Glenys: What was Sylvia like? Well she was my big sister, she was always elegant, she
was always smart, she was witty, she was thoughtful. Ron and Sylvia were both teachers; Ron was
a head teacher and Sylvia eventually became a deputy head teacher. Their relationship
blossomed and they were married for thirty years before eventually Ron died.
He was increasingly having problems with remembering things and he was becoming more and more dependent.
Sylvia eventually persuaded Ron to go to the doctor; there was a diagnosis of Alzheimer's
disease. Initially I would say that she coped by being quite stoical, she just wanted to
look after him as when he was fit and well he looked after her.
Sylvia found the Alzheimer's Society through a friend at church who pointed her in their
direction. I think it was very important to her to realise that at the end of a phone
there was support if she needed it. She had a very good friend called Sue, one
day she was speaking to Sue about Ron's Alzheimer's and she said to Sue 'What can I do, to keep
my own mind active and alive and keep my own sanity?' and Sue said to her 'Write a haiku
Sylvia'. The logic behind it was a haiku is only three lines, the discipline of writing
a strict haiku would concentrate her mind and take her out of the situation she was
currently in, however horrible that current situation.
She said 'You know, you could produce my haiku's and illustrate them, you could turn my haiku's
into a book' and so it took me a good twelve months really to bring those, that book together
and then, she never saw it, she fell and a few days later, about nine days later, she
died in the local hospital. When I took the first draft copy to a book
binding course with me, and as one of the ladies who saw that said 'What a lovely way
to cry Glenys' and I think that is what I am doing. I'm trying to turn the negative,
which is the loss of my sister, into a positive. Amongst the legacies that she left, Alzheimer's
Society being one of them, and she did it because of the support that she had received
at the carers meeting she had been to, she hoped that money that she donated could be
used in some sort of thoughtful way, which is why I decided that some of the money that
she left me should be devoted to promoting her book and we worked out that if I sold
the book for a given amount of money, that £5 from each copy could be donated to Alzheimer's
Society and that that £5 was a significant amount of money, being the amount that's needed
to provide care for the Alzheimer's sufferer to allow the carer to attend an Alzheimer's
meeting. I would encourage people to consider Alzheimer's
Society as a beneficiary in their will or as a legacy because of the way I was dealt
with. They have been helpful supportive tactful and very, very caring in asking those kind
of questions. To quote one of Sylvia's Haiku's 'A sharing
of grief with a fellow traveler can lighten your load' and I'd like the book to be a fellow
traveler.