Simon14

SIMON JAMES BRUNTON
19th July 1982 - 18th April 1998

Rainbows - a very special place

Moving in to Rainbows meant that we didn't have to spend all our time administering drugs and that both of us could be with Simon. Vince and I spent every single moment we could with him, one of us was always with him. Simon's condition was deteriorating rapidly and he was not expected to live much longer, every moment was so precious.

One of the first things that the staff did was to arrange for Danny to visit Simon at the hospice. On the following Saturday, Danny duly arrived at Rainbows, much to everyone's delight. We were in the television lounge with Simon when Danny arrived with his keepers. There were around a dozen people in the room, but as soon as Danny saw Simon he made a beeline for him, we are sure he'd remembered Simon from our visits to the zoo. Simon sat feeding Danny with jelly-babies, which he adored, it was such a special memory in the making. There wasn't a dry eye in the room!

The Rainbows staff did everything possible
to make sure that the time Simon had left
was as special as possible

After a few days at Rainbows, Simon was no longer able to lay down comfortably on a bed, so we put him into an enormous armchair that you could tilt back and move around on wheels. Simon decided that he didn't like being in his bedroom, we think this was because it was too quiet and too far away from the centre of activity. We mentioned this to the Rainbows staff and they arrange for us to take over the television lounge! As far as they were concerned NOTHING was going to be allowed to upset Simon.

Vince and I would pull up an armchair each side of Simon's big chair and that was where we stayed, each holding one of his hands. He would often pull our hands together, putting my hand into Vince's and wrap his own hands tightly around ours and ask if we would be alright. Even now he was more worried about others than he was about himself. He also wanted to make sure that Amy was alright whilst we spent all our time with him. We assured him that the staff at Rainbows were taking care of the whole family. Amy had even been allowed to invite her best friend to stay at the hospice for a few days. You may think that odd, but the hospice is such a happy place that Amy was able to have some fun despite the heartache.

At first Simon would fight to stay awake and after a couple of days admitted to us that it was because he was afraid to go to sleep in case he never woke up again. We all talked it over and worked out that if one had to die then that was probably was the best way. That was one of the most heartbreaking conversations we ever had. What we said had the right effect because after that conversation Simon relaxed and began to sleep more, although he always woke up and looked around to see if we were still there.

We sat there day in and day out, watching him drift in and out of sleep and talking and laughing with him when he was awake, he still had his wonderful sense of humour and still played tricks on people. He even conned a Ł10 note off of his Uncle Jim, he was still as sharp as a razor! Vince took Simon to the bathroom one day and out of the blue he said to his dad, "Dad, I've got a tip for you". "Oh yeah,son, what's that then?" Simon leaned over to Vince and said "Don't eat yellow snow!" It was typical Simon, but Vince didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Simon with his Uncle Jim and cousin Mike, just a few weeks earlier

The staff at the hospice were absolutely marvellous, they did everything they possibly could for us so that we could still carry on caring for Simon as if we had been at home. We were able to give Simon all of our time, we didn't have to answer the phone, cook meals, do washing or anything, we were just allowed to concentrate on Simon and ensure that his last few days were the best that we could make them. We couldn't face the prospect of leaving him for a moment when we knew his life hung on a thread. We just wanted to be there whenever he woke up, to comfort him and tell him we loved him.