The death of her daughter

Helen* was left devastated by the death of her daughter and told us she was unable to bear the thought of organising her funeral.

She was also generally unhappy with her home because she wasn’t able to make the changes she wanted to it.

Helen expressed her wish to have her bedroom moved to the front of her house so she could see more from her window. We donated some spare paint and helped her purchase a new bed and drawers for the room. We decorated the room to freshen it up and generally reorganise everything and when we showed Helen her ‘new’ room she burst into tears.

We then moved onto the funeral arrangements. She did not have enough money for the funeral so we explained the situation to the funeral directors and they reduced some of the bill. We then sat with the funeral directors to go through music and arrangements for the funeral, along with printing a photo of Helen’s daughter and taking her to the shopping centre to purchase a new outfit for it to help keep her spirits up.

The funeral directors then requested she would need an order of service so we made this for her and had them printed and delivered to the funeral. We collected a bunch of roses as per Helen’s request to be able to put on the coffin for her. We assisted Helen to the funeral and afterwards arranged the delivery of her daughter’s ashes, as per her wishes.

Helen explained to that she did not have many photographs of her daughter so using the ones she did have, we made a photo frame and presented it to her on Christmas Day. Helen was overwhelmed with this and was so happy to be able to have this photo frame displayed with pride in her home.

Helen couldn’t thank us enough for the support she had received from us during this much difficult time she was going through.

She is now going out shopping with staff and is becoming more engaged with the idea of going out to do community-based activities, which includes visits to our monthly coffee club.

Helen now has a more positive outlook on life and is more accepting of care and support.

*Name changed