On my way to heaven

Mark Ashton  |  Features
Date posted:  1 Apr 2010
Share Add       

In 2001 my mother visited us in Cambridge and, walking to church one Sunday, fell and broke her hip.

From then on she died slowly and painfully over the next four-and-a-half years. The pain was not physical so much as psychological as she gradually lost all her freedom.

As I watched her die, I prayed that I would not live into a similarly long and (through no fault of her own) useless old age, a burden to my wife and family, and an embarrassment to my friends, ‘Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’. I once said to the churchwardens at St. Andrew the Great that I did not want to live to be a problem to those who cared for me: bad-tempered, irritable, snapping orders at my wife Fiona, while she pushed me around in a wheelchair. One of the wardens replied that the only change would be the wheelchair!

Share
< Previous article| Features| Next article >
Read more articles by Mark Ashton >>

Subscribe

Enjoy our monthly paper and full online access

Find out more

Need to advertise?

We can help you reach Christians across the country.

Find out more