbies in, for it was my mind saving poetry that disappeared completely for months. Without my sport, and my husband keeping me training, which is an everyday affair; swim-run one day, bike the next, no days off bar those that muscle their way into life. So were it not for that discipline and being the main office wallah of our Antiques business, I might never have drifted back into my writing.
Still
There
Still heard
Now and then,
A movement
A knock, a soft bang
The feeling is strong
Bump the
skirting board,
As she skittles along
Sitting on her walker
So dangerously.
Urgent pace
But still
Sloth pace
In reality.
A force of will
Late night route
To the bathroom.
A sneeze
A word
Hello-o, hello-o!
So used to the sound
From the years and years
She was around.
I hear her yet
Her voice
Her chair,
Up, up, up
Then down, down, down
She fails to operate
Control of the chair.
Never left
In the ‘Up’ position
Set for what or where?
Appearances?
Her decision.
The thousand times
She woke me up
From my early night
And her, the late bird
Hello-o, Hello-o
Every noise a house can make
Now she is gone
Another take….
Or is she?
Will she ever be?
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